It was home, after all, though he was coming here after so long.
He had only been gone a little over two weeks, and yet before he knew it, the place had started to feel awkward.
He had lived here for more than ten years. He never thought he’d feel this way.
When Junpei stepped inside, the empty house greeted him.
After his transfer to Tokyo Metropolitan Jujutsu Technical High School was finalized, he’d sold the place with Ijichi’s help.
The furniture, the appliances, and anything else that might fetch a price. There was almost nothing left in the house now.
What remained were the things his mother had used often and liked, along with the photos full of memories they had shared.
Junpei gazed at them with a distant look, brought over a large box, wrapped each item carefully one by one, and packed them away with gentle hands.
A souvenir pendant from when they went to an amusement park together as a child, wearing matching headbands.
A photo of Junpei and Nagi on his birthday, both of them a mess after getting cake smashed in their faces, laughing anyway.
Every time a beloved face appeared in those photos, Junpei felt like he might cry, but he held it in.
After a few hours of packing, Junpei’s old home had returned completely to the way it had been at the very beginning.
There was no trace left of the Yoshino family that had once lived here.
“Hup.”
When he gathered everything together like this, there wasn’t as much as he’d expected.
Well, what was there to need in a house where only his mother and he had lived?
Junpei gave a bitter smile, bundled the boxes together, and set them on the summoned [Moonlit Wave].
Just as he was about to leave the house, a memo he had failed to pack caught his eye.
“This is...”
The Post-it note that had always been stuck up in his room.
The message his mother had looked at every morning before heading off to work after making breakfast.
[Do your best today too, Junpei.]
Seeing the familiar handwriting, a bright smile slowly spread across Junpei’s face.
“...Yeah, Mom.”
I’m off.
-----------------------
When he went outside, Ijichi, who had been waiting, greeted Junpei.
“Ijichi, have you been waiting long?”
“No, not at all. Though you had more luggage than I expected. If I’d known, I should have come in and helped.”
“I appreciate it, but it’s fine. I wanted to do this myself.”
Junpei declined lightly and opened the trunk to load the boxes in.
His back looked somehow both fine and sunk low at the same time, which made him seem pitiful.
“...Are you all right, Yoshino-kun?”
“Huh? Oh, of course. I’m totally fine.”
“Don’t push yourself too hard.”
Junpei gave a perfunctory nod, finished loading the luggage, and closed the trunk.
He had spoken from the heart, but it seemed the boy hadn’t taken it to heart much.
They had worked together for two weeks now. I thought we’d gotten pretty close, but he still hasn’t opened up completely.
As Ijichi awkwardly scratched his head and was about to open the car door and get in, a man came running up from behind, out of breath.
It was Sotomura, sweat pouring down his heavy frame like broth.
“W-wait!”
“Sotomura?”
“You know each other...? Ah! The person I saw in front of your house last time!”
Ijichi blurted it out and immediately regretted it.
He still hadn’t told Junpei that he’d followed him that day, and getting caught like this was absolutely not acceptable.
It was awkward enough already!
“In front of my house...? Anyway, yes, we know each other.”
Fortunately, Junpei didn’t seem interested in digging into it.
Ijichi let out a quiet sigh of relief and got out of the car.
“And you are?”
“Ah, I’m Sotomura, a teacher at Satozakura High School. I thought I just saw one of our students, so I came over. Do you perhaps know Yoshino Junpei, who lives around here...?”
His business was with Junpei.
They had already handled the transfer paperwork, so what was this about now?
“What should we do?”
Ijichi sent Junpei a discreet signal with his chin from the passenger seat.
While investigating the motive behind Junpei’s attack, they had already learned enough to understand Sotomura to some extent.
Personal feelings shouldn’t get involved in work, but Ijichi, as an assistant supervisor—someone in a position similar to a teacher—couldn’t exactly look kindly on a man who had left a student to rot in indifference.
“Should I send him away?”
“No, I’ll talk to him.”
But contrary to expectations, Junpei opened the passenger door and appeared directly in front of Sotomura.
“It’s been a while, Teacher Sotomura.”
“Y-Yoshino...”
“Ijichi-san, could you step away for a moment?”
“...Understood.”
After Ijichi drove the car off somewhere else, Junpei looked down at Sotomura.
There had been a time when he’d thought about killing him, but now he felt nothing.
He could have simply sent him away, but curiosity made him decide to deal with him.
What had this man learned after that day’s incident?
Had he changed at all from a giant child?
What did he want to say to me?
“What do you need from me?”
“W-well, you see. I heard you never came home and transferred schools. I thought you might have left for good, but to run into you like this—what a coincidence...”
“Get to the point. Briefly.”
Junpei was surprised that such a flat tone could come out of his own mouth.
Did hanging around Nanami for a while rub off on me?
With his head lowered, Sotomura’s voice came out small and timid.
“...I’m sorry, Yoshino. This is all my fault.”
A predictable apology, exactly as expected.
It wasn’t that he hated hearing it, but an apology offered now meant nothing to him.
If he had said it just a little earlier, something might have changed.
“I didn’t know you were being bullied. I thought they were just friends who were rough with each other. After that day, I realized how naive that was.”
“...Yeah.”
“Even if I apologize now, it won’t change anything. Maybe I’m only doing this to make myself feel better. But still, I felt I had to come see you.”
“........”
“Not long ago, there was a major investigation into school violence. A testimony came in that Ito had been burning cigarettes into your face.”
“!”
Junpei’s eyes widened.
There were always investigations into school violence, but a testimony had come in?
It was something he never could have imagined.
So there was at least one person on my side in that pit of monsters.
“The school decided to bury what happened that day. They didn’t know exactly what had gone on, and aside from me and Ito, there were no witnesses.”
“So what.”
“I’ll... keep an eye on Ito from now on. So he never pulls any more nonsense.”
Sotomura had a number of other things prepared to say, but he swallowed them all.
That Ito’s career had been marked with a red line, that his harassment of other students and bribing teachers had all come to light and ruined him.
That the student affairs office had pressured him hard, but he still hadn’t given any testimony.
That Ito had become disabled and could no longer use his left arm.
None of it meant anything to Junpei now. They were all empty words.
Rather than explain all that trivial nonsense, he wanted to show sincerity.
He would carry the sin of having hurt Junpei for the rest of his life.
“I’m truly sorry. After you transfer... take care of yourself.”
“Yes.”
Junpei answered coldly and started walking back toward the car he had come from.
Sotomura, clutching his aching chest, turned and began walking away as well.
He had been incompetent and foolish, but he wasn’t shameless enough to believe he deserved forgiveness.
That was when it happened.
“Teacher.”
“Y-yes?”
“Take care.”
“Y-Yoshino...!”
A low sob escaped from the crouching Sotomura.
He hadn’t meant to make him cry.
Back in the car, Junpei absentmindedly pulled out a cigarette, put it between his lips, and lit it.
After two weeks, his veins had grown used to nicotine.
“Um, Yoshino-kun?”
“Ah, sorry, Ijichi-san. I’ll put it out right away.”
“No, no. It’s not that.”
“Huh?”
“Could you tell me what you talked about?”
“He said he was sorry for what happened, that the school matter had been handled properly, things like that. So I just said I understood and came back.”
White smoke drifted from Junpei’s mouth and out through the window.
The soft jazz playing from the car filled the silence between them.
“That’s a very late apology.”
“It is. Way too late.”
“Is that why you don’t trust adults very much?”
“Maybe because of that, maybe not. I know now that people can change as much as they have feelings in them. In a good direction, too. So I don’t hate Teacher Sotomura anymore.”
“That’s very mature of you.”
“Not yet. Someone like Nanami-san is a real adult. I’m only imitating.”
“......Yoshino-kun, let’s do our best together.”
“Out of nowhere?”
At Ijichi’s sudden burst of enthusiasm, Junpei snickered and took a deep drag.
The thick, heavy smoke struck his lungs and brought with it a strange sense of calm.
After finishing one cigarette, he opened the ashtray, shoved the butt inside, and reclined the passenger seat back.
“Thanks, Ijichi-san.”
“Don’t mention it.”
And so the two of them drove quietly back to Gojo’s residence.
------------------------
Once they arrived, Junpei unpacked his things in his room and changed into comfortable clothes.
“Come to think of it, was it tomorrow?”
The exchange event with the sister school in Kyoto. That would be the day of his debut at Tokyo Metropolitan Jujutsu Technical High School.
A new life, new acquaintances.
Come to think of it, the whole thing was kind of ridiculous. Could someone who hadn’t even managed to fit in at a normal school really do well there?
His head felt heavy with useless thoughts.
“In times like this... maybe I should watch a movie after a while.”
Watching alone would be fine, but calling Yuji over to watch together didn’t seem bad either.
Junpei went out to the kitchen and rummaged around for popcorn and cola.
“Why is it all caramel popcorn...?”
As expected of Gojo’s residence, where anything sweet was adored, all the popcorn was sugary flavors.
It was a little annoying, but as someone staying here for free, he wasn’t in a position to be picky.
After setting everything up and choosing a movie, Junpei knocked on Itadori’s door.
“Yuji, you in there? Let’s watch Worm Man 5 together.”
“J-Junpei? Hold on!”
“What the—”
When the door opened, what appeared was a giant box and all kinds of designs.
That alone was strange enough, but Junpei wasn’t the only one who had come looking for Yuji’s room.
“Ah, Junpei, you’re here? Come help with this.”
“Gojo-sensei?”
“For tomorrow’s exchange event, I’m planning to surprise the kids at the high school with Itadori. How can we shock them so badly they throw up?”
Are they idiots?
Junpei suddenly wanted to watch the movie alone.
“Do you really need to do a surprise?”
“Of course! A comrade thought dead suddenly showing up after two months—of course we do!”
“If I were those kids, I’d be pissed no matter how I looked at it.”
“Is that so...? What do you think, Gojo-sensei?”
“Oh, come on, you don’t know anything. The first-years will cry from joy and surprise, the second-years will cry too, and some people will cry so hard they’ll end up vomiting, and in the end we’ll even solve global warming.”
“That sounds great!”
Now he understood.
It wasn’t about how the kids reacted. That teacher just wanted to mess around.
Watching Gojo egg on a surprise event packed with his own selfish motives, while Yuji cheered along without realizing it, made Junpei’s head hurt.
“Sensei, what am I supposed to do? Huh?! What am I supposed to do!”
“With your IQ 50 plus my IQ 150, we’ve got a genius IQ 200 plan here in round two! You just do exactly what I tell you!”
“No, I’m asking what I’m supposed to do!”
Gojo and Itadori had fallen into their own little world.
Junpei quietly closed the door and left.
All he could hope was that he didn’t get caught in the crossfire and leave a bad first impression because of this.
And so the night passed, and morning dawned on the first day of the exchange event.
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