“I don’t mind, but... why all of a sudden?”
“I have something to talk about, and we haven’t had any time alone lately, have we? Since you’ve been training.”
“Ah... well, if that’s the case...”
How did things end up like this?
“Sleep on the bed, Nobara. I’ll take the floor.”
“Don’t do that. Lie down with me.”
“???”
What was she even talking about now?
“The bed’s big enough. There’s no need to sleep on the hard floor, right?”
“W-well, yeah. Is that okay?”
“We’re dating.”
Junpei’s head swam at her instant reply, not a trace of hesitation in it.
They hadn’t even been together for a month yet, and she was already talking about sleeping in the same bed?
Of course, since they were both minors, they weren’t about to cross any lines yet, but even so, there was supposed to be a proper order to these things.
Because the lights were off, Junpei couldn’t make out Nobara’s expression against the backlight.
Was she just so tough-minded that she could chew up even her own nerves, or had she lost her mind from sheer embarrassment?
At her relentless advance, Junpei’s mouth started spilling a string of pathetic excuses.
“No, I mean, that’s true. It’s just... how do I put this? I’m not saying I’d do anything weird to you or anything, but isn’t this still a little too soon....”
“Too soon for what?”
“Uhh... um....”
“Ugh, you’re so frustrating. Move.”
Nobara shoved Junpei, who had been sitting there dazed on the bed with his upper body half-raised, aside, fluffed a pillow, and flopped down right next to him.
Only when they were close enough to feel each other’s breathing did Junpei finally see her face.
“You really were only planning to sleep, right?”
Her ears were red, but she was grinning playfully.
That wicked look made Junpei’s heart pound hard.
“I know enough to know what’s what. I’m just telling you not to get any weird ideas.”
“Yeah....”
‘I think I’m going to have a heart attack....’
Junpei forced himself to look away from her face and fixed his gaze on the ceiling.
He tried to calm the lust creeping up on him, but it wasn’t going nearly as well as he’d hoped.
Even with no visual stimulation, the smell of women’s shampoo drifting from beside him mixed with Nobara’s own scent and tickled his nose, and every so often when she shifted, something soft brushed against his arm.
He could guess what that flesh was, but he decided not to think about it too deeply.
For a moment, silence settled over the room.
“......”
“........”
Neither Nobara nor Junpei had ever really had a proper relationship before, so neither of them knew how to start a conversation in a situation like this.
The basics of dating were to check the distance between each other and gradually close it. Speed mattered, but timing mattered even more.
With the gap between them suddenly narrowed, the two of them, who had been acting like they couldn’t live without each other, were now feeling awkward.
As Junpei had guessed, Nobara had been a little out of her mind when she barged in here.
They’d lain down together, but once she realized just how close he was, her shame cells woke up, and with that, the courage she’d brought with her vanished.
‘I made it this far, but what do I do now? Ugh....’
‘I have no sexual desire. Because I am not thinking about anything.’
Their mouths opened at the same time, even though they were lying in the same place while thinking entirely different things.
““Um...!””
And then they closed again.
“........”
“.......”
“...Y-you go first.”
“Should I...?”
“Yeah...”
Junpei was the first to back down.
When Nobara met the eyes of Junpei, who kept sneaking glances at her, she finally remembered why she had come here in the first place.
“...Junpei. Why did you do that today?”
“Do what?”
There were plenty of things she wanted to ask.
She wanted to fire off questions in a rush, but the night was long.
So she decided to take it slowly, starting with the most important thing.
“I mean when you suddenly touched Tsumiki’s seal.”
“.....”
“You’re not the kind of person who acts without thinking.”
“Right.”
“So why?”
Junpei hesitated for a moment, and Nobara could see his expression harden.
She could guess what he was thinking. Something related to the past. Or maybe something related to that black jellyfish.
But she needed an answer. If he went off on another sudden tangent in a similar situation, then at the very least she needed to know why.
Just because the result was good didn’t mean the process could be praised too. Like what had happened with Sukuna, no one knew when danger might strike.
And Nobara thought she had the right to hear that answer, as both a teammate and a girlfriend.
“...When I really looked at that seal, I got this sense of déjà vu. Like it wasn’t my own will.”
Perhaps because of the special atmosphere surrounding the two of them, Junpei answered honestly.
It was a story he had never told anyone—not even his closest friend Yuji, not even his teacher Gojo.
Hearing how heavy it sounded, Nobara pressed him.
“Explain it in more detail.”
“It was like some being was whispering in my ear... telling me to swallow curses. That it was my calling. Those thoughts just suddenly came to me. I think that black jellyfish was probably the cause.”
“..........”
“I thought it was just my own problem, so I didn’t say anything.”
The explanation that followed was shocking enough, but Nobara was a little angry at his last words.
She understood why Junpei had hidden it. Well, it was more that he had simply not bothered to say it.
He must have been scared and uneasy. Some unknown thing was hiding inside him and manipulating his will. It was the kind of development you’d only expect in a horror movie.
Even so, the way Junpei talked about it was infuriating.
Look at him.
He was pretending to be honest, but he was still watching her reaction, wasn’t he?
As if his own worries were worthless, and all he cared about was whether she’d be uncomfortable or worried.
“Junpei.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think every problem can be solved just by you sitting there and thinking hard about it?”
Junpei, wearing a disgusted expression, shook his head back and forth.
At least he seemed to know what he’d done wrong.
“If you know that, then why didn’t you say anything? Were you worried that I, or Fushiguro, or Itadori would be burdened by it?”
“.....A little?”
“Then why did you ask me out? Weren’t we supposed to tell each other when something was hard?”
“.......”
“And today too. You just went and tried to absorb Sukuna all of a sudden. What if something had gone wrong?”
“Sorry....”
Crushed under the nonstop scolding, Junpei could only nod helplessly, unable to come up with any excuse.
The affection hidden in her stinging words only made things harder on him.
Seeing how pitiful he looked, Nobara let out a long sigh.
“You know you were wrong, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s stop talking about this here. You probably... learned something.”
“Things will be different from now on.”
“You sure know how to talk.”
Junpei’s unnecessarily solemn tone was a little funny, and a snort of laughter escaped her.
“And... if you’ve got any worries you haven’t talked about until now, let’s share them here. It’s not like a chance like this comes around easily.”
When she casually took his hand, which had been twitching as if pricked by something, he tensed up.
His racing heartbeat. The heat spilling from so close they could practically fall over and touch noses.
Everything was new because it was all their first time, and that made it all the more pleasant.
At first, she hadn’t intended to go this far.
She had planned to talk the way she usually did—lightly, cheerfully—then hold hands, maybe hug...
And then, without either of them noticing, they’d fall asleep and wake up the next morning looking into each other’s eyes.
That had been the plan.
But life was never that simple. Love wasn’t either.
His frustratingness made her angrier than she’d expected.
When she imagined him getting hurt somewhere again, or being threatened by something, it hurt her heart.
So her words started carrying emotion, and she found herself wanting to know more.
She was the one who’d been confessed to, so she hadn’t planned on taking the lead.
Still, it seemed she liked Junpei more than she’d realized.
--------------------------------
Junpei gave an awkward smile, then opened his mouth and stopped.
It felt like about thirty minutes had passed since she came into the room, and in that time, he thought he’d talked about himself way too much.
At this rate, this wasn’t a deep conversation between lovers so much as a psychiatric counseling clinic.
“Nobara, don’t you have anything you want to talk about? Any worries or anything?”
“Huh?”
“I feel like I’ve been talking about myself the whole time.”
“Is this your way of returning the favor?”
“Yeah. But don’t think about it too stiffly. We’re not in some kind of give-and-take relationship.”
“I know that much, idiot. If you’re grateful, show it another way.”
“Thanks for coming to see me first. I love you.”
Her cheek twitched at his honest gratitude.
Even though she seemed fierce and cool, she was weak to this kind of direct affection.
‘Cute.’
He almost tightened his grip on her hand under the blanket without thinking.
“I don’t really have any worries. Every day’s been fun.”
“Still, you must have something. Even something small is fine.”
“If I had to pick one, it’d be that you guys have gotten too strong.”
Unfortunately, that was one subject Junpei couldn’t do anything about.
Across all the first-, second-, and third-years, Junpei’s combat power had already reached the top.
By contrast, Nobara was the kind of person you’d have to count from the bottom to find faster.
That didn’t mean Nobara was weak, though.
Her physical ability was excellent, and her technique was highly versatile.
It was just that, by the nature of jujutsu, there were monsters of talent stacked above her—special-grade cursed spirits included, the ones they’d have to fight in the future.
For Nobara, who was at best around second-grade level and perhaps barely first-grade if you were being generous, they were not opponents she could casually throw herself at.
Junpei, who had unintentionally helped fuel the power inflation, broke out in a cold sweat.
‘Anything I say here is going to sound like a lie, isn’t it?’
Sometimes silence was worth more than a hundred words.
Junpei knew that all too well, so he simply shut his mouth and waited for Nobara to continue.
“Itadori used Black Flash too, and Fushiguro even brought out a domain. You completed your technique. I’m the only one standing still.”
“Hmm....”
“Don’t apologize. It’s only natural. You guys have talent, after all.”
He’d tried to act unfazed, but she’d seen through him after all.
Nobara punished Junpei’s flimsy consideration with a cute little flick to the forehead.
“I’m not really upset about that. I’m sure there’s something else I can do.”
“There definitely is.”
“I just wish that idiot teacher with the blindfold would help me find it a little.... Sometimes that guy’s favoritism is really blatant.”
Junpei silently agreed with Nobara’s grumbling.
There was no discrimination in the way Gojo treated his students in daily life, but when it came to training, he had a tendency to favor the students with overwhelming talent.
It was hard to blame Gojo, though, since Junpei himself had been one of the beneficiaries and had shown results because of it.
He’d borrowed books from the Gojo family, gotten all kinds of help, and even received direct advice. He’d heard that Yuji and Megumi were getting special training too.
But he’d never heard anything about Nobara enjoying any of that.
It was the result of Nobara’s own distrust of Gojo combined with Gojo’s subtle indifference after recognizing the limits of her talent.
Junpei couldn’t help feeling sorry about that.
“I’ll help you. Let’s get stronger together.”
“Oh, how admirable. Hehe. Got any good ideas?”
“How about learning reversed cursed technique? I think Shoko-sensei would be good at teaching that.”
“Hiss, maybe. But if I can only use it on myself after learning it, then it’s useless.”
Junpei, thinking hard, managed to squeeze out a pretty good idea.
It was based on what he’d learned while researching the others’ techniques in order to complete his own, and though the difficulty was absurdly high and the chances of success were low, if it worked, it seemed like it could become a pretty impressive ability.
“The basic principle of cursed speech is remote manipulation of cursed energy through a medium, so... I think it might be possible to do wide-area remote healing too. Like collecting some of the person’s skin tissue in advance or something.”
“Ohhh? You really are smart. Wait, let me write that down. That’d be great if I could do it someday, right?”
Junpei watched Nobara happily pull out her phone and tap away at it, and with a pleased expression, he hugged her from behind.
The warmth that spread through him felt pleasantly drowsy.
He kneaded her soft cheek with selfish fingers, and Nobara turned to look back at him with a sulky expression.
“What are you doing?”
“Just a second... let’s stay like this.”
“You’re going to fall asleep like that.”
“If I do, I do.”
“Wasn’t there still something you wanted to talk about?”
Something to talk about. There had been.
His identity as a sorcerer, the trauma from his past, and so on.
But being together like this made those abstract, vague things seem unimportant.
Did he really need to bring up something so serious right now?
Was a worry always something that had to be solved with an answer?
At this point, it didn’t matter anymore.
“I can’t really think of anything right now.”
“Hmph. You’re cute.”
If I have this little happiness,
I can keep living anytime.
---------------------------------
“Why did you call me here?”
“We’ve run into a snag. There are too many gaps in our forces.”
“I told you to handle your own business yourself.”
“Don’t be like that. It’s also necessary for Sukuna’s revival.”
“You stitched-together piece of trash...”
“So? Are you in or not?”
“...I’ll cooperate. But I have a condition. We can’t leave Lord Sukuna’s finger in the hands of those filthy cursed spirits.”
“Of course. That’s how it should be. Good thinking.”
Uraume.
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