Gojo Satoru pushed open the glass door and stormed into the dessert shop.
The first thing he saw was Zen'in Naoya slamming both hands onto the table.
Then he heard what Zen'in Naoya was shouting.
It was so utterly bizarre that it left him speechless.
Gojo Satoru: "???"
What the hell did you just say, rotten orange? You're in love with Akiya?!
He had slept exceptionally well that morning, far longer than usual. He'd assumed Asou Akiya would stay in bed and sleep in with him until noon.
Instead, a single phone call had summoned Akiya away.
Not only had he never come back, but Gojo Satoru later discovered that he had gone out with Zen'in Naoya.
Thinking it must have been a mission, he asked Yaga Masamichi, only to learn that their homeroom teacher had given the returning students the morning off.
"Gojo's here."
Asou Akiya reacted instantly. He crumpled the draft paper into a tight ball and stuffed it into Naoya's hand. A messy wad concealed the contents far better than a neatly folded sheet, making it difficult even for the Six Eyes to accurately discern what was written inside.
Asou Akiya brushed him aside.
"Figure something out on your own. Call me if you need to. There's nothing left for you to do here."
After being stabbed in the back again and again, Zen'in Naoya's face flushed bright red, mottled with shades of green and purple from sheer frustration.
"Akiya-kun! You shameless bastard!"
"Move."
Asou Akiya's expression turned cold as he looked toward Gojo Satoru, who was waiting for him by the entrance.
Almost immediately, Zen'in Naoya stepped in front of him, blocking his path. Carefully skirting around the restrictions of the Binding Vow, he shouted,
"You're way too obsessed with Satoru-kun! The moment you saw him, you completely forgot that you're still being haunted by that cursed spirit, didn't you?"
Zen'in Naoya cared even more about his own life than Asou Akiya did. Since the Six Eyes were available, there was no reason not to make use of them.
Sure enough, the moment Gojo Satoru heard that, he hurried over.
"Akiya, you've been cursed?"
Asou Akiya stomped hard on Zen'in Naoya's foot.
The pain brought tears to Zen'in Naoya's eyes.
"Satoru-kun, I'll take my leave for now. You two can talk."
Zen'in Naoya turned and left, making a beeline for the Zen'in estate, moving so quickly and decisively that it looked more like he was fleeing for his life.
For the time being, he wanted nothing to do with either of them.
The summer heat that year was relentless, so the dessert shop's air conditioning was running at full blast. Asou Akiya wasn't particularly sensitive to the cold, yet he found himself experiencing a long-forgotten chill.
Being scrutinized from head to toe by the Six Eyes felt as though he were standing there without a stitch of clothing.
"There really are traces of a curse on you. Why did you go to him instead of me?"
Gojo Satoru's breathtaking eyes fixed on him. He looked only a heartbeat away from blurting out something about a "Thieving cat."
"You were asleep. I didn't want to wake you."
Asou Akiya answered without missing a beat, serving up an outrageously sweet line.
"...You're lying."
Even though Gojo Satoru knew it couldn't be that simple, he still believed half of it. At least his tone was no longer so prickly.
Asou Akiya lived up to his role as Gojo Satoru's personal assistant.
The moment he saw Gojo Satoru pout and his face fall, he immediately began clearing the table, throwing everything Zen'in Naoya had left behind into the trash.
Then Asou Akiya called over a server and led Gojo Satoru to a clean, empty table nearby.
Gojo Satoru pulled his hand away before Asou Akiya could touch him.
"Did you fall into the water or something? You smell filthy. Don't come any closer to me."
Asou Akiya sat down across from him.
"I won't touch you, all right, Young Master Gojo."
Gojo Satoru frowned.
"Quit making a big deal out of my status. At school, I'm just another student. Even without you looking after me, I can handle living on my own."
Asou Akiya picked up the menu.
"It's lunchtime. Want some dessert? They have a new summer special—a mint ice cream hot pot."
Gojo Satoru swallowed instinctively as his appetite stirred, but stubbornly refused to let himself be distracted.
"We'll eat that later!"
Asou Akiya thought for a moment.
"You're right. Eating something that cold at lunchtime isn't good for your stomach. If it turns into a habit, that's even worse. Let's have some rice instead. There's a restaurant nearby that's famous for its tonkatsu set meals. It has great reviews."
Gojo Satoru finally lost his patience. "Could you at least worry about your own safety?!"
Asou Akiya's expression remained gentle. "I'm not going to die."
If Gojo Satoru stayed out of it, Asou Akiya wouldn't die.
If Gojo Satoru insisted on getting involved, Asou Akiya wouldn't be far from dying of embarrassment instead.
"Don't interfere." Asou Akiya refused Gojo Satoru's help.
Ten minutes later, the two of them were seated in a tonkatsu restaurant.
Gojo Satoru watched the chef breading and frying pork cutlets with a listless expression, while his Six Eyes secretly drifted back to the dessert shop to peek at the girls eating the ice cream hot pot.
Asou Akiya deliberately left an empty seat between them, keeping his distance. The faint smell of chlorine from the swimming pool still lingered on him.
Every now and then, other customers would approach their table and ask,
"Excuse me, is anyone sitting here?"
"Our friend's about to arrive..."
Gojo Satoru brushed off the lunchtime diners who wanted the empty seat, refusing to let a stranger sit between them.
Without a second thought about the cost, he ordered an extra-large bowl of rice for Getou Suguru. Then he pulled out his phone and called him over, never once considering whether Getou Suguru even liked tonkatsu.
When you needed a friend, you called one. It was that simple.
Asou Akiya sighed.
"You really have no common sense when it comes to everyday life. By the time he gets here from school, the rice will already be cold, and the pork cutlet won't taste nearly as good."
Gojo Satoru slipped his phone back into his pocket.
"If he doesn't make it in time, we'll eat it for him."
When their tonkatsu meals arrived, Gojo Satoru split apart his chopsticks and immediately dug in, making no attempt to say the customary words before eating.
Instead of picking up his own chopsticks right away, Asou Akiya watched him with a smile, appreciating the little ways he differed from most Japanese people.
He liked those everyday habits of Gojo Satoru's.
As long as he wasn't playing games or out on missions, he kept regular hours, preferred lightly seasoned food, possessed an exceptionally strong sense of self, and was far more disciplined than most people when it came to becoming stronger. More often than not, Asou Akiya couldn't even find an opportunity to interfere with his training schedule.
All of those little details had shaped the sixteen-year-old who could confidently declare, "Throughout heaven and earth, I alone am The Honored One."
Noticing that Asou Akiya still hadn't touched his meal, Gojo Satoru picked up the bottle of shichimi seasoning from the table.
"Not spicy enough?"
At first, Asou Akiya felt touched.
Then he watched in silence as Gojo Satoru kept shaking more and more seasoning onto his pork cutlet.
A mound of bright red shichimi gradually piled up on top of it like a tiny hill.
The chef: "..."
Asou Akiya: "..."
Asou Akiya slowly clenched his fist, sorely tempted to bring it down on Gojo Satoru's head.
Thanks to Yaga Masamichi's frequent "lessons," Gojo Satoru instinctively raised both hands to protect his head—only for his brain to remember a moment later that he had the Limitless Technique.
In the end, Asou Akiya's fist never even came close to brushing a single strand of Gojo Satoru's hair.
"I almost forgot—you think I'm dirty. Sorry."
Even though it had only been playful horseplay, Asou Akiya still stopped himself and apologized. Before they started eating, he deliberately went to the restroom to wash his hands.
"...Ah."
Gojo Satoru didn't know what to say.
He closed his mouth, once again realizing that Akiya and Suguru were completely different kinds of people.
If it had been Suguru, he would have rubbed his muddy hands all over him without a second thought.
Gojo Satoru might hate Suguru's dirty hands, but he also hated the way Akiya instinctively pulled back, as though he were forcing himself to avoid upsetting him.
It made him feel like the bad guy.
Gojo Satoru considered himself an exceptionally good person. He treated his friends well.
So why was Akiya always so worried about making him angry?
He wasn't that short-tempered.
Not wanting his help was one thing, but getting so close to Zen'in Naoya was another.
Wasn't Zen'in Naoya one of the "bad guys"?
He had almost let Akiya fool him.
When he'd found out that morning that Akiya had left school with Naoya, he'd been furious.
"Akiya, team up with me." Gojo Satoru brought up the subject again. "Naoya can't even handle something this simple."
"And team up with you so you can drag me around at high speed every day over short distances?"
Asou Akiya made an exaggerated gagging face. As he stirred the shichimi into his meal, his rice turned a vivid crimson, making the other diners feel phantom pain in their throats just from looking at it.
"I'd throw up."
Gojo Satoru chuckled, dipped the tip of his chopsticks into a little of the shichimi, and tasted it.
"Huh. It's not as spicy as I expected."
"That's because a lot of tastes and hobbies can be cultivated over time."
Picking up a piece of pork cutlet, Gojo Satoru said with genuine puzzlement, "I've been craving sweets a lot lately."
Asou Akiya immediately looked up at him.
The concern in his eyes outweighed every responsibility the jujutsu world had ever placed upon Gojo Satoru.
Gojo Satoru liked doing things that were worth doing.
Becoming a kind-hearted sorcerer together with his companions... that didn't sound like a bad life at all.
He raised his chopsticks. "How about we eat another meal after this?"
Asou Akiya immediately saw through his true motive and suppressed a smile.
"You just want ice cream."
Gojo Satoru grinned.
Asou Akiya considered it for a moment.
"If you spend your energy to quicken your digestion, then we can have dessert half an hour after lunch. Does that sound good?"
Since they were surrounded by ordinary diners who could overhear them, Asou Akiya phrased it discreetly. What he really meant was using cursed energy to enhance Gojo Satoru's stomach and speed up digestion.
Gojo Satoru readily agreed.
"Deal! I'm getting the biggest ice cream they have!"
Asou Akiya nodded.
Gojo Satoru stared at him in surprise and pointed at him with his chopsticks.
"One minute you're impossible to negotiate with, and the next you're ridiculously easygoing."
Asou Akiya answered calmly, "I bought a matcha ice cream cone at the subway station today. It was pretty good. I finished the whole thing."
Gojo Satoru shoveled rice into his mouth while reinforcing his stomach with cursed energy, determined to digest the meal as quickly as possible.
Abandoning the usual rule of not talking while eating, he asked between bites, "And what does that have to do with letting me have dessert after lunch?"
Asou Akiya gave him a simple promise. "If I have something, you'll have it too."
In a Japanese society where human relationships often felt distant, and in a world where superficial friendships were everywhere...
What he himself couldn't have— he hoped Gojo Satoru would.
Equal friendship, passionate feelings, the deterrence of the strongest, and a life that would never be crushed by one's enemies.
By treating his friends with boundless kindness in this way, Asou Akiya was, little by little, making up for what he himself had lost.
Because he had come into this world with nothing, he had chosen the twenty-eight-year-old Gojo Satoru as the ideal he strove toward, embarking on this journey of youth without a single regret.
"Gojo, are you choking? Tea would help more than patting your chest."
Asou Akiya happened to notice Gojo Satoru thumping his chest.
"..."
Gojo Satoru's sunglasses slipped slightly down his nose, revealing a pair of bright, crystal-clear eyes.
"Akiya, you're really amazing."
Asou Akiya looked puzzled.
"What brought that on?"
Gojo Satoru bit down on his chopsticks, glancing around with a strangely childish air.
"I'm not mad at all anymore. In fact, I'm really happy. Just what you'd expect from an honor student at a regular school... You're seriously good with words."
Without warning, Gojo Satoru picked up the untouched, oversized bowl of tonkatsu that had been sitting in the empty seat between them and set it on Akiya's side of the table.
"Eating too much chili isn't good for you either!"
He shouldn't have dumped so much shichimi on Akiya's meal.
"And don't copy Suguru! He's been eating too much cold soba lately—he's even losing muscle mass!"
Gojo Satoru was convinced he had just revealed the true secret behind Getou Suguru's successful weight loss.
Faced with Asou Akiya's utterly lifeless stare, Gojo Satoru realized his attempt to help hadn't produced the reaction he'd expected.
When Akiya does things like this, I always forget whatever was bothering me and only think about eating and drinking.
"Akiya~."
Gojo Satoru reached out with a finger and poked Asou Akiya's forearm.
"What is it~?" Matching his tone, Asou Akiya teased him.
"I don't want you getting so close to Naoya."
Gojo Satoru never let unpleasant feelings linger for long.
"Didn't you ask me to protect you? That whole thing is over now. You don't need to keep using that rotten orange to achieve your goals."
He flashed his usual carefree grin.
"Anything Naoya has, I got it too. I'll give it to you instead, okay?"
If those childish words had been spoken at any other time, Asou Akiya wouldn't have been moved in the slightest. If anything, he would have found them rather exasperating.
But hearing Gojo Satoru say them now, with such pure sincerity—
But, it's not true.
For a brief moment, Asou Akiya lost himself.
Then, just as he had that day at Kyoto Jujutsu High, he forced himself back to reality.
You're still you, Gojo Satoru.
Gojo Satoru had once wrapped his hand around his throat.
Now, Gojo Satoru believed he had a good temper and would never resort to violence again.
Gojo Satoru had once called him a "little tangerine."
Now he no longer used the word aloud, but that didn't mean he wasn't still muttering it to himself in his heart.
The truth was that Asou Akiya simply hadn't crossed the new boundary Gojo Satoru had unconsciously drawn for him.
What's yours... will never truly become mine.
Asou Akiya refused to become another Getou Suguru whose heart had been broken—someone who had been misled by empty praise and placed on an impossible pedestal.
Right before him was simply a little white cat still learning how to navigate the world, innocently treating his friends well and saying whatever came into his head.
"When the summer missions are over... Hmm, I might still need his help in the autumn."
"Okay."
Gojo Satoru beamed with satisfaction.
After Asou Akiya finished his meal, Getou Suguru still hadn't arrived. Instead, two messages appeared on his phone.
[Jujutsu High's Diligent Duo]
[Getou Suguru: Akiya, Satoru's hopelessly unreliable. Pack mine to go for me.]
[Getou Suguru: A new mission came up this afternoon. I can't make it over.]
Meanwhile, at the dessert shop, Gojo Satoru happily redeemed another dessert loyalty card and swung his legs as he ordered his favorite ice cream hot pot.
The waitress greeted the handsome regular with a bright, friendly smile.
Asou Akiya replied to Getou Suguru.
[Asou Akiya: You already know how unreliable he is. Did you really think that tonkatsu meal was ever going to make it into your hands?]
[Getou Suguru: ...That's so like him. Gojo Satoru!]
A little while later, another message arrived.
[Getou Suguru: I'll bring you back a souvenir. Want one? We're not getting anything for Satoru.]
[Asou Akiya: Send me a picture first.]
Getou Suguru sent a photo.
It was a handcrafted silver bracelet in a traditional folk style. It wasn't particularly expensive, but it complemented the wearer's wrist beautifully.
[Asou Akiya: No jewelry. It's inconvenient to wear.]
With some regret, Getou Suguru gave up on the idea and began thinking of another souvenir that Asou Akiya might actually like.
According to Akiya's standards, it had to be...
Novel, unique, and interesting.
By the time the two of them returned to Jujutsu High, the half-day break had already ended.
Gojo Satoru's next mission had arrived as well. He was being dispatched out of town to exorcise a Grade 1 cursed spirit.
Asou Akiya picked up Gojo Satoru's travel backpack and slipped it over his shoulder.
"If any overseas missions come up this year, decline them if you can. I don't feel comfortable with you going abroad alone. It won't be too late once you've mastered long-range teleportation and can keep the Limitless active around the clock."
Gojo Satoru left decisions about the small things entirely to him.
"Okay. I'll do as you say."
Asou Akiya's eyes curved into a smile.
"Thank you for trusting me, Gojo. You should get going. If you get sleepy on the way, hug your travel pillow and take a nap."
Gojo Satoru was equally worried about Akiya's ability to protect himself. He didn't want another compulsory mission like the Star Plasma Vessel incident.
"Akiya, if you realize a mission's too much for you, just give up. If something goes wrong halfway through, run. Don't worry about the consequences. When I get back, I'll finish it for you."
["Wouldn't it be easier to just leave everything to Gojo Satoru?"]
The words resurfaced uncontrollably in Asou Akiya's mind.
In the original story, Nanami Kento had spoken them in utter despair.
They were terrifying.
Like a devil that devoured every trace of kindness and sincerity.
To that devil that would one day cling to Gojo Satoru's back, Asou Akiya answered:
"No. Gojo, I'm your companion."
"Huh? Yeah, I know you are."
"I will do my best to accomplish whatever I can on my own, without relying on anyone else's strength. I'll help shoulder your burden. Even if something unexpected happens during a mission, I'll do everything I can to keep myself alive. I'll take responsibility for my own precious life..."
"Akiya, don't you want me to come save you?"
Gojo Satoru couldn't understand.
In many ways, there was something between him and Asou Akiya that could only be described as a "generation gap."
Akiya is far too mature.
Gojo Satoru felt it wasn't simply a matter of maturity. Rather, Akiya just didn't want him to understand the meaning behind certain things yet.
It was like trying to solve a riddle.
The one searching for the answer could only rack his brains.
"I once watched an interesting movie."
Asou Akiya answered with something completely unrelated. His thoughts drifted to a Hong Kong film released in 1995, recalling an adaptation of one of its famous lines.
"I hope my hero will arrive riding on five-colored auspicious clouds, open the Moonlight Treasure Box, let go of the burdens in his heart, and never again have to chant, over and over, 'Mahāprajñāpāramitā.'"
Supreme Treasure traveled back to the past, knowing full well that tragedy awaited him. He struggled with everything he had to change fate...
Only to arrive at the same ending.
To Asou Akiya, that was the process of struggling against fate and coming to understand one's own heart.
The Gojo Satoru of the original story would undoubtedly choose to return to the past.
He would save his friends.
Save his underclassmen.
Again and again.
He would walk the same path, shouldering every burden alone.
But with the enemy hidden in the shadows and the true source of the problem unknown, Gojo Satoru could never truly shatter the fate of the jujutsu world or overcome those three years of youth and that bitter summer.
What Asou Akiya wanted to say was this:
You be the hero. You don't need to dirty your hands calculating the hearts of others.
I'll be the one who quietly opens the Moonlight Treasure Box and defies fate itself.
He was willing to descend into the abyss with his eyes open and his mind clear.
...
Gojo Satoru fell into thought.
Looks like besides catching up on anime, there's another movie I need to watch.
X-X-X-X-X-X
TL Note:
I think Akiya was talking about a film series called "A Chinese Odyssey", directed by Jeffrey Lau. I think I watched it years ago… But I don't remember much about it. ┐(´ー｀)┌
Fun fact: Suguru's surname contains the kanji for "summer" (夏, Ge), and Akiya's name also have the kanji for "autumn" (秋, Aki). So if there's mention of "Summer" or "Autumn" it can refer to them — like the "bitter summer' mentioned here.