TL Note:
Another day, another update.
As always, thank you so much for all your kind words and support. I genuinely appreciate every comment, votes, and bit of encouragement you leave. Even if I don't always respond, please know that I do read them. So if you've left a comment and haven't received a reply, it doesn't mean I missed it or didn't appreciate it.
Thank you again for reading, and I hope you enjoy this chapter.
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March arrived, and Japan stepped into the atmosphere of spring.
Before heading to Okinawa for the weekend, Asou Akiya organized an outing for the high school boys outside the girls' dormitory.
—They had transplanted peach trees in their grove.
Ieiri Shoko was sixteen years old this year, and the boys had joined forces to plant sixteen peach trees in her honor.
On March 3rd, the Doll Festival arrived. Ieiri Shoko stood beneath the peach trees, pointing and gesturing about: "Where are the peach blossoms? There's nothing but leaves?"
Gojo Satoru threw his hands up in the air: "No idea."
Getou Suguru looked at the peach trees they had planted with his own hands, full of anticipation: "No flowers this year. I wonder if we'll be able to eat any peaches."
Asou Akiya regretted dropping the ball on this one: "Peach trees won't bear fruit if they don't bloom. They'll probably need to adapt to the soil and water here until next year before they can grow flowers again."
However, Asou Akiya made up for this regret with Doll Festival peach blossom pastries and dolls tied to the branches.
They spread out a waterproof, dustproof picnic blanket, and the four of them gathered for a meal beneath the flowerless peach trees.
Inside the girls' dormitory, Iori Utahime pushed open her window to breathe in the fresh air. By chance, she caught sight of the scene outside. A faint sense of envy welled up within her—she had never encountered male classmates who went out of their way to look after a girl. Shortly after, she received an invitation from Ieiri Shoko. She grabbed some fruit from her refrigerator and happily joined the picnic.
The moment Gojo Satoru laid eyes on Iori Utahime, he opened his mouth to say something...
Getou Suguru stuffed a pastry into Gojo Satoru's mouth, while Asou Akiya moved to block Utahime's view.
Before that certain someone's voice could even emerge, Asou Akiya apologized first: "Senior, I'm sorry. We'll do our best to keep Gojo from speaking."
Utahime laughed nonstop: "Sure, thank you all!"
Gojo Satoru: "???"
Utahime just wants to play with me, what's wrong with that?
Getou Suguru lowered his voice: "Shut up, Satoru. The senior has absolutely no desire to play with you."
Gojo Satoru refused to believe it. Utahime's face was practically written all over with "I'm easy to bully, come bully me," and she was super proactive about it too!
Asou Akiya feigned disappointment and said, "It seems like Gojo only wants to play with our senior. The moment she shows up, us male classmates get tossed to the back of his mind, and if we try to pull his attention back, we get glared at for our trouble."
Gojo Satoru chewed the pastry rapidly. "Mmph mmph mmph—I didn't—"
Asou Akiya: "Then look at us, will you?"
Gojo Satoru: "Fiiiine~"
Akiya and Suguru were definitely more interesting than Iori Utahime anyway.
On March 4th, Saturday, a bright and beautiful high school girl joined the boys' water activities.
Asou Akiya's reasoning was perfectly sound: "Shoko is our classmate. How could we just leave her behind at school?"
Ieiri Shoko had never bought a swimsuit before, nor had she ever been to the seaside. Caught completely off guard by this sudden plan, she was at a loss. But Asou Akiya gently reassured her, "Don't worry. The beaches in Okinawa have no shortage of shops selling swimsuits. The three of us boys were planning to go shopping there anyway, to pick up some beach shorts and sandals."
That morning, the four classmates boarded a plane together and flew to Okinawa.
In March, Okinawa was the earliest Japanese city to open its waters to swimmers, perfectly satisfying their desire for a weekend getaway.
These four people, here in reality, were making up for a regret from Jujutsu Kaisen.
In the Hidden Inventory arc, Gojo Satoru and Getou Suguru had enjoyed themselves in Okinawa while escorting their mission target, but Ieiri Shoko had remained on standby inside the barrier of Tokyo Jujutsu High, ready to provide support for her two classmates at any moment.
This time, thanks to Asou Akiya's deliberate intervention—calculated where others were unsuspecting—they had arrived in Okinawa a full month earlier. No longer would Gojo Satoru and Getou Suguru's seaside memories be forever haunted by the figures of Amanai Riko and Kuroi Misato.
They, too, were a part of youth.
Asou Akiya believed this was a gift that Shoko, always the one forgotten, truly deserved.
Asou Akiya and Ieiri Shoko joined the Okinawa fun. At a shop, Shoko chose a relatively modest one-piece swimsuit. To keep her company, Asou Akiya didn't have time to pick out any clothes for himself before Gojo Satoru returned from his own shopping spree and shoved a pair of beach shorts into his hands. The colors were as garish and flashy as they came, as if they were already in the height of a blazing summer.
Asou Akiya muttered inwardly, "What kind of taste is this?"
Then he saw Gojo Satoru's expectant gaze, and he surrendered. He recalled how, during his rebellious phase, Gojo Satoru had despised anything his family dressed him in—whatever was elegant or classical, that was precisely what he hated. Over time, this had warped his aesthetic sense entirely. His outfits relied solely on his face and physique to save them, and in his previous life, netizens far and wide had hailed him as the spokesperson for "Hailan Home."[1]
Asou Akiya spared a single second of sympathy for the Gojo clan. When would this rebellious phase finally end?
Hate the rotten oranges for a day, hate the rotten oranges for a lifetime.
His taste was beyond saving.
Asou Akiya spared a single second of sympathy for the Gojo clan. When would this rebellious phase finally end?
Hate the rotten oranges for a day, hate the rotten oranges for a lifetime.
His taste was beyond saving.
Asou Akiya grabbed the baggy hem of his beach shorts and sighed. "Good thing I'm a jujutsu sorcerer."
Okinawa was a place where the temperature felt more than comfortable. In March, the daytime temperature hovered around twenty degrees Celsius. Even so, normal Japanese people wouldn't choose to come splash around in Okinawa in March—you could catch a cold so easily!
Down on the beach, among the four of them, the high school boys were all decked out in aggressively red, aggressively green, aggressively yellow jackets paired with beach shorts and flip-flops.
Ieiri Shoko was left as the sole person showcasing any actual beauty.
Everyone else had their looks dragged down by these super-ultra-mega vibrant color combinations.
Because the temperature ran on the cooler side, Getou Suguru wore his loud top buttoned up neatly, not undoing the buttons the way he had in the Hidden Inventory arc. He walked over carrying two cups of juice and said to Asou Akiya, "While you and Shoko were out shopping, Satoru dragged me off to buy clothes. Finally, no one was asking me and Satoru for our phone numbers."
Asou Akiya finished setting up the beach chair, took one of the cups—freshly squeezed pineapple flavor—and sipped at it through the straw before giving up. "Don't like it. Pick a different flavor next time."
Getou Suguru handed over his own untouched watermelon juice. "Drink this one, then."
Then, completely naturally, Getou Suguru took Asou Akiya's pineapple juice, tossed the straw, and didn't waste the freshly squeezed juice he'd paid for. He tipped his head back and downed the cup in one go, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down for a moment.
After he finished, Getou Suguru said, "I think it's pretty good. Are you just someone who hates the taste of pineapple on principle?"
Asou Akiya: "Getou, where did your sense of personal boundaries go?"
"I learned it from you."
Getou Suguru feigned surprise. "Oh right, I just remembered—you really hate it when people touch your stuff. Last time Satoru drank from your glass, you poured the rest of the alcohol out. Sorry, did I gross you out? Won't happen again."
Asou Akiya watched with his own eyes as Getou Suguru swaggered away with the stride of a man who had absolutely zero fucks to give.
The watermelon juice in his hand suddenly felt scalding hot.
This guy!
Asou Akiya suddenly found this itchy, irritated sensation remarkably familiar.
Getou Suguru's birthday gift to him—the novel where Getou Suguru and Asou Akiya were college classmates. In it, Getou Suguru repeatedly complained about Asou Akiya's mysophobia and his fussy, nitpicky personality. Things like not drinking from the same bottle of mineral water, not using the same towel to wipe his face, not accepting classmates drenched in sweat coming anywhere near him. Though the two of them had their share of petty conflicts and had even fallen out at one point, after four years of college they had still ended up as close friends who could talk about anything.
The protagonist's every move in the novel still managed to piss Asou Akiya off just as much in real life.
Especially the way this guy had mapped him onto the novel, saying things like "The first time Asou Akiya got Gojo Satoru's phone number, he was so happy he couldn't sleep the entire night," or "Asou Akiya chased the star for ten years with zero results, treated like an ATM by the big celebrity," or "In the bar, the black-haired young man grabbed his friend, the celebrity's manager, to pour out his grievances, complaining about how Gojo Satoru threw a tantrum and ignored him"...
Asou Akiya gritted his teeth.
That was a damn curse!
A grade-one sorcerer, a curse manipulator, writing a goddamn novel to curse him with never catching Gojo Satoru!
The novel's ending was friendship-themed—the three of them became friends, Asou Akiya stopped going star-crazy, settled down and started a family, became a philanthropist known far and wide, while Getou Suguru spent his entire life as Gojo Satoru's manager.
[Wants to be a third wheel for a whole lifetime?]
Asou Akiya gulped down the watermelon juice in one go, sprang to his feet, and ran over to join the roughhousing.
Gojo Satoru and Getou Suguru were ganging up on Ieiri Shoko, splashing water all over her face. Gojo Satoru had grabbed some sea creature and was unconsciously threatening in Shoko's direction: "Look, look, it's squirting water—!"
Shoko's short hair was dripping wet, and she splashed back in anger. "Scumbags! Two petty, scumbag bullies who gang up on a girl! I curse you both to never get a girlfriend for your entire lives!"
Her combat power alone was severely insufficient.
"Ooh, bring it on, let's curse each other back and forth. If Shoko can find even one boyfriend, we lose." The boys weren't the least bit ashamed of being called scumbags, gleefully proving themselves to be petty, narrow-minded assholes.
Asou Akiya arrived.
"Save me, Asou!" Ieiri Shoko struggled to raise her hand to block the water. "They're ganging up on me!"
Gojo Satoru: "Hehehe, Shoko's surrendering to us."
Getou Suguru: "That's not surrendering, she's calling for backup to deal with us. Satoru, whatever you do, don't switch sides..."
Asou Akiya shielded Ieiri Shoko, but couldn't escape getting soaked himself. The two of them enthusiastically splashed him with seven or eight waves of seawater in a row. The saltwater drenched his short-sleeved shirt and beach shorts, and when the sea breeze hit, it was exceptionally cool.
"Satoru!"
Asou Akiya pulled out his trump card: "Stop following Suguru's lead. Suguru's been talking shit about you behind your back!"
"I am not switching sides. If you dare help Shoko, me and Suguru will turn you two into drowned rats." Gojo Satoru planted his hands on his hips. Beneath his beach shorts, his calves were firm and porcelain-white, water droplets sliding down along his muscles. The damp sea breeze blew his oversized, baggy clothes tighter against his body. His Infinity technique remained unactivated, his whole being immersed in enjoying this seaside vacation.
Getou Suguru wore a face full of smiles. As long as Satoru stuck to his word, he had this in the bag against Akiya.
As for talking shit?
Small potatoes. He talked shit all the time, and Satoru never took it to heart. Clearly Satoru was someone who didn't hold grudges.
Asou Akiya: "He wrote in his novel that you'd be single your whole life, never dated anyone, always drove female companions away, that your eight-pack abs as an adult were just the result of starving yourself to lose weight, and he even told the novel version of me to stop chasing stars, that liking you was worse than raising a cat, that a cat could make people happy while Gojo Satoru could only piss people off!"
Gojo Satoru silently turned around. A pair of Six Eyes brimming with murderous intent fixed themselves on Getou Suguru.
"You said I'm worse than a cat?!" Gojo Satoru hissed.
"It's fiction! Pure fiction! You and Shoko were making up nonsense in the novel too, weren't you?" Getou Suguru panicked. Why was he suddenly getting hung up on something so minor?
"So my eight-pack abs are fake too?" Gojo Satoru lifted the hem of his shirt.
"There's a girl here!" Getou Suguru broke out in a cold sweat, trying to stop him.
"No problem, I can look, and I love looking." Ieiri Shoko spoke with cool detachment.
Ieiri Shoko suddenly felt a chill run through her, sensing Asou Akiya's sidelong glance. Asou Akiya said gently, "You see, only Shoko and I here would never talk behind your back. If we have something to say, we prefer to say it to your face."
The more Gojo Satoru listened, the more sense it made. It seemed like a teammate like Suguru was exactly the kind of guy who loved to backstab.
Getou Suguru shouted at the top of his lungs: "Satoru! What did you promise me!"
Gojo Satoru: "I..."
Asou Akiya interrupted the spellcasting. "Satoru, didn't you say you would protect me? Why are you teaming up with Suguru to bully me? I can't beat you two. I don't ever want to come to the seaside to play again."
Gojo Satoru was caught between a rock and a hard place. Helping either side meant hitting his own people, so he simply walked off in the direction of the beach volleyball court, putting on an act as he said, "I see some people playing volleyball over there. I'll go switch to a different game."
Asou Akiya saw that Getou Suguru was now alone and let out a cold laugh.
"Suguru, it's two against one now." Asou Akiya and Ieiri Shoko stood in place, drenched from head to toe, like water ghosts.
"So what." Getou Suguru was fearless. They were just two rookies, that's all.
Asou Akiya: "If you surrender without a fight, give up resisting, I guarantee you can become a special grade sorcerer before Satoru."
Getou Suguru's confidence soared: "I don't need you for that. I can succeed on my own."
Asou Akiya pulled out his phone from the waterproof bag and held it up. On the screen was the latest information on numerous high-grade curses. Behind each piece of information was an assistant supervisor and a member of the "Window." They had meticulously compiled curse information that should have been submitted to the higher-ups, allowing Asou Akiya to get his hands on first-hand curse intelligence.
As Gojo Satoru and Getou Suguru's statuses rose, so did Asou Akiya's. Getou Suguru's eyes widened, but before he could make out the contents, the screen was mercilessly snapped shut by the hand across from him.
"I'm forwarding this to Satoru right now."
The devil whispered.
"Nooooo——!!!"
This seaside water festival—ah, no, this seaside outing—ended with Getou Suguru scrambling about with his head in his hands.
...
When they played volleyball, the three of them took turns hitting against the lone player, and Getou Suguru was in a complete fluster.
...
At night, a pillow fight broke out, four people in a free-for-all, and in the end Gojo Satoru, who had laughed the hardest, got beaten up the worst.
...
Asou Akiya proved it with facts.
Gojo Satoru and Getou Suguru—united they are the strongest, divided... they get taken down one by one!
[1] I don't get the joke either. From my deep dive, HLA (Hailan Home) is known for using handsome male celebrities in stylish ads. Chinese fans joked that Gojo fit the brand’s image, which led to many fan edits and arts of Gojo in HLA clothing.