In the end, Gojo Satoru was isolated by himself.
Nanami Kento had chosen a dorm room in the direction farthest from Gojo Satoru—which happened to be right next to Zen'in Naoya's.
Haibara Yuuta chose the room next to Nanami Kento's, becoming neighbors with him.
Inside Gojo Satoru's dorm room, the white-haired youth sat on the edge of the sofa and said in a sarcastic tone, "Akiya, whose classmate are you, anyway? You might as well repeat a year. What business is it of yours how I educate my juniors!"
Asou Akiya fetched a hot towel. "Let me apply a warm compress for you. Did I hurt you just now?"
The white-haired youth's face was cold, his naturally striking features shrouded in an aura of displeasure, his entire being radiating low pressure. He unbuttoned his school uniform jacket, pulled out the hem of his white dress shirt that had been tucked into his waistband, and rolled up his black undershirt, peeling away layer after layer of spring clothing to expose his waist. On his lean flank were several red marks left by something that had pressed into his skin.
Over the course of a winter, the Gojo clan had indulged Gojo Satoru's every whim like a little ancestor, hiring professionals to put him through muscle-building training. Now, Gojo Satoru had both the abs and the Adonis belt he ought to have—his muscle mass had clearly increased.
Gojo Satoru accused, "Those are your finger marks!"
Gojo Satoru demanded that Akiya not let this go so easily. "Getou would never do this to me!"
Asou Akiya's gaze lingered for a dozen or so seconds before forcibly pulling away from Gojo Satoru's body. He was nothing more than a sixteen-year-old high schooler, after all.
When it came to muscle mass, Gojo Satoru fell short of Getou Suguru, who was even younger than him.
When it came to the sexual tension of one's physique, a teenager would never measure up to an adult.
Asou Akiya applied the hot compress to Gojo Satoru's waist, accelerating the fading of the red marks. "Getou wouldn't do this to you, that's true. He would just laugh along with everyone else. The price you'd pay is that you'd leave an impression of complete unreliability in your juniors' minds forever."
The coldness emanating from Gojo Satoru's body dissipated somewhat with the hot towel.
At this stage, Gojo Satoru didn't care about other people's opinions, and he looked upon Asou Akiya's considerations with utter disdain.
"For my eyes, this cool and awesome pair of eyes, to be mistaken for colored contacts—those juniors have no taste at all."
"Yes, yes, your eyes are something no one else could ever imitate."
"I don't need juniors to evaluate me!"
"Fine, fine. You only need to live in your own world. You're not someone from the same world as the rest of us."
"Hmph—"
Gojo Satoru caught the veiled sarcasm in Asou Akiya's words. His anger still hadn't subsided, and he couldn't resist pinning Asou Akiya down on the sofa and tickling him.
"Forget I said anything—you're the bigger person here, so let me off just this once!"
Asou Akiya couldn't maintain his composure any longer and hurriedly surrendered, begging for mercy. He had assumed that being tickled a few times would be the end of it, but who could have predicted that Gojo Satoru's revenge wouldn't satisfy him?
Gojo Satoru slipped his hand beneath Asou Akiya's clothes and pinched hard against his bare skin. His rough, unrestrained technique made Asou Akiya wince in pain. He tried to push him away but couldn't—his opponent had activated the Infinity technique for this sort of thing, creating a barrier that blocked physical contact. He could only clamp his mouth shut tightly and refuse to show any more weakness.
Gojo Satoru didn't hear Asou Akiya's laughter, nor did he hear any begging for mercy, so he only realized he had gone too far after the fact.
Asou Akiya endured until the corners of his eyes turned red.
By the time Gojo Satoru stopped, Asou Akiya explained, "In my eyes, you deserve nothing but the very best. I don't want you to be misunderstood by your juniors, and I don't want you to become someone that others avoid at all costs."
Asou Akiya was not the type of person who would act recklessly under the banner of "I'm doing this for your own good"—he would only implement something if it held genuine meaning.
Nanami Kento was a junior who held significant importance for Gojo Satoru.
However, in the original story, the depth of Nanami Kento's misunderstanding of Gojo Satoru had chilled Asou Akiya to the bone as an observer. Nanami Kento believed that Gojo Satoru did not fight for the sake of passing down traditions and protecting others, but was merely a deviant who constantly satisfied his own desires. The manga had even paired Nanami Kento's statement with a photograph of high schooler Gojo Satoru pouting unhappily.
Asou Akiya knew better than anyone that high schooler Gojo Satoru had no desire to protect the jujutsu world.
But Gojo Satoru would grow up!
Gojo Satoru would come to understand the meaning of companions and shoulder his own responsibilities!
As time passed, Nanami Kento's impression of Gojo Satoru remained frozen in the past, ignoring Gojo Satoru's efforts, disregarding the hardships of his monthly travels both domestically and abroad, and treating the burdens of the jujutsu world as something rightfully dumped onto Gojo Satoru's shoulders alone.
["Wouldn't it be fine to just leave everything to Gojo Satoru?"]
This was the truest, most mistaken, and most urgently needing correction thought that had lurked in the depths of high schooler Nanami Kento's heart.
Asou Akiya wanted to change that future.
How dare Nanami Kento treat Gojo Satoru this way! How could he bully Gojo Satoru so!
"Gojo, I'm your classmate. I only help you guys."
A fire flickered in Asou Akiya's eyes, composed of goodwill and stubborn determination—he had never wanted to harm Gojo Satoru.
Gojo Satoru's gaze was drawn to those sparks of light, burning like a wildfire.
Gojo Satoru would never understand what the ordinary people are thinking. But this little tangerine was teaching him, laying his heart bare to teach him to understand his own position, to understand why he did these inexplicable things.
"You stand too high, too far away."
"I will do everything within my power to see the real you."
"And then, I will share the truth and beauty I see with others as much as I possibly can."
"I don't want you to be misunderstood by others. I don't want to see the day when you have a hundred mouths but can't defend yourself. I want to use my meager efforts to help more people understand you, to like you, to let you receive the glory you deserve."
In his previous life, Gojo Satoru had earned the recognition of countless fans.
In this life, why couldn't he make Gojo Satoru once again become the most popular figure in the jujutsu world?
"The things you don't want to do, I'll do for you. The things you can't be bothered to think about, I'll consider for you." Asou Akiya looked at Gojo Satoru, who had learned how to roughhouse, and forgot his pain. Acting almost as if possessed, he pressed his forehead against the other boy's, their noses extremely close together. He couldn't see the whole face from this distance—only the dense, fine eyelashes casting one distinct shadow after another across the other's face.
"I'm the only one acting to fulfill my own wishes. It has nothing to do with you."
—If someone deserves to be called a deviant, it's me.
—Not you.
Asou Akiya once again took advantage of the fact that Gojo Satoru couldn't read minds and let his thoughts run wild, his face wearing an expression of unbelievable softness.
Gojo Satoru felt that every time he saw Asou Akiya like this, it was like seeing a loyal servant from his household.
Yet the difference between the two was as vast as heaven and earth.
As the other had said, every move Asou Akiya made came from the heart. His attitude toward Gojo Satoru was like warm water mixed with sugar—when it burned hot, it scorched himself and brewed a spicy syrup; when it was calm, it was a cup of honey water that soothed the throat. All the "good" and the "bad" were ways of helping Gojo Satoru better adapt to Tokyo Jujutsu High.
Gojo Satoru had thought more than once that perhaps it was the Gojo clan who were stingy, not the little tangerine.
The benefits the Gojo clan had given the other were not many—they hadn't even bestowed a single low-grade cursed tool, and had never considered the future of someone who was essentially a "companion student." In the beginning, the little tangerine had worn old clothes, lived in a children's welfare home, and held the Gojo clan's black card yet dared not spend a single extra yen. What the little tangerine gave and what he received were not an equivalent exchange.
"Your wish is for me to live freely, isn't it?"
Gojo Satoru's long eyelashes practically brushed against Asou Akiya's eyelids.
The skyscape of the Six Eyes enveloped a single person.
"Akiya, did I see you when I was little?" Gojo Satoru compressed the distance of the Infinity technique to the thinness of a fragile sheet of paper, pressing it against the other's body, examining Asou Akiya from 360 degrees without a single blind spot, and spoke wild words: "Your feelings for me run so deep. You couldn't be copying those two Zen'in clan people and playing at some kind of love at first sight, could you?"
"No. I never fell in love with you at first sight, and I never met you in advance. Before enrollment, we were strangers on two parallel lines." Asou Akiya denied Gojo Satoru's joke.
When the first season of Jujutsu Kaisen aired, Asou Akiya had been obsessed with Bungo Stray Dogs. It was only because of a friend's recommendation that he went to watch Jujutsu Kaisen. At the time, he had favored the scriptwriters with astonishing intelligence and didn't like the combat faction's Gojo Satoru. He didn't like the direction of Jujutsu Kaisen's plot, and considered the other to be a "strongest" who didn't live up to his name. It wasn't until several years later, when the Shibuya Incident arc aired in Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2, that it shook Asou Akiya's heart to its core.
Gojo Satoru conquered Asou Akiya as a viewer with the gentleness of his 0.2-second Domain Expansion.
"And as for what you said about deep feelings..."
Asou Akiya pushed Gojo Satoru away, finding him impossibly heavy. "They're not as deep as you're imagining."
Gojo Satoru didn't process this immediately. "Hah? But you're willing to do all this for me?"
Asou Akiya: "Dispel your technique."
Gojo Satoru did as he was told.
Asou Akiya didn't hold back at all—he ruffled Gojo Satoru's white hair with his hands, an incredibly stress-relieving sensation. "It's because you're adorable!"
As a fifteen-year-old high schooler, he's pure and divine.
As a sixteen-year-old high schooler, he's lively and human.
Gojo Satoru: "..."
Asou Akiya: "Because you're good-looking. If you smile at me, I can forgive you for anything."
Gojo Satoru was shaken to his core for what felt like a century. "Akiya, you're so shallow!"
Asou Akiya nodded. "That's right! I am this shallow—I like your face, I like your eyes, I like your personality. Don't get the wrong idea. If you end up growing out of your looks, I might stop liking you."
Gojo Satoru's eyes went blank, his thoughts tangled into a ball of yarn. Was this the kind of person the internet called a "face-con"?
The reason he had won one step ahead of Getou was because his face was better-looking?
Truly… worthy of me!
After sorting out Asou Akiya's logic, Gojo Satoru accepted the answer rapidly and flashed Asou Akiya the most dazzling smile he could muster, raising the bar of Asou Akiya's aesthetic standards to a threshold no one else could reach.
"When Getou comes back, you have to say to his face that I'm the best-looking!"
"No problem"
Asou Akiya's voice carried a lilt at the end.
In the evening, Getou Suguru returned without complaint, rushing back from some distant corner of Japan.
Asou Akiya followed Gojo Satoru's request and praised Gojo Satoru's looks to the heavens right in front of Getou Suguru, even saying that the two juniors had been completely dazzled by Gojo Satoru's first appearance.
Getou Suguru was momentarily baffled, maintaining a cautious attitude toward this uncharacteristic behavior: "And?"
Asou Akiya: "He's the best-looking!"
Getou Suguru grew even more suspicious: "Satoru is good-looking... but the ones who arrived today were juniors, not junior girls, right?"
In the background, Gojo Satoru shot to his feet with a sharp thud.
Asou Akiya said gently, "The juniors were slightly startled by Gojo. Tonight, I'll bring them together for a dormitory gathering as compensation. I can't let them spend their first night in the dormitories on empty stomachs."
Getou Suguru pinched his index finger and thumb together to indicate a tiny distance: "Slightly?"
Asou Akiya smiled and ignored the implication, fully displaying his class president's sense of responsibility: "Getou, will you come to the gathering too?"
Getou Suguru: "Is Satoru not going?"
Asou Akiya glanced back at Gojo Satoru, who quickly sat back down. "His eyes are too beautiful—they're a priceless treasure, yet the juniors mistook them for cheap colored contacts from the market. He's sulking right now. I want the juniors to properly understand the Six Eyes before I help resolve the conflict between them."
Getou Suguru pieced together the cause and effect of the conflict from these few sparse descriptions.
"Sure, I'll go with you to improve the juniors' impression."
He wasn't even hungry—he was simply brimming with the spirit of watching a good show.
Getou Suguru pondered for a moment and felt that his role in what was to come would be extremely significant. Akiya was too biased toward Satoru, and Satoru loved throwing tantrums. The most reliable upperclassman at Tokyo Jujutsu High could only be him.
So what if Gojo have a good-looking face? What's the use of it when he couldn't even fool his juniors!