Two - The Plum Blossoms to A Butterfly

If someone might ask—if someone just asked—of all the things that happened, what could not be forgotten by Gojo Satoru, then there were only two things he could recall in his mind: about the renegade and death of the only best friend he ever had—Geto Suguru—then another one was about that night.

One night where he met a particular girl whose hair shines like black diamonds.

Gojo Satoru wasn't one to think long and hard about things—except in battle—so that day, he made sure to tell the girl that her hair was shining like black diamonds.

Then before he realized, the girl was offended thinking that he was mocking her when he was actually giving her a sincere compliment. The black diamond was the rarest and most expensive diamond, and so was the girl he complimented.

He had heard the rumors before: there was a girl from the Kamo clan who was entrusted by one of the Kamo clan's higher ups to Jujutsu High School. But he didn't really put care in those area, because at that time, his grief about his best friend was still fresh. All he gave was the response that it was a good thing—typical Gojo Satoru—as his mind wandered, again, about Suguru.

There were no specific details about the girl until Gojo Satoru actually met her in person. Then from that he knew that the girl from the Kamo clan had discomfort when people looked at her, or when they complimented something good about her… and how she had a pair of fairly sharp eyes, then to his surprise that she looked beautiful with black hair that was half ponytailed.

Gojo Satoru never knew that a young girl could be so beautiful.

That night, as the wind blew between them, her hair dancing with the wind looked like thousands of threads of black silk dancing across her cheeks. She shone, like a black diamond.

It was just pure admiration. Not love at first sight as it might have been, just a feeling of awe that she wasn't bad. But Satoru knew that it was where it all started.

After that night, everything seemed to draw him to her and his world changed.

Kamo Umeko.

Gojo Satoru knew the girl's name after they were paired up on a mission to exorcize several grade 1 cursed spirits in a district in Tokyo. A mission that actually Gojo could handle alone, it's just that, he personally asked Kamo Umeko to be included with him on the mission.

Not bad.

Kamo Umeko comes in a standard dark purple jujutsu uniform with two uzumaki buttons and a mini skirt above the knees and dark black stockings that cover her slender legs, and standard shoes without straps.

Even though she has bad taste…

Her hair was in a half ponytail just like that night, and as usual, during the day it also shone like black diamonds.

Beautiful.

Gojo Satoru walked up to Kamo Umeko casually.

"Yo. Kamo-chan."

He maintained a faint smile as he raised his hand to greet her.

Kamo Umeko was not interested, the look in her eyes said so.

"Good morning. The weather today will be very sunny, I guess. But it's alright, the air will be as fresh as ever here. And There too."

Gojo Satoru stopped about two steps beside Kamo Umeko. Even so, she still had no interest in replying to everything he said in one second after being there.

"Mah…" Gojo Satoru continued with a relaxed expression and tone, not really caring. "Now we will go on a mission to deal with minor disturbances caused by some first grade cursed spirits. And before everything, I am—"

"Gojo Satoru."

Gojo Satoru had to stop when the girl who had no intention of speaking finally spoke up to cut him off.

"I knew."

Kamo Umeko turned around, preparing to rush off on the mission. "Everyone knows the owner of The Six Eyes."

Gojo Satoru smiled, "Everyone?"

Kamo Umeko did not answer for him to get it.

"Not bad." Gojo Satoru then continued, "That is also true. But, you don't know anything else besides that? Maybe something bigger or much cooler like something that has to do with the word the best."

Kamo Umeko did not answer him.

"No?" Gojo Satoru stared at her, his smile not fading.

Still no answer.

"Too bad." Gojo Satoru was still smiling as he said that.

He didn't force Umeko to talk and let her do what she wanted, letting her feel comfortable in her own way.

Kamo Umeko was ready, she tightened her pigtail and glanced over her shoulder, "Let's go."

Gojo Satoru smiled. "Heeh… You're the one on the lead, aren't you?"

Kamo Umeko didn't really care. "My bad. I thought I was with someone who also didn't want to waste time."

"Hmm…" Gojo Satoru hummed seriously, pretending to think of an answer to Kamo Umeko's words even though it was completely unnecessary since he knew what he would say next. "I'm a very person who prefers to waste time and walk more leisurely than others. Get used to it from now on."

Kamo Umeko did not answer.

The smile on Gojo Satoru's face grew as he stopped beside Kamo Umeko who had stopped waiting for him. "Umeko…"

Kamo Umeko immediately turned to him. Her brow was furrowed like that night, perhaps by his impudence.

"Kamo Umeko, right? Yoroshiku ne."

Gojo Satoru stepped forward, hands in his pockets and as he said, his pace relaxed.

It wasn't that he was interested in her in the first place, he originally just wanted to test how capable this girl from the Kamo clan was. He genuinely wanted to know that.

"I hope you won't get in my way too much."

Originally, Gojo Satoru had felt that perhaps he would need to sweat extra to back up Kamo Umeko, but to his surprise, her skills had already surpassed that of a grade 2 sorcerer.

Gojo Satoru thinks Kamo Umeko is talented.

Not only did she never get in his way, she was never a burden.

She did everything she could, very well and set aside work for him to tackle without getting in his way or slowing him down in the fight. What happened was like two fights in the same place and Gojo Satoru didn't miss a second to see her fight while busy dodging the attacks of the cursed spirits with ease.

He was enjoying her fight.

When the mission was completed, Gojo Satoru knew that Kamo Umeko had a habit of staring up at the sky for a few minutes and then all those strange routines started happening—it was like he was witnessing the doing of a specifically strange ritual: she went for coffee and stayed at the cafe for precisely five minutes and came out to throw away the coffee she hadn't finished drinking, then went to a bus stop and waited there for a while to the point that Ijichi realized that it was bothering him.

"That kid does have such a habit. Or routine, I suppose."

Gojo Satoru listened.

"It was always like that."

Ijichi pulled the brakes and started the car, approaching Kamo Umeko who was waiting at the bus stop while staring blankly at something in front of her.

"It's like a ritual that should be done without missing any single step. No messing up, no do-overs."

Gojo Satoru had enough time to watch what Kamo Umeko was up to before she finally got in the car and sat in the backseat.

"Welcome back, Kamo-san." Ijichi greeted Kamo Umeko as she entered.

Kamo Umeko answered soberly. "Hai." She paused for a moment to the seat next to Ijichi which was occupied. His snowy-white hair was something more than enough for a clue.

Just as Kamo Umeko turned her head to stare at the sky from the closed window, Gojo Satoru spoke.

"Stopped by to meet a boyfriend?"

No answer for some time. Just when Gojo thought that there would be no answer to a random question he threw, Kamo Umeko gave him the answer.

"I don't have any such."

Gojo Satoru smiled faintly. "You don't, do you?"

And Kamo Umeko no longer cared about him.

That was Kamo Umeko in Satoru's eyes at first.

Kamo Umeko was a cold girl who always prefers the sky over anything in this world, whose views and thoughts always wander to whatever is in the sky. But more than that, Kamo Umeko is a girl who still doesn't want to leave Satoru's head.

She lived there, settled down, as if the whole thing of Satoru's head were the kingdom she ruled.

If anyone asked him when exactly did he fell in love with Kamo Umeko, Satoru would not know.

One day, before he realized, the girl had occupied his mind, creeping in. And when he woke up, her existence becomes the oxygen he breathes, her presence becomes the thing he looks forward to the most when the new day starts with morning, and her voice becomes a new melody that he yearns for.

Kamo Umeko is a terrifying girl who suddenly invades his mind mercilessly, causing him to fall into an endless abyss.

Kamo Umeko is a disaster that keeps him in a feverish phase before he actually catches a fever.

Then one day, he realized that he had truly seen her as a woman, not just as a girl from Kamo, or a Jujutsu high school student needed teaching.

Satoru didn't know.

He truly doesn't know when did exactly he started liking Umeko. But after the first mission with her, his world seemed to revolve only around her.

Starting from how he submitted a recommendation for Kamo Umeko's promotion—from grade 2 to grade 1 sorcerer—and he earned himself a thanks from Kamo, until suddenly, when he realized, staring too long into Umeko's eyes was quite a difficult task to do.

Satoru was walking towards the vending machine to get himself a flavored drink when a shadow approached him from the darkness, as if it had been waiting for him.

He casually continued his way to the drink machine and he knew it was Umeko. He deliberately ignored her until he finished taking his drink and turned his head, "Ah? If it isn't Kamo Umeko-chan herself. What a surprise to see you! I had no idea you were there all along."

Kamo Umeko sighed, having no intention of responding to the sarcasm Satoru threw at her. She only came to say thank you. "I have a thing to discuss."

"Hmm? Rare to have you having a thing to discuss with somebody. For real, have you ever had any intention to talk?" Satoru casually sipped his drink. "Let's see what you got. I'll walk away if it's not something so interesting. Please, humor me." Even though thanks to his blindfold he looked like he didn't care, behind that, he saw through everything. He saw how Umeko grabbed the hem of her skirt before she thanked him.

"Regarding the promotion recommendation," there was a pause, "Thank you." She stared at him, at the very blindfold he wears but it was as if she was seeing through the fabrics—it was like she was staring right through his eyes.

Satoru didn't do anything, but everything he saw, everything that happened, happened in slow motion before his eyes. The seconds slowed, and his eyes flattered as he caught Umeko's gaze staring into his eyes even though she couldn't catch his gaze. Then when he came back to his senses, there was a loud thumping in his ear.

The beat was clear until it echoed in his ears and then he realized that it was his heartbeat which had changed its rhythm to something clearer, louder, and slower.

Satoru didn't budge, frozen in place. Before he realized, Umeko was bowing to him, a sincere 90 degree bow. Then when he realized that he had been frozen, all he could see was how Umeko had turned around and her back had moved away.

Maybe that's just the way it is.

Maybe Kamo Umeko made him fall in love in the simplest way he could ever think of. And simply put, Satoru was overthinking everything. He was too busy looking at the complicated side, not realizing that maybe what made him start falling in love was something very simple.

Maybe it's just as simple as that.

It doesn't need anything very complicated, it doesn't require anything forceful or a special situation or perhaps any specific circumstances, nothing. Perhaps, it just happens.

Loving Umeko may never have been a very complicated matter for Satoru.

He never made me really try

———

Present Day

Satoru, with a relaxed pace and his hands in his pockets, opened a door to a room unlike any other in the Jujutsu Academy.

"Excuse me! Good Looking Guy Gojo Satoru here! Should I knock formally and ask if I can have a little time with Ieri Shoko-chan?"

He said all those things as he stepped inside casually. Not a second since he'd been telling the whole room about everything that he ever put a single care about what the response would be.

What a contrast.

Then as usual, he casually sat on a chair with his legs crossed. Smiling at the figure of a woman clad in a white coat who was looking at him with her unbothered facial expression. Ieiri Shoko.

"You're free enough to come here every day." She quipped.

Satoru laughed dryly. "That's hurtful. But I'm always free for this. Especially on days like these." Satoru's smile only lasted until there. Because after saying one other thing, his smile faded as if it had never been there before. "You know why."

Shoko sighed. "What kind of days are you referring to this time?"

There was a significant pause before Satoru finally said something, he looked scared and worried. Very concerned. And it was way so rare—not to Shoko these past months, though.

"I saw her…" then another pause. "Three days ago."

Shoko asked after letting Satoru recover a bit from what he was going through. "Where?"

"Morioka Station."

Shoko didn't say anything. She just listened and paid attention to Satoru's very apprehensive—or even more impolite, very sad state.

"She is fine. Very—really fine. And healthy. And… fine."

Shoko still hadn't say anything. She let Satoru say what he wanted to say to her and just listened to it all.

"She is fine without me."

The atmosphere in Shoko's room became silent after Satoru's last words.

Shoko sighed after a while, "What is this? Aren't you the one who made her give up, Gojo Satoru? Why are you bothered after she finally manage to give up on everything?"

Satoru couldn't provide any answer.

"Wasn't that your goal to make her give up?"

Satoru was laughing but all that Shoko saw was purely and only pain. She didn't need Satoru to remove his blindfold to know that the look in his eyes would only show her the same pain.

"You're right."

Shoko sighed, he stepped closer to Satoru and gave him something on a small white tube. Some medicine.

"You give off the amount of anxiety that scares me. Here's your refill to calm down. I'll introduce you to a psi—"

Satoru took the medicine that Ieiri gave him, "This is fine." Then he smiled at Shoko.

Seeing Satoru's smile, She could only sympathize with him.

She was still working inside her head to digest what she had seen in the last eight months: that and old friend of hers, Gojo Satoru, had become someone who was truly vulnerable—Shoko believed that if a curse spirit of special grade were to suddenly attack him, Satoru would not be able to fight it as easily as he normally would, or even, worst of all, Satoru will not end well in the fight, she would have to deal with fixing any part of his body after the fight.

Shoko sighed.

"Maybe you can go back on your words and take them back—"

"Shoko,"

Shoko then stopped and no longer said anything.

"Thanks for this. I'm going off now."

Shoko sighed. "I get it. Now go. Don't come back next week as if you're too free. I'll tell Principal Yaga to assign you to tougher missions if you keep coming here."

Satoru laughed, "That was insulting. I can be present in two different missions at once, just so you know. But hey! You're being a hardass!"

"Am I, though? That's why you should really stop coming back."

"I don't have a reason not to come back, yet."

"Two years. Two years and a half precisely, should have been a good enough reason to stop coming back. You've taken too many medicines in that period."

"But you see, I am not getting better, am I?"

Shoko sighed. "Gojo—"

"The medicine alone was helpful, though. Really." Satoru smiled as he stuffed the small tube into his pocket.

Walking towards the door, he raised his hand and gave his best smile before stepping out.