Chapter Text
You didn’t know what to expect from Tokyo Jujutsu High. To be fair, you didn’t know about a lot of things. Most of your life had been spent cloistered within the oppressive walls of the Zen’in clan estate. The few times you were allowed out were for stifling gatherings at other clans’ compounds, which didn’t really expand your worldview, given how they were all miserable carbon copies of your gilded prison.
You’d assumed – foolishly, in retrospect – that as a sorcery school, Tokyo Jujutsu High would at least be accessible. Sure, it would certainly be secluded and heavily warded to avoid curious civilians stumbling upon it, but accessible. What you hadn’t realized was that the illustrious institution was quite literally perched on top of a goddamn mountain. Because apparently, the founders had looked at a perfectly reasonable plot of flat land and thought, “Nah, too easy. Let’s make everyone suffer.”
And of course, the clan’s driver was eager to dump you on the road at the mountain’s base with a cheery, “My apologies, Eri-sama. But the car can’t make it up there!”
Must have been bribed by Naoya’s mother. Whatever.
Anyway, here you were in an ornate yukata and pointlessly dainty sandals, lugging a massive suitcase – all to make the arduous trek up the shit ton of stairs snaking an infuriating zigzag path toward the school’s gates. Sweat began beading on your forehead by stair number thirty. By stair one hundred, you were seriously reconsidering this whole “attending school” thing.
So. Many. Goddamn. Stairs.
Couldn’t these great jujutsu minds have conceived some kind of transport system? Maybe a quaint cable car built discretely into the mountainside? An elevator hidden behind a barrier? You’d settle for a well-trained donkey at this point. But no. Suffering built character. Brute force and determination were the prerequisites here, and if you couldn’t haul your belongings up a near-vertical incline in impractical footwear, well, maybe you weren’t cut out for sorcery.
You were in the middle of mentally cursing everyone responsible for your current predicament, including but not limited to, the school architect, your elders, the concept of stairs in general, that one person who’d built the first staircase and doomed humanity, when a cheerful voice called out from behind you.
“Need some help over there?”
You turned toward the voice. A guy around your age was bounding up the steps like the incline was a minor suggestion rather than a legitimate obstacle. His dark hair was in a sort of bowl cut and he was wearing a bright T-shirt and tattered jeans. He was dragging his own suitcase yet hopping up the steps three at a time.
Growing up in the suffocating confines of the Zen’in clan had instilled in you the stoicism so prized in their women. Despite your exhaustion and irritation, your face was impassive, almost serene, just as you’d been conditioned. You had mastered this display to perfection. Your mother once praised you for it, reasoning it was surely because you lacked a soul to emote with in the first place.
In seconds, the guy closed the distance, sweating but beaming as he addressed you again. “My name’s Haibara Yu. I’m a first year. Are you a first year too?”
You gave a small nod and offered your name. “Eri.”
His eyes swept over your ridiculous outfit, completely not suited for mountain climbing, but he didn’t comment. Instead, Haibara reached out a friendly hand. “I can help you carry your stuff if you don’t mind!”
You eyed him critically, wondering if he could manage both your oversized suitcase and his own without toppling back down the treacherous stairs in a misguided display of masculine pride. Haibara looked strong. He was tall and broad-shouldered, the kind of build that suggested actual physical activity. You deemed him capable enough to haul the double load without plummeting to his death.
You nodded again. “Okay.”
As the only legitimate daughter of Zen’in Naobito, expression of gratitude wasn’t a thing you’d developed. Besides, thank-yous were for people who needed to beg for things, and Zen’ins took what they wanted.
Haibara didn’t seem fazed by your lack of effusive appreciation. He only grinned wider as he effortlessly lifted your suitcase. “Okay, let’s get moving!”
The lack of heavy baggage made the ascent marginally easier, though your impractical sandals were still not made for trekking up a freakin’ mountain at any decent speed. Haibara actually had to reign in his energetic pace despite lugging both suitcases to match your steps.
You maintained a reasonable distance away from him as you climbed. While your elders would approve of you keeping your space from an unfamiliar man, truthfully you just didn’t want to risk eating pavement should this idiot indeed take a tumble hauling the double load.
Apparently, Haibara had never encountered a silence he couldn’t fill. He talked. And talked. And then, just when you thought he might need to pause for oxygen, he found a second wind and talked some more.
“I was scouted last month,” he said, bouncing up another few steps. “I was just shooting hoops after school when this random guy showed up and told me I’m a sorcerer! Can you believe that? I thought he was messing with me at first, but then he showed me all sorts of jujutsu stuff. Turned out I’d been seeing curses my whole life and just thought I was a bit crazy.”
Then he spent the next half hour regaling you with a long-winded retelling of his life story, every banal detail since he first encountered a curse at age seven, all the bizarre occurrences leading up to his recruitment, and so on.
When he finally paused to gulp down air, his brilliant eyes found yours. “What about you?”
Conversation wasn’t precisely your forte, but seeing as Haibara was currently hauling your luggage up a mountain out of the goodness of his heart, you figured you could humor his nosiness with the basics.
“Family legacy recruit,” you replied flatly.
Haibara’s eyes went comically wide. “Whoa, seriously? That means your family is, like, a big deal in the jujutsu world, right?”
“I’m a Zen’in.”
When this didn’t trigger the expected standard cowering and Haibara simply blinked at you like a clueless idiot, you realized that he, as someone from a civilian family, was oblivious to the jujutsu world’s power players.
“There are three major jujutsu clans,” you explained. “The Gojos, the Kamos, and the Zen’ins. We’re considered the pillars of jujutsu society.”
Haibara lit up with awe. “Damn! Are you, like, an heiress or something then?”
“No,” you shook your head.
While your father was the current clan leader, the Zen’ins were infamously patriarchal, and that was putting their rampant misogyny in the politest possible terms. Being born a girl in that archaic house was a curse in and of itself. Women existed to serve, to look decorative, and most importantly, to produce sons who might inherit the clan’s techniques. The ones who couldn’t fight either worked as servants or were married off to consolidate power. The ones who could fight... Well, they were kept around until a better offer came along.
The only reason you received your due respect was your inherited cursed technique and powerful reserves of cursed energy. Oh, and the influential wealth of your mother’s civilian family didn’t hurt either. Although she wasn’t a sorcerer herself, her prestigious lineage held serious sway. But you weren’t about to unload all the sordid details of your clan’s dysfunction on this chirpy stranger you’d just met. So you left it at that, not feeling the need to elaborate further.
Not that your lack of conversational enthusiasm fazed Haibara at all. He steamrolled ahead, letting his racing thoughts tumble out in an endless stream.
“I wonder what classes are gonna be like. Do you think we’ll get to exorcise curses right away, or will they make us study theory first? Oh, and the upperclassmen! I hope they’re cool. My buddy from middle school went to a private school and said the seniors were total jerks, but maybe sorcerers are different? They’re probably all too busy fighting curses to bother with hazing, right? That’d be nice. It’s gonna be awesome meeting everyone, learning new stuff, getting stronger... This is gonna be the best four years ever!”
You hummed noncommittally when he paused for breath, offering tiny confirmations whenever he lobbed a direct question your way. He didn’t seem to mind doing ninety-five percent of the talking, happily filling every second of silence with his running commentary on everything from the weather to his predictions about school life.
The strange thing was... you didn’t actually hate it. His voice had a pleasant quality to it. His smile didn’t feel fake. Everything about Haibara was open and straightforward, so unlike the stifling murkiness of the people in your clan.
By the time you both finally crested the last staircase and reached the school gates, Haibara looked ready to keel over. Whether from the physical exertion of hauling your suitcase up a mountain or from oxygen deprivation after that marathon monologue, you couldn’t say.
You reached for your suitcase, but Haibara waved you off, still grinning despite looking like he might collapse any second now. “I got it! I’ll carry it to your dorm.”
“You really don’t—”
“No, no, I insist!”
As you weighed the pros and cons of just knocking him out to end this nonsense, a figure emerged from the school grounds to greet you both.
He was a young man, in his early twenties at best, wearing plain clothes with a sword at his hip. Despite his youthful appearance, he carried himself with an understated grace as he approached with two large bags.
“Hello,” he said, offering a polite smile. “You’re the new students, right? I’m Kusakabe, one of the instructors here. Let me show you to your dorms.”
Sorcerers tended to have rather short lifespans, so a young instructor wasn’t that uncommon, you supposed. You and Haibara fell into step behind Kusakabe, Haibara stubbornly dragging your luggage the whole way.
Your room was on the third floor while Haibara’s was closer to the common area on two. You didn’t mind the extra stairs, in this case. It would be quieter up there. Before departing, Kusakabe handed a bag to each of you.
“Your uniform. It can be tailored, so check the fit. If anything’s not comfortable, let me know and I’ll have it adjusted for you.”
Haibara bowed deeply to Kusakabe. You merely nodded, which seemed to satisfy everyone involved.
“Oh, and one more thing,” Kusakabe added as he turned to leave. “Yaga-sensei will be here tomorrow for your first field exercise. Make sure you’re well-rested.”
The dorm room was simple and compact compared to your lavish private quarters back at the Zen’in clan’s sprawling manor. But it was clean and had a certain charm in its minimalism – one standard dorm bed against one wall, a desk and chair positioned under the window, a bookshelf waiting to be filled, and a closet providing just the bare essentials. At least you had your own attached bathroom, small mercies.
The first rational step was a shower to rinse off the grotesque sweat and grime accumulated from that hellish mountain climb. The water pressure was inconsistent, the showerhead probably older than you, but standing under the lukewarm spray felt like luxury after that ordeal. Once clean and smelling delightful again, you slipped into another yukata because god forbid a Zen’in woman owns anything remotely practical for daily wear. Pants were too scandalous. Shorts might as well have been lingerie. Even the concept of a simple cotton dress seemed to offend your family’s sense of tradition.
Your long hair was always a challenge to properly dry. You’d packed your hairdryer, but the thought of wrestling with this mess on your head right now made you want to lie down on the floor and never get up. Giving your hair a brief toweling attempt, you decided “damp” was presentable enough. Your aunts and their pursed-lipped disapproval weren’t here anyway.
With basic hygiene restored, you turned your attention to the uniform – standard white button-down shirt, jacket and knee-length skirt combo. Normal enough, though you’d definitely need to invest in some new sensible footwear. You wouldn’t survive one curse-whacking expedition in your stupid sandals. As you began unpacking and arranging your stuff, a sudden rap at the door interrupted your reverie. Of course, it was the Overeager Golden Retriever himself grinning at you when you cracked the door open, now changed into a faded hoodie.
“Hey, Eri! Wanna come down to the common room? There’s another first year down there. We should go meet him!”
Before you could so much as tell him to leave you alone so you could finish unpacking in peace, Haibara had already grabbed your arm and started tugging you along with that manic, beaming energy that managed to be downright illogical. The guy had zero concept of personal boundaries, and honestly, you were too tired to fight him on it.
When you and your overly enthusiastic tour guide tumbled into the common room, there was indeed another guy occupying one of the couches – blond hair, hazel eyes, and an expression that suggested he found the entire world mildly irritating. His gaze sharpened as he took in Haibara barreling forward, practically hauling you along in his wake.
“You’re a first year too, right?” Haibara called out cheerfully. “I’m Haibara Yu!” Not allowing you any chances for escape, he jutted a thumb back toward you. “This is Zen’in Eri!”
The blond guy inclined his head in acknowledgment. “Nanami Kento.” Then his gaze slid to your admittedly absurd attire, and the bewilderment broke through his aloofness. “What are you wearing?”
“A yukata,” you said.
If possible, Nanami’s frown deepened. “I can see that. But why?”
“Because I can’t put on my kimono without assistance,” you answered with a shrug.
To you, there was nothing odd about that. The traditional kimono did indeed require skilled hands to properly dress them. You had a general idea that your clothing wasn’t appropriate for exorcism missions. But you weren’t in the field now, were you? You didn’t realize you’d said something weird until you watched Nanami’s expression change from confusion to something approaching horrified disbelief.
Growing up in the Zen’in clan’s isolated bubble, there were probably dozens of things you accepted as normal that really, really weren’t.
Normally, you wouldn’t devote much thought to such social missteps. But this Nanami would be a classmate for the next four years, provided neither of you met an untimely demise before graduating, that is. The prudent choice would be to smooth over any bad first impressions before he wrote you off as a full-blown lunatic this early.
Problem: not having a soul made navigating social situations rather inconvenient at times like these. You weren’t sure what an appropriately “normal” reaction should be, or what emotions to project.
What would Mother do?
Whenever unsure how to behave, you always fell back on your mother’s cultivated poise and feminine wiles. Her refined manners were a reliable blueprint for social graces, even if her motivations behind them could be… questionable. As you would later learn, your mother wasn’t a great model for appropriate behavior at all. But that was a story for another time.
For now, as Nanami’s incredulous gaze bore into you, you opted to deploy one of your mother’s favorite moves. Adorable dimples emerged as you seamlessly molded your expression into a demure smile – one that crinkled the corners of your eyes in a soft, flattering radiance, just as Mother instructed.
“A smile like this can disarm any man, no matter the circumstances,” Mother had purred conspiratorially in her velvet tones. “It signals vulnerability, openness… It engages their protective instincts. Smile like this, and you can get away with anything. Murder, included.”
True to her lessons, Nanami’s skeptical frown dissolved on the spot. His expression cycled through several distinct phases, skepticism crumbling into startlement, startlement tipping sideways into something that couldn’t decide between flustered and fundamentally unsettled. The flush also arrived in stages: ears first, burning at the tips, then spilling down across his cheekbones in a tide that showed no indication of retreating.
You held the smile. Mother had never specified a duration.
This was, in retrospect, the critical flaw in the technique. She had taught you the mechanics exhaustively – the soft curve of the lips, the precise crinkle at the corners of your eyes, the exact tilt of your chin – but she had neglected to cover the exit strategy. She deployed it and pivoted in the same breath, moving on to whatever she wanted the moment her target had been cracked open. Because she was a cunning woman with a functional soul, she had the instinct to recognize when a smile had finished its job.
You did not have this instinct. So you kept smiling. Nanami stared back.
A less composed person might have broken first. They might have cleared their throat, invented some excuse to look away, done anything to buy themselves recovery time. Nanami held his ground with what might have been admirable determination if he weren’t currently committed to a shade that persimmons held exclusively. His mouth had opened at some point on the reasonable assumption that words would eventually materialize. They didn’t.
The couch, the mismatched chairs, the window overlooking the darkening mountainside – everything around the two of you kept existing at its normal rate while Nanami’s jaw stayed unhinged and you stayed smiling and neither of you produced a sound.
The thing was, you were objectively, genuinely pretty. You were Mother’s daughter, after all. This complicated matters considerably. A mediocre smile was something a person could register, categorize, and move past without incident. A merely pleasant one could be acknowledged and filed under nice enough without causing any lasting damage to their higher functions.
But whatever Mother’s genetics had pressed into you at birth, combined with the exacting mechanics she had drilled into your muscle memory through years of relentless lessons, produced something that landed decisively on the wrong side of extraordinary: the kind of smile that bypassed rational thought and left a person sifting through the wreckage for whatever they’d meant to say.
The trouble – and Nanami couldn’t have named it yet, not while still neck-deep in it – was that the smile worked and failed equally. It had the right shape, the right softness, the crinkle at the corners that read as warmth, the slight downward angle of your chin that signaled openness. Every component was present, correctly assembled in the correct sequence. But there was nothing operating behind it.
There was neither an undercurrent of well, this seems to be going fine flickering through your eyes nor any shift in your brows that communicated awareness of being in a moment together. You were simply smiling patiently, operating under the reasonable assumption that you had deployed the correct tool and should continue deploying it until results arrived.
Nanami’s flush deepened to something that was probably medically notable. Each time he gathered himself toward words, his gaze landed on your lips and whatever he’d assembled scattered. His fingers flexed once at his side. He looked at the bookshelf, then back at you, then at the floor, then, apparently against his better judgment, back at you again. A muscle worked in his jaw. His collar seemed to have developed an urgent problem requiring his left hand’s full attention.
On the wall, the clock ticked, marking off seconds that had begun to accumulate some real structural weight. Three feet away, Haibara had been watching this develop, looking like he was watching something fall in slow motion, riveted and faintly alarmed, increasingly certain he was the only person in the room equipped to stop what came next. He’d been giving it a moment. Generously. The moment had now significantly overstayed its welcome. He sprung into action.
“You look great, Eri,” Haibara declared, inserting himself into the conversation’s orbit.
He steered you toward to couch, one guiding hand at your shoulder, very occupied with getting you settled on this particular cushion here, then that one, performing a series of adjustments that served no discernible functional purpose except to install his own body in the gap between you and Nanami, which was, you suspected, the only purpose they were ever meant to serve.
Nanami, freed from the line of fire, exhaled through his nose. The flush began a cautious retreat from his cheekbones. His ears, however, remained staunchly unrepentant.
Haibara dropped onto the space between you and Nanami and settled there as if he had always occupied that spot and had every intention of continuing to do so indefinitely. “But training in those fancy outfits could get tricky,” he pressed on breezily, giving no indication that he had just performed emergency social triage on everyone present. “How about we go shopping together after the field exercise tomorrow? Get you some functional gear?”
You nodded, grateful in the vague, non-specific sense that came naturally when someone had done something useful and you couldn’t quite identify what or why. “Okay.”
“I wonder what kind of exercise it’ll be though?” Haibara continued. “Any ideas, Nanami?”
Nanami gave a shrug, seeming to regain some of his composure now that you weren’t beaming that unsettling smile at him. “Probably some entrance assessment to gauge our current abilities as sorcerers.”
“You’re probably right!” Haibara exclaimed, clapping his hands together. “Since we’re first years, we should be graded around three or four, yeah? I’m a grade three!”
He proudly whipped out his student ID as evidence, prompting Nanami to produce his own card.
“I’m a second grade, actually.”
Both sets of eyes turned to you expectantly. You fished your ID from the folds of your obi and held it up.
Their jaws promptly crashed to the floor upon registering the “First Grade” emblazoned in the corner of your photo.
“First grade?” Nanami sputtered, his composure well and truly shattered again. “How—”
You calmly tucked the card away, giving a simple explanation. “Probably because of my inherited cursed technique and cursed energy reserves.”
Haibara’s eyes practically sparkled. “So you’re like, super crazy strong then?”
“No,” you shook your head. “It just means I meet certain criteria.”
“You don’t need to be humble,” Nanami huffed, a hint of admiration tempering his disbelief. “Being ranked first grade at our age is seriously impressive. You should be proud.”
Realizing yet another misunderstanding was brewing, you opted to clarify matters fully this time. “No, it’s not impressive. And I’m not being humble. I’ve never actually exorcised a real curse before.”
Cue more jaw-dropping. Nanami squinted at you suspiciously, clearly trying to detect any hint of deception on your part. Your expression remained an open, impassive book as always.
Haibara’s brows furrowed in confusion. “But you said you’re from one of the big three clans, right? Why wouldn’t they have trained you properly if you’ve got an inherited technique and that much cursed energy?”
You smoothed the sleeves of your yukata as you considered how best to summarize the Zen’in clan’s signature assholery in a succinct manner. A brief overview would suffice for now.
“I had basic training on cursed energy control. Enough to make sure I wouldn’t accidentally blow up anything. But that’s it.”
“But why the hell not?” Nanami asked incredulously.
Taking a measured breath, you gave them a little more of the abridged reason. “Because I’m not meant to be a powerful sorcerer. My role is to be married off to another prominent clan or family, to help consolidate the Zen’ins’ standing.”
Despite your matter-of-fact delivery, the heavy subject seemed to weigh uncomfortably on Haibara and Nanami, if their wide-eyed expressions were any indication. From your experience in reading people, you could guess the roiling waves of emotions radiating off them were something approximating pity and sympathy, perhaps some anger on your behalf as well.
This was something you had little to no frame of reference for. How were you meant to react to that? You frantically attempted to channel what your mother would do in such a situation, then you realized just how ludicrous that thought was. No one would dare regard Mother with anything resembling pity.
Mercifully, Haibara once again came to the rescue. He flashed you his usual bright grin. “Well hey, now that you’re here, you can get all the proper training you’ve been missing out on!” He looped an arm around Nanami’s shoulders, roping the guy into the plan whether he liked it or not. “Nanami’s already got experience exorcising curses, right? And I’ve been doing it for a little while too. Between the two of us, we can help you catch up. It’ll be way more fun working together as a team!”
Nanami made a half-hearted attempt to wriggle free of Haibara’s grasp before giving up with a sigh, realizing there was no deterring this human embodiment of enthusiasm. “Yeah, sure, I guess. We’re gonna be going on missions together anyway. Might as well make sure everyone's up to speed.”
His words lacked Haibara’s overly bright inflection, but you could detect no disdain or judgment in Nanami’s tone. There was perhaps a hint of that same inscrutable emotion from earlier when you’d deployed Mother’s disarming smile. But it didn’t seem to be pity, at least.
An odd sensation bloomed in your chest – light, almost effervescent. You made a mental note to analyze it more closely later. For now, you inclined your head, allowing a small smile to tug at your lips, since smiling always seemed to do the trick. “I’d appreciate your help.”
Your smile elicited curious physiological reactions in the guys.
Nanami’s face flushed crimson again, and he suddenly found the wall decor positively riveting. Even Haibara’s cheeks went a little pink, this time, though it didn’t deter his motormouth tendency as he swiftly filled the air with an aimless stream of chatter.
You let yourself sink back into the couch cushions, watching Haibara’s animated babbling with an unfamiliar sense of ease. If your aunts could see you right now, slouching so inelegantly amidst two civilian-born young men with nary a chaperone in sight, they’d clutch their pearls hard enough to break the string. Good thing they weren’t here, you mused.
Surrounded by the easy camaraderie of your new friends (?), you made an executive decision to stick with them going forward. Call it a whim, a gut instinct, or maybe just recklessness. Because for reasons you couldn’t quite articulate yet, you knew that as long as you were with them, you’d be okay.