Chapter 22

Thump, thump, thump.
His own heartbeat.
Deafening.

Takizawa Sei trembled as he covered his ears. Satoru Gojo’s voice seemed to be muffled by a thin membrane of water; he could see the other man speaking, but the syllables were beyond comprehension.

Fear—yet he could not articulate why. Beyond the terror, there seemed to be other emotions lurking. To someone who had spent years fighting cursed spirits, the sound of an explosion was not unfamiliar, but Sei identified it instantly: this was the blast of gunpowder, the sharp crack of a bullet slicing through the air. It was only a few shots, yet it left him paralyzed, as if trapped in a hail of gunfire.

"Sei!"

Satoru’s voice finally pierced the intangible barrier. Sei looked up in a panic. The young man was kneeling before him, his hands cupping Sei’s head. His sunglasses had been cast aside, allowing Sei to look directly into those eyes, bright as shattered ice, without obstruction.

"…Satoru…" After a long moment, Sei replied, his voice faint.

Satoru frowned. "What is wrong with you?"

Sei slowly pulled his hands away. The surroundings had quieted; there were no gunshots, no continuous explosions. The chaotic noise he had hallucinated was merely the sound of passersby stopping to whisper as they looked toward them.

"I… I was just startled."

"You expect me to believe that?"

"…" Sei pursed his lips and admitted, "I had a bad memory."

Satoru’s expression was no better than Sei’s. He gripped Sei’s arms and pulled him up with a force that could only be described as stern. "Get up first, then tell me what you thought of."

Sei felt as though he had been hoisted up bodily. He stared blankly at his own feet, suddenly finding it somewhat amusing. "Satoru, I’ve hoisted you up like this before, haven't I?"

The shift in his tone was too rapid, as if the negative emotions that had just gripped him had completely vanished. Satoru felt the urge to scold him. "Don't try to change the subject. Your hands are so cold it’s like you’re suffering from a deficiency of blood and energy. Come on, let’s go sit in that shop."

Next to them was a bookstore; it was quiet and seemed like a suitable place to rest.

Sei followed Satoru’s lead toward the bookstore, his gaze dropping to his own knees. He had fallen too hard earlier without any instinctual self-protection. He could feel his trousers sticking to his knees, slightly damp, though the pain was at its lowest ebb. He didn't pay it much mind, his mind still reeling from the shock as he looked at Satoru.

At moments like this, as long as he could see Satoru, he felt as though nothing else mattered.

Sei licked his lips, which he had accidentally bitten earlier. He hadn't lied to Satoru; he had indeed thought of an exceptionally unpleasant experience. That memory had once been erased by someone else, and later, when he recalled it, the system had initiated a protection mechanism because it was too detrimental to his mental state. But now that he had broken free from the system, that barrier had naturally been withdrawn.

He hadn't expected that he still hadn't emerged from that shadow.

Sei’s gaze dimmed, and he unconsciously reached out to take Satoru’s hand.

With their fingers interlaced and palms pressed together, his heart settled significantly. Sei sat in the corner of the bookstore, dejected, leaning against the window that looked out onto the flow of people, with Satoru sitting opposite him.

The news had already reported the disturbance; someone had caused trouble at a nearby hospital.

"A nearby hospital…" Sei muttered dully. "Isn't that where I stayed?"

"It’s already been resolved. If you’re really worried, we can go check."

"Forget it. Things are so tense over there, we shouldn't just wander close—wouldn't that just be adding to the chaos?" Sei took the tea the shop clerk handed him and gulped down half of it. "I'll call Ms. Furubayashi later. In this state… she’ll misinterpret it as me having some bad tendencies again."

Satoru sat directly across from him. Even though the bookstore was filled with warm yellow light and decor, he gave off a cold, distant feeling. Sei wasn't intimidated by this version of Satoru; he busied himself with calming down, and Satoru did not urge him.

Time seemed to pass very slowly. Looking through the ripples in his teacup, Sei realized his hands were still trembling.

...How pathetic.

Satoru was the first to speak. "Nine years ago, you were ambushed too. A bullet entered your body. Is that what you were thinking of?"

Wrong.

Sei had been ambushed quite often since he was young.

He was the double for the Six Eyes, possessing the same hair color as Satoru and a similar age. To blur the line between him and Satoru, the Gojo clan had even made him wear contact lenses modeled after the Six Eyes. When necessary, if the higher-ups learned of a threat against Satoru, they would have Sei draw their attention and divert their fire.

"It wasn't that incident… I dug that bullet out myself, and Shoko healed the wound. That kind of injury isn't enough to make me afraid—you know me." Sei was honest about this, but he didn't know how to explain the bizarre nature of his memory to Satoru, so he stammered a bit. "The bad experience I just thought of… it was…"

*Bang!*

Another gunshot rang out in the distance.

The sound was muffled by the distance and the walls of the shop, no longer explosive, but Sei still shuddered violently. Cold sweat instantly broke out on his forehead; his pupils dilated, and his entire body went rigid, paralyzed by the peak of terror.

He couldn't even seem to make a sound.

Satoru sat up straight at once. Suddenly, a familiar voice came from behind the bookshelf. "Satoru, if he doesn't want to say it, don't force him. Besides, he’s already back."

The voice caused Sei, who was trying to psych himself up, to snap his head up. Before he even saw the newcomer, a wave of joyful surprise surged into his eyes.

"Geto!"

Sei pushed himself up from the table, his voice filled with uncontrollable excitement and delight. Suguru Geto, who had just emerged from behind the bookshelf, had only just begun to offer a familiar, gentle smile to greet his old friend when he heard Sei say something shocking: "So you weren't dead after all!"

Geto: "..."

Geto cast a chilly glance at Satoru.

Satoru shrugged. "Don't look at me. I didn't say that. I never mentioned you when I was with him." The subtext of this was quite interesting; it was as if Geto were seeing the Satoru of their youth, sitting there with a casual air, boasting with a hint of pride: *When I'm with Sei, I don't think of anyone else.*

He had a one-and-only companion.

Sei grumbled, "It’s precisely because you didn't mention it that I misunderstood! Neither you nor Shoko ever talked about him; it looked worse than a falling out."

He limped toward Geto and opened his arms, pulling him into a big hug.

Watching his unsteady form, a flash of surprise crossed Geto's eyes, and he then returned the embrace firmly.

"..."

Ah… so that was it.

The black-haired young man’s eyes fixed, sweeping lightly over Sei’s smiling face.

The sensation was soft and warm. He had truly returned.

It was actually true.

To the naked eye, he looked just like a living human being.

No wonder Satoru had struggled so much.

Distracted by Geto, Sei’s mood improved significantly. He followed Geto’s lead and played along, feigning a bit of shame. "That's right, it’s all in the past. I was a bit pathetic earlier, huh? But I’ll adjust soon…" In the end, his voice lowered involuntarily. "Anyway, you understand. I’ve always been bold; this reaction must have something to do with my death."

"..."

The atmosphere fell silent at the word he uttered, but it quickly warmed up again due to their intentional avoidance of the topic.

"Sei, your leg…"

"I'll have Shoko help with it when we get back. Though, I wonder if that would be troubling her? It isn't a serious injury, just a large bruise that will probably appear by tomorrow."

Sei lifted his pant leg. "It’s hard to tell right now."

Geto brought over a chair. For the first time since Sei’s return, the three of them sat together.

Sei was overjoyed by the unexpected reunion. "Geto, Satoru must have told you about my situation. What about you? What are you doing now?"

Geto wore a casual suit, his eyes arched with a carefree air. His features were more mature than in Sei's memories, but he still possessed that gentle temperament Sei was familiar with.

"Hmm… I'm playing at 'fighting fire with fire'." Geto narrowed his eyes with a cryptic smile.

"…?" Sei was confused. "Is that the 'fighting fire with fire' I think it is?"

"That's the one," Satoru interjected. "This guy is a radical now. To put it in simpler terms—he’s my blade out in the field."

Geto said earnestly, "Sei, don't listen to his nonsense."

"Isn't it true? Isn't it?"

"I’m just doing what I want to do."

"Aiyoo~"

Seeing them bickering, Sei showed a look of inexplicable relief. "As long as you’re both doing well, that’s all that matters."

He clutched his heart. "Do you have any idea how much I secretly grieved when I thought you were dead!"

Geto shrugged. "That’s not my fault."

Sei, in high spirits, wanted to chat more, but out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a group of officers who had clearly finished their duty walking toward them. This was the main path back to the police station.

"Sorry, I’m going to go talk to my friends. Geto, wait for me here, you have to wait for me, okay?"

Sei emphasized this repeatedly, stomped his still-weak legs, cursed himself under his breath for being useless, and hurried toward them.

The young man’s figure soon appeared outside the window. Satoru didn't need to turn his head to see him.

He was clearly running toward a young man with black curly hair in the group. The other man saw him too, his face full of surprise as he went to meet him, instinctively reaching out and quickening his pace because of Sei’s slightly staggering gait.

Sei was smiling apologetically.

"..."

"You originally wanted to keep him, didn't you?" Geto said.

Satoru rubbed his fingertips, his gaze not moving a fraction from Sei.

"Yes. I thought that as long as I could protect him forever, it would be fine to keep him by my side forever."

"Geto, I had convinced myself to let Sei stay."

Satoru thought of the blue-eyed young man’s pain earlier. When he knelt on the ground, the overwhelming cursed energy drowning him, in the vision of the Six Eyes, his form had been so blurred it almost lacked a silhouette.

"But now I think…"

"He belongs in a place of peace and freedom."