Chapter 34

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After returning, Takizawa Sei and Gojo Satoru completely renovated their dormitory, as though determined to fill every aspect of their life together with ceremony and meaning.

It was not that they had been careless about such things before. Takizawa often lived with Gojo for stretches of time. At the main estate, he would carry his bedding into Gojo’s room; at the technical college, Gojo would occasionally show up with a pillow and squeeze in beside him. But, strictly speaking, they had merely slept in the same place rather than lived together in the same space.

This time, however, they seemed to be taking it more seriously than ever. They bought new toiletries, and their body wash and shampoo all had the same scent. Their clothes were similar in size, and sometimes they even wore each other’s clothes—or perhaps there had never really been such a thing as “each other’s” clothes between them.

Takizawa disliked the dormitory’s reflective flooring. It was somewhat hard, and he occasionally curled up on the floor to pet the cats when he passed by. So they laid down an exceptionally soft and comfortable carpet. Winter was approaching, but neither Sei nor Satoru was especially afraid of the cold, so they did not buy a heater.

The colors of the furniture, the little household items, the incense, the ornaments, the cat bed and dog bed pressed close together… After several days, they noticed that Daifuku always crowded into the cat bed, so Takizawa removed the divider between them.

Once everything had been arranged, Takizawa felt a strange sense of stability, along with a contradictory and inexplicable feeling of oddness.

That premonition of something being wrong came from Gojo Satoru.

Noticing Takizawa’s gaze, the strongest sorcerer turned his face from the cat he had been teasing, a light smile playing at his lips.

“What are you looking at?”

“Are you still keeping something from me?” Takizawa asked cautiously.

He had to emphasize it once more: discovering that he was about to be exorcised had given him the worst heartache imaginable.

“Guess.”

Ah!!!

Takizawa’s spirits jolted. “There really is something?! Why—?!”

Why should there be secrets between them?!

“Because Sei is too slow,” Gojo said with utter seriousness, raising one index finger. “This has gone beyond being slow. You’re at the level of a complete idiot.”

Takizawa’s pupils trembled violently. “How am I supposed to know what it is if you don’t tell me?”

“No.” Gojo pouted. “Saying it outright wouldn’t help at all.”

Wouldn’t help? How could having a mouth not help?!

Takizawa wracked his brain, but he still could not figure out what Gojo was hiding.

He scooped up Soba in one motion. “You won’t tell me? Fine, then don’t.”

He lifted the enormous blanket and crawled beneath it. After lying there for a while, he suddenly sat up as though resurrected and shouted at Gojo, “Satoru, you’ve become so unpleasant!”

Gojo: “…”

He lowered his head and murmured so softly that it was almost inaudible, “You’re the one without eyes… You just can’t see.”

***

Aside from Gojo’s shameless declaration that he was hiding something, Takizawa felt that Gojo seemed to have set something down and let it go. He was far more carefree and uninhibited than before.

He even seemed much more energetic while teaching the students.

“It’s as if living together has nourished him,” Maki Zenin said bluntly. “He’s so lively he’s transformed from a white cat into a tabby.”

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Hearing this, Takizawa turned his head in bewilderment. “A cat? You think he looks like a cat?”

Toge Inumaki made two cat ears above his head and nodded emphatically in agreement.

Panda said, “Teacher Gojo once cosplayed with cat ears on~”

“Ah, that is exactly the sort of thing he would do.” Takizawa nodded deeply.

Yuta Okkotsu rarely joined in this kind of teasing. His quietness at times like these always seemed strangely out of place. Whenever someone asked what he thought, he would fob them off with, “Um… probably.”

Probably what?

Yuta rubbed the ring hanging around his neck, his gaze drifting now and then toward Takizawa’s hand.

There was freedom in that hand.

But… why had freedom been made into the shape of a ring?

That was fidelity and restraint.

“Do we have combat training this afternoon?” the black-haired boy asked in a low voice. “I’ve already mastered all the techniques you taught us yesterday.”

Yuta had a remarkable talent for wielding a blade.

Takizawa looked at him with the indulgent fondness one might show a gifted disciple. “Unfortunately, not today. I have to go on a mission with Satoru.”

“Oh?”

“If it takes a long time, I’ll still have to travel with him for work. After all, I’m playing the pitiful role of a prisoner,” Takizawa joked about his circumstances. “Even though everything has been brought into the open, I still can’t have too much freedom.”

In any case, he would be with Satoru. Compared to that, any forced attachment was nothing worth mentioning.

***

At half past one in the afternoon, an assistant supervisor came to pick them up. Takizawa straightened his technical college uniform and got into the car beneath the assistant supervisor’s faintly astonished, flickering gaze.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Takizawa,” the assistant supervisor said respectfully.

The location where the window had detected cursed energy fluctuations was a high-rise building with no fourteenth floor. In truth, the building merely avoided the number, leaving it out when arranging the elevator buttons. Gradually, however, increasingly absurd rumors spread: if one pressed the thirteenth-floor button twice and the fifteenth-floor button twice at midnight, the elevator would stop between the thirteenth and fifteenth floors, revealing a true fourteenth floor.

“This story feels incredibly common…” Takizawa said as he stood inside the elevator. “The vanished floor has always been a popular horror story, and it still has this much power even now.”

“Isn’t there a continuation?” Gojo pressed the floor buttons one after another. “They say that inside the ‘hellish space’ that appears, there’s a man so beautiful that anyone would fall in love with him at first sight. Anyone who wanders in will then involuntarily confess, ‘I like you.’ Without exception, the man responds with a vicious tirade. After being cruelly rejected, the heartbroken victim goes to the top floor and jumps to their death.”

“…The horror story has acquired some strange romantic elements.”

They had encountered curses of this sort before, but Takizawa still found it bizarre and absurd.

Click.

The elevator doors opened somewhere that was neither the thirteenth floor nor the fifteenth.

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They had no way back. Before them lay the curse’s innate domain.

Still without the slightest trace of tension, Takizawa said, “But is that curse really so beautiful that anyone would fall in love with it at first sight? How does it work—some kind of mental attack? First, it makes people experience the ultimate bliss of being in love, then ruthlessly crushes them… It’s so unusual that I almost want to try it.”

The elevator entrance was narrow, so Takizawa stepped into the space first.

A figure stood before him.

“…”

Takizawa stared at the humanoid face.

Not beautiful in the slightest!

It was hideous, just like every other cursed spirit.

Takizawa tugged at the corner of his mouth and watched as the curse, estimated to be special grade, spread its lips and spoke one word at a time.

“Human~ strange… who?”

Something very strange happened.

The moment the curse’s voice reached his ears—

An uncontrollable, pounding heat rose within Takizawa’s heart.

His eyes widened slightly in surprise. He turned his face and said, “Satoru, this thing’s ability is real.”

The next second, something struck the floor with a heavy thud, as though a pair of knees had dropped straight down.

The curse prostrated itself on the ground, clasping its hands and raising them above its head in an utterly human gesture of fear and supplication.

“Was it your presence that frightened it?” Takizawa guessed matter-of-factly, all the while suppressing that irritating feeling of romantic infatuation.

Gojo’s expression was somewhat strange. “…I haven’t done anything yet.”

Takizawa understood at once, even as surprise crossed his face.

Gojo reached an effortless conclusion. “You’re the one who scared it.”

Scared it this badly with the vast, profound cursed energy radiating from his body.

“Tch.” Takizawa clicked his tongue. “Unexpected, but the result is the same. Hurry up and deal with it.”

He said, “I hate emotions that don’t belong to me. I hate them unbearably.”

It was as if an option that had never once opened before him had suddenly forced its way into his field of vision. It was a desire he had never noticed within himself—the so-called soulmate that human beings were always pursuing.

Takizawa looked at Gojo’s face and said in utter self-abandonment, “I need to wash my eyes by looking at you.”

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