Corpse Flowers [Jujutsu Kaisen]

🥀 Chapter One 🥀

The very first time that Manjushage Seiran met Gojo Satoru was in the confines of his home in the Spring of the Year 1995. It had been the day following her birthday on the Spring Equinox, and Satoru had known someone special was arriving because his grandmother had decorated the entire house with sweet-scented flowers the colour of dawning skies and laid out heaps of traditional sweets, especially Botamochi.

Satoru had not felt anything when the elderly woman named Anemone had stepped into their household, when everyone had bowed to greet her and welcomed her and her band of people with utmost respect. He had rarely liked the idea of giving respect without feeling personally compelled.

But it was then that Satoru saw her – just a year younger than him, with skin as unblemished and white as milk, her gleaming hime-hair as dark as obsidian and eyes as lovely as the spring-blooming cherry blossoms, it was a girl dressed luxuriantly in a red Kimono with black Uchikake.

Never before had Satoru seen this person, never before had he seen someone so captivating that he had remained still in his place, never before had he felt like he would throw himself in front of someone like this. Something had shifted within him that day, as if the entire axis of his world had shifted its course upside down.

Yet still, he had gathered himself, swallowing the dryness forming in his throat and he had walked right up to the girl, ignoring all the calls and orders as he reached her. Satoru had met his crystal blue eyes with those blossom pink eyes of hers as she looked at him in surprise, taken aback by the sudden appearance of the stranger so close to her. And Satoru had told her –

"You have to marry me,"

That had been ten years ago – Seiran had refused to marry him then and she refused to marry him today. Yet nothing would ever stop Satoru from seeking her affections, asking her to marry him, begging her to marry him and whining to her about marry him whenever he got the chance.

Seiran would've never paid any attention to him had they not ended up in the same class at Tokyo Prefectural Jujutsu High School and suffered next to him for eternity that were those four years.

From the Manjushage Family, Seiran was the very first person to formally apply and attend the Jujutsu High School, having felt like getting out of her home would allow her some life outside of the fate that awaited her in the future, even when she did not need to be studying under anyone but her grandmother.

The only solace in life at school was the presence of Yaga Masamichi, whom Seiran considered to be someone very close to her father figure that she never had in life. He always managed to get Satoru to stop annoying her during classes. But there was another presence there, in her class –

Getou Suguru – a tall sixteen-year-old with long black hair that Seiran loved the way he tied at the back of his head as well the bangs that hung on his masculine face, and the small yet bright black eyes, not to mention the way he carried himself with a subtle confidence that contrasted Satoru's overbearing ego. Seiran had liked him the moment that she had first seen him.

Yet Satoru had never let Seiran and Suguru on their own no matter how much the fifteen-year-old tried. And Seiran was certain that Satoru continuously mentioned how they were going to marry in front of Suguru just to discourage him from ever looking at Seiran romantically.

One would think that if he was so much in love with her that he would listen to what she had to say but Satoru thought of himself as someone bypassing expectations – he simply loved the reactions that Seiran would give him. Seiran often wondered if he was even sincere in his supposed feelings.

"You can question anything in the world but you can't question my feelings," Satoru had told her when she questioned. "If it is the question of my feelings, I would end my life if you asked, my love,"