BOUND; jujutsu kaisen

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE . . .
. . . EYES LIKE MINE !

The life expectancy of jujutsu sorcerers dropped every century. As the population grew, humans overlapped every crevice of the world, so did curses. The emotions of humanity trailed this brutal fate; hate, sadness, envy, lust, disgust, fear, and etc. Then, there was the most cruel one of all:

Love.

Love was an emotion that transcended the boundaries curses may act upon. This emotion can act on any means, festering under every emotion imaginable, controlling any person. It was dangerous. Dangerous in a form that made people act certain ways, made them mad, made them selfish, ultimately controlling their very being.

Love was a curse, one that every person is born with, something no one can run away from. From the moment of birth, they are suffocated by their mothers and fathers, protected and cherished. Familial love is the first a human is surrounded with. And it's the reason Jujutsu society slashed that connection.

Duty and sacrifice.

Love is no more.

The Jujutsu society wasn't for the weak. Children are taught tradition from the moment air catches in their lungs, separating their roles by gender. They'll grow, but never long enough to see the streaks of white in their hair, the permanent wrinkles sprinkled across their face, or their frail voice.

Girls into women. Women into wives.

Boys into men. Men into soldiers.

Toji was a different case, shadowed by this society, shunned. He fought, scratched, and crawled for his life, to keep living despite the attempts on his life. Scars littered the roughness of his skin, many permanent, the majority within. He remembers the chamber, the concrete ground, and sinister growls. The smell of death and fear— the longest he has been punished was two days.

He survived.

He is an animal.

He shouldn't exist.

He is a stain on the Jujutsu society.

Still, he lives- the moment he turned nineteen, he licked his wounds and left nothing in the wake of dawn, as if he never existed. On the streets of Tokyo, he scoured, using what he knew to get by.

Killing.

Slaughtering.

Hope was something foreign to Toji. Even within the chambers of certain death, he never prayed, he never apologized, nor asked for mercy. He planned and conspired for his ambition to survive, to desecrate the Jujutsu world, rip it apart from within, and witness every shred of greed crumble.

This is his true ambition.

Yet here he stood, for the first time in his mere existence, Toji felt the delicate touch of hope. It grazed him on a summer day, pinkish lips curling up to a serene smile. Emi Fushiguro, a bright shining star, one belonging to the skies above him. Her voice was as sugary as her clothes, light and pastels, hair tied neatly into a ponytail.

She didn't belong in the streets of Tokyo.

She belonged somewhere enchanted.

Her hazel eyes burned and glimmered, hands holding a bouquet of lilies.

She was the presence of hope herself, transformed. This woman picked him back up, fixed the shattered pieces of his soul, and then walked back to her dainty flower shop with a gleeful smile...

He was smitten.

Near instant love. Maybe it was because, for the first time in his brute life, he was willing to risk his life and sacrifice selflessly if it meant she stayed safe and happy. He could remember the numerous times he'd take the long way home, just to pass by her small shop. When seasons passed and flowers died, the scent of flowers, lilies, and lavender never left her soft cardigan. It became daily when he'd find himself in the back of her shop, tea in hand as she chatted happily.