•My Father | JJK

06

19 YEARS PRIOR

And like after every encounter between the two, Satoru Gojo and Sanae Hinode, would have the opportunity to see the other from far away in a crowd in the street or in between two rows in a store. It was barely a few days after they last had seen each other at Satoru's spot that the sorcerer had spotted the girl walking in the busy streets of Tokyo. Usually, the both of them would notice each other's presence, and then Gojo would simply wait for a reaction out of Sanae with an arrogant smile, and after a few seconds of waiting, Satoru finally got what he wanted, enjoying the displeasure evident on her face. After a few seconds, they both would go their own way, one smiling widely while chuckling and the other one frowning while cursing him in her mind. Every encounter was the same as the previous one, and the sorcerer didn't seem to get tired of it yet, to the great displeasure of the girl. But since the second encounter at the park, those small encounters have never been the same as they were, to Satoru's surprise. Now, the girl would not even bother to look in the sorcerer's way, ignoring him and avoiding him like the plague.

Satoru could only guess that he had genuinely upset her, which he didn't want if that meant that she would ignore him like that every time they would see each other instead of getting glared at just for breathing. For four weeks, every time they would see each other, the girl would glare at him with the biggest frown in history, and he had grown used to it at that point, but for now a whole week, this same girl was ignoring him as if they were total strangers. The two may be strangers as they didn't know each other's names, but they surely were not complete strangers. They were perhaps acquaintances, but even Satoru was not sure of this title. They had spoken two times in the timespan of a month or so but they saw each other in the large crowds of Tokyo almost every day. Could someone like this girl be considered like an acquaintance, even? Satoru decided to keep her at the 'stranger' level for now.

But Satoru certainly didn't have time for such things. He was studying at Tokyo Jujutsu High and if there was something that he didn't have, it was free time. He couldn't really be bothered with the life of this girl who he neither considered as a stranger nor an acquaintance. As the strongest sorcerer, he had a lot on his plate all the time. Everyone had a lot on their plate in the Jujutsu world, obviously. Jujutsu sorcerers were more than understaffed and there was just so much going on at the moment. But when someone bear the title of the strongest, it was for certain that they had a lot to deal with. It could be exhausting sometimes. But as the strongest, he was limitless and infinite. But even if he didn't have that much free time on his hands, sometimes his mind would drift to thoughts of this girl he kept on seeing for the past weeks. The thoughts would never last for a long time, but they would last long enough so he could picture the girl in his mind. He could see her black shoulder-length and thick hair, her delicate black eyelashes that framed a pair of dark blue eyes, her small nose, and her small lips.

Even if he barely knew this girl who hated him with her whole being, after picturing her in his mind, he would always wonder for a second where she would be at the moment. Would she be at school like him or somewhere in the streets of Tokyo, walking to go somewhere he couldn't care less? He didn't know and it's not like it was his problem either.

But it's not because it wasn't his business that he still couldn't think about it sometimes.

"Are you even listening to me right now?" What brought Satoru back into the real world was the voice of his friend Shoko who was looking at him with an unimpressed face. It was not the first time that Satoru would not listen to her, Satoru wasn't one to listen to anyone. Suguru who was next to Satoru looked at him and waited for an answer, slight curiosity showing on his face. Gojo laughed at her words, still walking nonchalantly with his hands deep inside the pockets of his pants.