•My Father | JJK

07

19 YEARS PRIOR

Strangely enough, after that weird encounter where Satoru did nothing but stare at the girl for not even a whole minute, the same scene kept on playing in his brain. Sometimes, it would play only once before disappearing completely from his current thoughts, like sometimes it could simply play again and again for long minutes in his mind before his attention was being caught by something else or someone else. It has only been a few days since he had seen her, so the scene was still in his mind, full of details and fresh. He could observe the moment in his mind as clearly as if he would have taken a picture with the most expensive camera there was on the market at the moment. He did not know why this encounter remained so detailed and affected him so much that he thought of it for longer than he should. There truly wasn't something so special with the scene. Maybe the only thing that slightly surprised him was his junior, Nanami Kento, being included in the frame, but other than that, there really wasn't anything out of place. To anyone, this moment would even look rather boring and usual. People smiled like her every day, so why would it become so special when she smiled? But for three people, it wasn't. It was more than just a 'Normal moment'.

Firstly, for this girl, who he still didn't know the name of.

Secondly, for Nanami, as Satoru assumed that the two of them were related and pretty close.

And thirdly, with great surprise, to himself, Satoru Gojo, the strongest sorcerer.

Maybe it was because her smile was so genuine that it simply moved him? It's not something he would believe, if he was honest. He was more on the side of 'It's the first time I ever see her smile after weeks of seeing nothing else than an angry scowl'. And he had to admit, that even if her looks weren't anything spectacular, her smile really was unique and beautiful. Perhaps it was because of this. He was shocked to see such amazing features on the face of someone who was not especially outstanding in her appearance. She was so plain and normal that it could hurt someone like Satoru to even look at her for too long, but even so, even if his eyes would bleed from looking at someone so plain looking like her, he wanted to keep looking at her. To simply keep his unique, outstanding, beautiful eyes on someone so plain, normal, and even maybe boring. Why? That he didn't know. He was still trying to figure that out and the results gave nothing he could be satisfied with. So he kept searching. Searching he will until he finds an answer he would find acceptable.

But what if the answer was something he didn't even want to think about? He still hadn't thought of that yet. It has only been three days since they last saw each other. Or more like Satoru had last seen the girl. Because, while Satoru was seemingly hypnotized by the scene, the girl hadn't even noticed him, standing still in the middle of the sidewalk, watching her every movement and expression.

Before, Satoru was searching for a way to anger her, annoy her. He enjoyed the frustrated expression on her face. He found it ridiculous and laughable. He chased after her frown, her scowl, her annoyance. It's not like it was that difficult to have it either. She was so quick to infuriate all the time and he used that to his advantage every time for his enjoyment. But for some reason, he did a whole 360 when he finally had witnessed another emotion than anger and annoyance on her face. He found this smiling expression much more pleasing to the eyes than that ridiculous frown of frustration she would always give him.

From now on, instead of searching for a way to anger her, he would search for a way to make her smile.

The only problem, was that he didn't know where to start to achieve this goal.