Chapter 9

This one jumps around a bit! Sorry in advance!

"I am so bored," Haibara whined. He reclined on the couch in the common room beside Nanami, legs propped up on the back while his head hung off the edge of it. He'd been complaining for a solid ten minutes, saying how he was ready for classes and missions to start back up, saying how he was going to get promoted now that he was a second-year and all sorts of other things that Nanami stopped listening to one minute in.

"Say you're bored one more time," Nanami muttered, without looking up from the newspaper he'd been flipping through.

"Well sorry," Haibara complained. "I was under the impression that our dear sweet Kaia would be returning to us this morning and that we could go into the city and get food. But no. Here we are, stuck waiting late at night. What if she got eaten by a curse?"

Nanami sighed, "Kaia is actually close with her family. She probably left later than she intended."

"Wow. The audacity to leave us waiting without giving us so much as a warn—"

"You got something to say, Haibara?"

Nanami looked up from his newspaper and felt a small smile spread across his face when Kaia stood in the threshold of the common room. Her auburn hair was in an intricate braid over her shoulder and her fringe was pushed to the side, drawing attention to her pretty green eyes. It was one of the few times she wasn't in her school uniform and instead was in a pair of blue jeans that were tied to her hips with an old shoelace and a white tank top.

"Kaia! You're back!" Haibara shouted excitedly, throwing himself off the sofa, wrapping his arms around her shoulders, and hugging her.

She laughed and patted him on the back, shooting a grin at Nanami.

"Miss me?" she asked.

"Terribly," he drawled. He set the newspaper on the table and stood up, intending on guiding his friends out of the common room only to find himself being tackled by Kaia. He grunted as she threw herself into his arms, jumping on him by wrapping her arms around his neck and knocking him off his feet. They tumbled to the floor, Nanami careful to wrap an arm around her waist and land first so he was the one taking the brunt of the fall.

"Was that really necessary?" he groaned when she laughed from where she was seated in his lap. She may have looked slim, but she was heavy as hell since she had so much muscle packed onto her body.

"You didn't call me all summer and you missed my birthday. So yes, Kento. It was necessary," she remarked.

He sighed but didn't bother arguing with her. He didn't feel like explaining to her that he didn't call because he'd been sent on mission after mission all summer and only recently returned from one where he'd been observed by Satoru Gojo prior to his promotion to Grade 1. Which incidentally was something else he forgot to tell his friends.

"Aw man! When was your birthday?" Haibara asked.

"Last night," Kaia said. She stood up, helping Nanami get up as well, and smiled at Haibara, walking back over to the threshold of the common room like she was ready to get going. "So there's still time for you to make it up to me."

"Oh, so you're a Leo. That makes sense," Haibara said under his breath while averting his eyes to the side.

"What does that mean?" Kaia asked, planting her hands on her hips.

"It means you're a self-assured pain in the ass."

Nanami blinked in shock as Satoru Gojo walked in with Shoko Ieiri and quite literally smacked Kaia on her ass.

She squeaked and her mouth fell wide open and her cheeks turned a shade of red that Nanami didn't think was possible. Ieiri giggled into her hand and Gojo smirked at where Kaia started fuming.

"What the hell, Gojo!" she shouted, cheeks still on fire.

"Sorry I missed your birthday, Kaia," Shoko said. "I was hoping you'd be here. I wanted to take you out!"

"Hey, hey, back off. Second-years get dibs on Murakami. We already made plans," Haibara said.

Ieiri twisted her hair and smirked. "Sorry, Haibara. Former roommates have a bond that you couldn't possibly hope to comprehend."

Haibara and Ieiri continued to bicker while Nanami just leaned against the wall, observing everything with a keen eye. As Haibara and Ieiri argued over who got to hang out with Kaia the night before classes started back up, Kaia was busy glaring daggers at Gojo and he was just watching her with a smirk.

"Cat got your tongue, Bunny?" Gojo asked in a soft voice that Nanami barely heard over the sounds of Haibara and Ieiri's argument.

Kaia's face flushed and she clenched her hands into fists at her sides.

"Call me that again and see what happens," she said through her teeth.

Not good. At this rate, she was going to get detention before the term even started. Nanami pushed himself away from the wall and stood a little closer to his friend in case he needed to intervene. Gojo sat on the sofa and stretched his long arms out so they rested along the back and put one leg up on the table.

"Aw, don't be like that. I know you like it," he said casually, adjusting his sunglasses so they covered his eyes better. "Spend the break training? It looks like your cursed energy has improved. It looks clean. Strong even."

Kaia shifted from one leg to the other.

"Um, yeah? Thank you?"

He grinned. "No problem. Looks good on you, Bunny."

Kaia lunged for him but Nanami saw it coming, so he was quick to reach out and grab her, arms going around her torso and holding her back before she had the opportunity to try and start a fight with Satoru Gojo. She flailed her limbs as Nanami held her, all the while Gojo burst into amused laughter.

"Let me go!" she yelled like a feral little child.

"Haibara! It's time to go," Nanami said when it got increasingly more difficult to keep Kaia at bay. She may have been little but goddamn she was strong. He was going to kill Gojo himself for patronizing his friend to the point that he had to do this shit to keep them all out of trouble.

Haibara looked over his shoulder and took one glance at the situation before he put it together and laughed at Ieiri for having won Kaia for the night. Nanami dragged her out of there with Haibara flanking them, refusing to let go until they were at the front doors of the school.

By then she was no longer flailing but instead seething through her teeth.

"I HATE HIM."

"Why do you have to do that? Why do you have to patronize my friend?" Ieiri asked. She sighed and sat beside Gojo on the sofa as they waited for Geto to join them. He pulled out his cell phone and paged through texts before shrugging.

"Oh, lighten up. It's all in good fun, Sho," he said. He shoved his cell phone in his pocket and found her glaring at him.

"You're not going to make her your latest conquest, are you? I really don't have it in me to deal with my friend hanging on your every word and crying herself to sleep when you inevitably break her heart," she said.

Gojo snorted. While he may have had his fair share of conquests, he didn't really consider adding Kaia to the list. He didn't take her seriously enough for that and while she was pretty, she wasn't quite on the level he was used to. She wasn't as curvy as Mei Mei or as stunning as that model he hooked up with a few weeks ago. Nah, adding Kaia to the list wouldn't have been worth the hassle.

But teasing her? Flustering her and giving her a hard time? That was priceless and definitely worth any hassle that came with it.

"You really think so little of me?" he asked, feigning innocence.

"Little bit, yeah," Ieiri said.

"I guess that's fair," he admitted. "But no, I'm not planning on making Murakami my latest conquest. She's just easy to wind up and it's fun to see her lose her shit."

"You're such an asshole."

He shot her a cheeky grin.

"You love me."

Kaia pushed her bowl of ramen to the side and looked between Nanami and Haibara. They finished up a little before she did and were bickering about something she didn't particularly care about. She yawned into her hand and checked the time, surprised to see that it wasn't even nine o'clock.

"Tired already?" Haibara noticed.

"Yeah, I haven't been sleeping well," she said. She imagined a sharp sting in her throat and rubbed it to remind herself that she was fine. "I keep having these weird dreams."

"Weird how?" Nanami asked. He looked at her carefully from the other side of the table and Kaia sighed. She hadn't told anyone about the dreams. Not Shoko, Maha, or even her parents. But she always felt safe with Nanami and Haibara. Going on so many missions together where you depended so heavily on each other had a tendency to do that.

"Well," she started, deciding to just do it. Share her burden with someone else. "I've had this recurring dream for months now. It's always the same. I'm in a house that's falling apart. The hallways are super narrow and the paint's peeling. Sometimes there's blood on the floor and walls and sometimes there's not. And then there's always this odor that smells like rotting meat. And then I walk through the house and there's a lullaby that's being sung by an old woman, but it's not a lullaby I know. It sounds like something out of a cowboy movie—I don't know. A-and then…"

She hesitated, reliving the scene she'd been watching the last few nights where she reached the chair with the corpse in it.

"I can't stop myself and I walk deeper into the house and get to an empty room with a chair in it. There's always been someone in the chair but it wasn't until a few weeks ago that I finally saw who it was. It…" her voice got caught stuck on the top of her lungs and she cleared her throat, looking down at her hands and interlocking her fingers together. "It's me. There's a corpse in the chair that's mine. And my throat's been cut and there's blood everywhere and I just… Lay there."

She glanced up nervously, waiting for one of her friends (Haibara probably) to laugh at her, but he didn't. They both stared at her with blank expressions until Haibara broke the silence and gave her a sheepish smile.

"Well, it's just a dream, right? I know it's creepy, but I'm sure it's fine," he said.

"I agree," Nanami said. "It's unsettling, especially because of the frequency, but it isn't real. You just need to tell yourself that."

She nodded. She had told herself the same thing too, but there was also the other little piece she hadn't mentioned. She tugged on her braid and winced.

"Right, I agree. Except, remember when I went home last term? There was the curse in my house and Gojo had to come get me?"

"Oh yeah, we remember. Yaga had your ass in detention for a month," Haibara said, choking back a snicker when Nanami glared at him.

"Har, har. I bring that up because right before the curse attacked us, I could have sworn I heard an old woman singing the lullaby," she said quietly.

The smile was immediately wiped from Haibara's face and even Nanami looked pale. She watched as they looked at each other and waited for one of them to tell her it was fine. That she imagined it. That everything was just a dream.

"That's freaky as shit," Haibara said.

"I know!" she whined, huffing and tucking her fringe behind her ear. "Tell me everything's fine! Tell me that I'm just being paranoid."

"You're being paranoid," Haibara offered.

Nanami didn't have such an immediate response and that's what worried her. She nudged him with her foot under the table so he looked at her and she put her hand out, urging him to say what exactly was on his mind.

"Your cursed moon technique gives you future-sight, correct?" Nanami asked.

Kaia's heart fell. She didn't like where this was going.

"Yeah."

"How does that work exactly?" he pressed.

"I don't really know. I think it just gives me the edge in a fight. It allows me to know what my opponent is going to do before they do it, but I don't really know much else about it. I hardly ever use that technique so I haven't figured out how it works," she said.

"Is it possible that it could give you premonitions? You said you had that vision in Okinawa."

"You had a vision?" Haibara asked.

Kaia rubbed her forehead with the back of her thumb and avoided her friend's questioning eyes. She looked at the table and shrugged.

"What are you saying, Nanami?"

"I'm saying these dreams may be a warning, especially if you heard the singing while you were awake," Nanami said carefully.

"So you're saying that I'm going to get my throat cut one day?" she deadpanned.

"No, I'm saying that your dreams might be a warning. They might be from your subconscious or whatever it is that takes over when you use your technique trying to make you aware of some impending danger," Nanami said. He kept eye contact with her, and although he didn't soften his words, his expression was even. He didn't look freaked out like Haibara and he didn't seem particularly worried either.

It did wonders putting her at ease.

She looked out the window on her left, admiring the busy streets of Tokyo as people went out to dinner together or drank cocktails on a rooftop somewhere. She rubbed the back of her neck and frowned.

"Maybe. I wonder what from."

"Try not to worry about it," Haibara said. "Maybe just be a bit more careful on missions."

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea," she said. She nodded at her two friends and asked, "what's been going on with you guys? Anything new?"

"Nothing here," Haibara said.

"Actually, I have news. I was promoted to Grade 1," Nanami said casually, as if that wasn't a huge deal and it happened every day.

"WHAT!" she and Haibara yelled in unison. Other customers in the ramen bar shot them sharp glances for the outburst but they didn't pay attention because they were too busy playfully shoving Nanami around and congratulating him.

"Nanami! That's amazing!" she gushed.

"The boy is all grown up! He's gonna get his own missions now and leave our little team behind," Haibara said, feigning tears and wiping his dry eyes.

"I bet Shoko has some booze we could borrow. We should celebrate!" Kaia said with a big smile on her face.

"That's really not neces—hey!" Nanami's words were abruptly cut off as she and Haibara jumped out of the booth and started manhandling him and dragging him by his arms out of the restaurant and back to the school.

"I hate you both."

Kaito sat at the dining room table long after his wife and daughter had gone to bed. He sipped his tea and kept his eyes close, paying close attention to every influx of cursed energy that came and went. He could feel his own and his wife's down the narrow hall that led to the bedrooms and nothing else.

Which was good.

He pushed himself away from the table and stood in front of the sink that overlooked their courtyard. He saw nothing, just the trees blowing in the warm summer wind. His eyes flickered to the side of the window where fresh seals were placed. They were intact and adhered to one of the many entrances into the house exactly as intended.

All of it was good, but it did nothing to calm his nerves. He was on edge, pacing around the kitchen and checking and re-checking every window and door.

He found a broken seal that morning. The one that typically sat above the front door.

Something was trying to get inside.

But what? What the hell could be trying so hard to get inside his home?

A curse user would know the Murakami lived there, and while Kaito didn't have the clan's inherited technique, he was powerful enough in his own right. And Ren? Only a fool would try to attack her in her own home. Ren put his own strength to shame. She was a goddamn pit viper in a fight and never hesitated to deliver a killing blow.

Yet there he was, finding broken seal after broken seal around his house. And to think, had it not been for Satoru Gojo he never would have known they were broken at all and he wouldn't be on the lookout.

Something was hunting them and he was determined to find out what.

Shoko, Gojo, and Geto had been bored out of their minds in the common room. She had made Mei Mei come by the previous week and set up a TV since Yaga barred them from hanging out in the hidden room after last term's little party, but sitting in the common room watching a bad horror movie with zero alcohol was just not a fun time. Especially when Gojo and Geto had still been acting kinda off since the star plasma vessel incident.

If they'd been able to sneak off, she would have busted out the booze to make them lighten up, but it wasn't worth getting Yaga so pissed off before the term even started. He was principal now and warned them all that he was going to start being a lot harder on all of them, evident by his little cursed corpses that occasionally poked their heads in the room throughout the night.

But then a few hours later, the second-years came bounding into the common room, energy buzzing all around them and chatting excitedly. At least, Yu Haibara and Kaia were chatting excitedly. Kento Nanami just stood there with a supremely irritated expression on his face as the two of them giggled relentlessly.

"Sho! Just the person I wanted to see!" Kaia said. She planted her hands on her hips and smiled brighter than the goddamn sun. "Haibara and I just found out that Nanami here was promoted and we wanted to celebrate and—"

"What is that?" Geto asked, suddenly interrupting Kaia's excited babble. He narrowed his eyes at her, or rather at something behind her, and leaned forward in his seat on the sofa to rest his elbows on his knees.

Kaia's chatter came to a slow stop and she slowly looked over her shoulder at the empty hallway. Shoko cocked her head to the side and did the same, but she saw nothing.

"I don't follow," Kaia said, turning back around and looking at Geto.

"Yeah, I don't see anything either, Geto," Shoko said, looking over her shoulder at her fellow third-year.

His eyes were still narrowed into slits and he never once broke away from whatever it was that he was staring at and directed his words to Gojo.

"You see that, Satoru? Behind her? Over her shoulder," he said.

"Yeah, I do," Gojo said. His voice was low and he looked at her over the bridge of his sunglasses, brow furrowed.

Kaia blinked and exchanged a suspicious glance with Haibara and Nanami.

"Wow hilarious, Guys. You're both so funny. Anyway," Kaia said sarcastically, deciding to ignore them and look at Shoko again. "Sho, I know you've got booze. Think we could borrow some? This is too perfect of an occasion to be sober. I just had a birthday and Nanami is now a Grade 1 sorcerer. You could totally drink with us!"

Shoko wanted to smile and wanted to say "of course" but she couldn't ignore Gojo and Geto on either side of her. Their aura was all wrong. They were so serious.

It wasn't normal for them.

"Murakami, you really don't see that?" Geto tried. "I know you're used to a curse following you but whatever the hell that is, is clearly something different."

"Knock it off," Kaia snapped. She gestured all around her and stared Geto down from across the room. "There is nothing behind me. I don't see anything, Haibara and Nanami don't see anything, and Shoko doesn't see anything. Stop trying to make fun of me because there's a curse that's been stalking me my entire life. It's not funny."

"When have I ever made fun of you?" Geto asked. The corners of his mouth twitched down into a frown. "I've never been anything but nice to you, Kaia."

Shoko pursed her lips together and was suddenly far more intrigued with her shoelace than the current situation. And judging from a quick glance at Nanami and Haibara, they felt the same way because they were also suddenly looking anywhere but at Kaia and Geto.

"Right, so you're not just nice to me because you're weirdly interested in my curse?" she retorted.

Oh, Kaia. Shoko sometimes just wanted to grab her and shake her by the shoulders. She respected her friend's toughness and determination, and she understood why she was the way that she was, but sometimes Kaia just needed to lighten up and not strike someone at the first sign of kindness.

"I hate to break it to you, but anyone would be interested in your curse. Not just someone with my technique," Geto said in a low voice that gave away how disappointed he really was.

Kaia hesitated and Shoko noticed the way she nervously shifted from one foot to the other and started twisting her long braid.

"…Sorry," she said in a very soft, very quiet voice.

Geto sighed, "it's fine. But there's a black shadow lingering just beyond your left shoulder. I don't know why no one else can see it, but it's plain as day to me."

"It's true, Bunny," Gojo drawled. He smirked. "I could get rid of it for you if you came a little closer and asked me nicely."

Face flushing, Kaia scoffed and shook her head, stomping away in a fit of fury.

"Fuck off, Gojo," she snapped, voice echoing from where she was clearly halfway down the hall that led to the common room. Haibara then nervously chuckled and followed her, Nanami right on his heels.

Shoko groaned and slapped Gojo in the arm, but her hand bounced off his infinity.

Right… She had forgotten that he somehow found a way to keep it active 24/7 without frying his brain.

"Bunny?" Shoko repeated, purposely over-enunciating her syllables to make a point. "Why the hell are you calling my friend bunny?"

"Because she hates it," Gojo said between snickers.

Shoko didn't like that. Not one bit. Gojo had two modes when he was pursuing his latest conquest. He would play the part of Romeo, wooing the girl until she was head over heels in love with him. He'd buy her expensive gifts and take her to nice restaurants and everything in between. Or he'd act like the petulant brat that he really was and pick on the girl like he was five years old again, tugging her braid and flicking her ear.

And it was painfully obvious to Shoko which mode he was currently in.

"I thought I told you to back off of her!" she said.

"I'm not doing anything with her!"

"You're smacking her ass and calling her bunny! That seems like doing something to me!"

"You worry too much. It's literally not even a big d—"

"Satoru, tell me you saw the shadow behind her," Geto interrupted.

Shoko and Gojo quickly glanced at each other before he responded with an even, "yeah, I saw it. Some weird things are going on with her cursed moon technique right now. It's probably related to that."

"How do you know that?" Shoko asked right away. "Why do you know that? Satoru, I swear to God if you're screwing my friend, I will kill you!"

"I'm not screwing her!" Gojo insisted.

"Then how do you know things about her that I don't even know? She hasn't even been back for a full day yet and you're saying that you know things about the cursed technique she's scared shitless of? What the hell!"

He rolled his eyes and scoffed, "you're being ridiculous. If I wanted to nail her, I would have already done it."

"You're disgu—"

"Suguru, where you going?" Gojo asked suddenly as Geto got up and took long strides to the entrance of the common room.

"I'll be back," Geto said just as he disappeared from sight.

Silence fell over them as they watched him leave. But then Shoko crossed her arms and glared at Gojo through the corner of her eyes.

He noticed and groaned, "for fuck's sake, Ieiri! I'm not screwing her!"

Kaia was fucking fuming. She was going to shove her foot so far up Gojo's ass that he was going to need to use his fucking Six Eyes to remove it. Who the hell did he think he was? Talking to her like that in front of her friends? Completely belittling her like that—as if she wasn't a jujutsu sorcerer. As if she didn't have her own skills and merit.

"Kaia, why is Gojo calling you bun—"

"Because he's an insufferable jackass!" Kaia snapped at Haibara before he could get the rest of his question out.

"Aren't you at all concerned about the shadow Geto was talking about?" Nanami asked.

"There probably isn't any shadow at all! It was probably just them being jackasses since that's all Gojo is capable of," she said, cheeks still flushed and blood still pumping in her ears with anger.

"I dunno. Geto seemed kinda bummed out when you yelled at him," Haibara said.

"He's fine," she said right away. "I'm sorry, Nanami. I just wanted us to have a fun time and celebrate your promotion and now I've gone and ruined it with my temper."

Nanami smiled softly.

"That's all right. We can celebrate some other time."

She sighed and gave him a weak smile. She still felt like a horrible friend for ruining the night, but at least he wasn't angry with her. She was going to suggest they do something else, maybe watch a movie and eat some popcorn, but then Suguru Geto was joining their little group and before any of them could say anything, he planted his hand on her midback and started pulling her away.

"Walk with me," was all he said.

He guided her outside. The air was warm around them and a full moon hung over their heads. They walked around the front yard of the school, going in slow circles around the center fountain. His long hair was pulled back like usual, but instead of his uniform, he wore a loose pair of joggers and a well-fitted t-shirt that hugged his chest and arms well enough to show off his impressive muscles. Yet despite how good he looked, Kaia noticed how tired his eyes were. They seemed far away and there were dark circles beneath them.

Something was weighing on him.

"I'm sorry I snapped at you," she said softly when he kept quiet as they finished their first loop around the fountain.

"That's all right. I understand," he said. "I know what you must think. Gojo is so ridiculous that it must look strange when his best friend is being nice to you. From your perspective, it would make sense that I was only being friendly because I wanted to know more about your curse given what my technique is."

Her cheeks flushed and she bit down on the back of her bottom lip.

"Yeah… That's kind of exactly what I thought."

"I won't lie, Kaia. I'm definitely intrigued and I want to know more about it, but that's not why I'm nice to you."

"No? Are you nice to me because it bothers Gojo?" she asked, half-joking and half-not.

The warm sound of him chuckling washed over her.

"No, though that is an added bonus," he said. "I'm nice to you because I think you have potential and I think you'd make a great ally one day. That's all. No ulterior motives or anything like that. I just see what you're capable of."

She thought back to that time on the train with Gojo when it was just the two of them leaving her parents' house. She remembered the way he looked at her over the rim of his glasses and said, 'because I can see you, Kaia Murakami.'

Her heart fluttered in her chest.

"I want us to be friends," he said, finally looking at her as they continued to walk. "And this thing that's lingering over your shoulder isn't normal. Knowing about your curse and your family's reputation? Well, I'm worried."

She stopped in her tracks and he stopped beside her. He towered over her by at least a head, just like Gojo did, only his presence wasn't as imposing for some reason. She felt comfortable with him.

The words left her mouth before she could think better of it.

"Geto, I'm sorry about what happened on your mission," she said.

He paused, eyes widening and shoulders stiffening. She clenched her jaw and waited for him to blow up on her or give her the sudden cold shoulder the way Gojo had, but he did none of that. Once the shock of her words wore off, he heaved a heavy sigh and forced a tired smile onto his face.

"Thank you, Kaia," he said softly. "Please be careful and watch this thing that's following you. I don't know what it is or why only me and Satoru can see it, but it's there. Lingering…"

So there was something there. Great. Fantastic. Just another thing that was following her.

"Is it a curse? Why can't I see it then?" she asked.

"I don't think so. There isn't any cursed energy on it. At least, there isn't yet. To be honest, Kaia. I wonder if someone placed it on you."

She did not like the sound of that one bit.

"Maybe I picked it up in Okinawa," she said more to herself than to Geto. Though, he heard it nonetheless.

"Perhaps. Have you seen any strange marks on your body?"

"I haven't really looked," she admitted. She narrowed her eyes and watched Geto, waiting for the inevitable moment that he made some jackass comment about how he could help her look, but he didn't.

"You should check. Let me know if you find anything. I might be able to exorcise it if you do," he said.

"And then take the curse for yourself, right?" she asked lightly, hoping she didn't offend him.

But he smiled at her and she felt her body relax.

"What can I say? A cursed spirit with no cursed energy? That'd throw my opponents off."

She smiled back at him, feeling lighter than she had before the night started.

Maybe he wasn't so bad after all.

*Author's note*

Special thank you to anyone who followed/favorited/left a review!

Things are starting to pick up and I'm excitedddddd. Leave a review if you're able!(: See y'all in a week!