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01: that summer
your eyes stole all my words away

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Gojo Satoru was not an overly complicated person. Some might say that he was simply an egotistical bastard who relied on his cursed inheritance and good looks. But he had dreams and aspirations all the same, no different than any other sorcerer or human. There was a void inside him that birthed constellations, dark matter coaeslescing into celestial bodies. A primordial singularity. It had to be fate or divine intervention then, that led her to him.

It was a hot summer day, the sound of cicadas buzzing in his ears. He remembered the blistering heat, the shimmering sun rays. Yaga had called them out of their rooms in the dorm. As was the wont of any teenager their age, there was a string of mumbled protests as they gathered around the communal area.

"Please don't give us a mission on a day like this," Satoru whined.

"It's not a mission," Yaga responded and he sighed in relief. "I want all of you to meet your new classmate. She just transferred from Kyoto Prefectural Jujutsu High." He turned towards the door. "Please come inside."

With his curiosity piqued, Satoru watched as a girl his age crossed the threshold of the dorm. She had an alluring face that would make any goddess writhe in envy, and midnight hair interwoven with locks of snow. Rapture and woe followed in her footsteps. Though what drew him in the most were her crimson eyes of death. Even amongst sorcerers, that was a rare trait to be had.

"My name is Kurosawa Sayuri." She bowed low. Her voice was like liquid silver and chiming bells, soft and mysterious. "Please take care of me."

Satoru exchanged glances with his two friends. That would explain her unusual appearance then. The Kurosawa clan seemed almost like an urban legend. Standing upon the precipice between gods and humans, with uncanny techniques that breached the laws of both heaven and hell.

They would have been the Big Four if the Kurosawas had not decided to turn their backs against the world. Holding themselves up in some mountain village somewhere, they had closed their doors to the entire sorcerers' society. It was said that the day the Kurosawa black gate was reopened, it was the day the world would end.

"Why did you come to Tokyo?" Suguru asked.

The girl stood straight with hands still placed politely in front of her. "Because I'm a rebel and a troublemaker."

"Heh? You don't look the type," Ieiri remarked.

Sayuri merely smiled and Satoru knew from that moment, his life would be forever changed. Crimson met azure and the stars crashed amidst each other, collapsing and exploding in a glorious supernova. The breath died on his lips, heart screeching to a halt. There was a fatal attraction between them that electrified every atom of his being.

Summer was the song of a thousand twangling instruments, of velvet sunsets and bruised lips stained with salt where the sky met the sea in the reflection of the horizon. Streaking fire across the stars and glowing festival lights. Where the sun hung so low that if he waited long enough, he might kiss the moon as she woke.

And something sparked inside him with an ephemeral, transient ache between his ribs.

After introductions were made, Yaga beckoned for Satoru. "Since there's nothing for you to do, why don't you show Sayuri around?"

His heart reverberated within his chest and though he would much rather not step out into the blistering heatwaves, he found himself acquiescing nevertheless. Between the noontide and her smile, he wasn't sure which was more blinding. The way her midnight hair flowed over her shoulders with streaks of starlight intertwined. Her slender neck and the hollow between her collarbones, the cupid's bow of her lips and the silken touch of her pale skin. He wondered how it was possible to feel as if he had known every intimate detail of her body before ever meeting her.

He must be delirious from the heat.

"Why does it have to be so hot?" he groused to himself as they stepped away from the comforts of the shade.

Sayuri chuckled affably at his attitude. "Thank you for taking me on a tour. How shall I address you, Mr. Tall and Handsome?"

She made him laugh. "Just call me Satoru."

"Pleased to be of your acquaintance, Satoru-san," she responded with a dip of her head.

"You're very polite for your age," he remarked.

"I suppose I had a very strict upbringing," she said. "I'll try to be more casual."

Despite that, the very aura she exuded was carefree. They walked towards the main facilities where the classrooms and sports field were located. Though it was mostly like any other ordinary school on the exterior, the halls and rooms were habitually deserted. There were more ghosts wandering around than any sorcerer, faint echoes of those that came before. An endless cursed cycle.

The gravel beneath their shoes crunched as Satoru stopped by the vending machines and bought iced coffee for the both of them. They sat underneath the stairs and the sound of aluminium cans opening punctured the air. The milky caffeine quenched his thirst and he wiped the beads of perspiration from his temple. From the side of his sunglasses, he glanced at her to confirm his suspicions.

This girl was hiding something hideous and terrifying.

"You're curious about it," she started, taking him by surprise. "It's okay, you can ask me whatever you want."

"Were you exiled from your clan?" he questioned immediately.

"No, I left of my own accord," she answered with a sly smile. "Don't worry, I'm not a bad person. Not really."

He turned to her with interest. It was certainly easy to doubt her when she spoke like that. "There's something different about you," he started. "Your cursed energy is off."

"I suppose I can't hide it from you, can I? But if I told you the reason, I'd have to kill you." She chuckled as if meaning it to be a joke but her eyes told him otherwise as they gazed into his. It was like staring into the jaws of oblivion.

"I can't blame you, I'm from the Gojo clan after all," he said, unperturbed.

"You don't seem like the type to have a big mouth though," she told him and she would be right. Satoru had a habit of keeping things to himself, or omitting to mention certain facts.

The way she smiled seemed as if she held all the answers of the galaxies. Like an enigmatic paradox waiting to be unraveled, Satoru was tempted to reach out and coax the secrets from her lips. There was an undeniable magnetism between them, amplified by the duality of their beings. Two sides of the same coin, the moon as it faced the sun upon the advent of their meeting. Waiting for one to devour the other.

He remembered the summer he lost himself within the sanguine sea of her eyes and the bloom of her lips. She was violets and daydreams fluttering in the wind. Sugar crystals melting between his fingertips, leaving a sticky residue that stained his skin. His heart swung like a pendulum from the earth to the sky.

The taste of first love was always the sweetest and bitterest of all.