Title: zenith of stars

Rating: T

Summary: "It's not the Six Eyes," they said. So then, the question is –what is it? [OC, Mystic Eyes of Death Perception!OC, AU]

Warnings: N/A.

AN at bottom.

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zenith of stars

"104: click clack"

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"Wow, it feels like it's been forever since we've last seen you!"

"Hello, Kinji, and… Kirara?" Shiki ends up faltering halfway through her greeting to her classmates.

Kinji looks more or less the same as she remembers. Kirara, however, has evidently chosen to completely change his wardrobe. Sort of like what Shiki had done, back when she'd acquired street clothes in order to make herself seem less obviously 'sorcerer-like.' Although, it's rather unlikely that Kirara had changed his usual style of attire for the same reason that she had.

Regardless of the reasons behind it, the new clothes definitely give him a different look. Instead of wearing his regular school uniform or some other simple outfit, Kirara is outfitted in a loose, frilled shirt with wide sleeves. Something that almost seems dress-like, and it reminds Shiki of what she has seen Tsumiki wear for fun before.

Hmm. Maybe this sort of surprise was what others around Shiki had experienced upon seeing her in her new attire?

"Hey there, Shiki," Kirara gives her a small wave, smiling. Oddly enough, there almost seems to be an edge of something almost nervous to his otherwise-friendly smile.

… The higher ups hadn't tried to cause trouble for her classmates while she'd been gone, had they?

"You've been a hard person to get a hold of," Kinji gives her a friendly clap on the shoulder before Shiki can pursue the line of thought. "Running all over the country, then out of the country, and then straight back to that clan of yours… oh, yeah. Congrats on becoming the clan heir!"

Is that really something worth congratulating?

Because considering that Satoru-niichan was the one who'd had to pay a price with the branch families… Shiki is of the opinion that the answer to this question is No. Not that becoming the Gojo clan heir would've been something to celebrate even without this entire debacle, honestly.

Shiki sighs.

"Or, uh, not congrats, maybe?" Kinji cocks his head at her, raising an eyebrow as he does so. "You weren't forced into it against your will, were you?"

"No." For all her reluctance towards the position, Shiki had been willing to take up the role. "There were other complications, so to speak. Satoru-niichan ended up swearing a binding vow for my sake, in order to secure the branch families' support."

"That, uh. Doesn't sound good." Kinji blinks.

"It isn't." Not that Satoru-niichan had seemed to think so. Or was that an act on his part to put her at ease? … No, he wouldn't have agreed to such a disadvantageous binding vow just for that. There had to be more to his decision than that.

If Shiki had to guess, then his seemingly easy acquiescence was due to ongoing tensions between Satoru-niichan and the clan's traditionalists somehow. The details of it are something that she would have to ask her cousin in order to clarify, though.

Kinji scratches his head and lets out a low whistle. "There's never an idle moment with you, huh?"

… There really isn't, is there?

Looking back on all that's happened recently, it seems that there's always been events happening one after another. Ever since Shiki decided to search for Geto Suguru after being suspended from jujutsu school, there hasn't been a single spare moment until now. Somehow, she'd gone from chasing down Geto-san to becoming the new Gojo clan heir along the way.

Clan heir, in exchange for Satoru-niichan's vow.

The fact that the traditionalists of the clan now held leverage over Satoru-niichan in the form of a binding vow was something that had the potential to be troublesome in the future. But at the same time, all branch families save for the Shunryu were now beholden to Shiki through the binding vow they'd sworn with Satoru-niichan. This was something that would give the traditionalists pause as well, because if they dared to try and use the binding vow to harm Satoru-niichan in some manner, then Shiki would proceed to remove the problem at its source permanently.

No matter what 'destabilization' it might mean for the Gojo Clan.

She had already delivered her warning in person to the branch heads, right after the vow had been sworn; if any of them intended to test her… well, it wouldn't be the first time that Shiki killed clan elders.

"Hello? Earth to Shiki?" Kinji waves a hand in front of her face. "Don't go spacing out on us here, we haven't even gotten to what we came here for yet with our little surprise visit."

Shiki tilts her head questioningly.

Kinji straightens and clears his throat. "So. We're here to officially ask you –wanna finally learn how to play pachinko?"

For emphasis, the boy proceeds to smile winsomely in a blatantly transparent attempt to convince her.

Shiki blinks at her classmate, nonplussed.

… That was certainly not what she'd expected him to say, yet somehow entirely in-character for Kinji at the same time. "I… was going to spend the afternoon assisting Tsumiki."

"Right, Tsumiki-chan!" Kirara hesitates briefly. "Is she… alright? We just heard about it from Gojo-sensei the other day that she got cursed."

"She was," Shiki nods. 'Gojo-sensei'… that would be Satoru-niichan, right? "Tsumiki isn't cursed anymore, though."

"Okay, that's good to hear," Kirara lets out a soft sigh of relief. "Gojo-sensei didn't really explain anything about it."

Satoru-niichan is definitely the sort to keep others guessing when he's in a playful mood, so Shiki can't say that she's too surprised by that.

"… Would you like to come inside?" Shiki shifts in the doorway, as it belatedly occurs to her that she's keeping guests waiting outside on the doorstep all this time. All things considered, it's a pleasant surprise to see her classmates show up at her home like this, even if it comes as a surprise that's rather out of the blue, no forewarning whatsoever.

Behind the duo, Choki is staring placidly at Mutsuo, who'd been the one to drive Shiki's classmates here. Mutsuo pointedly does not look back at his cousin, almost seeming to shrink in on himself in a way that indicates sheepish guilt. Did they have a disagreement on the way here?

… It's probably none of Shiki's business.

"Y'know, when Mutsuo-san said that you lived outside the clan compound, for some reason I thought it would be… like, I dunno. Some sort of fancy, traditional building along the same lines as your clan compound?" Kinji steps inside, Kirara following along behind him. "I mean, this is still pretty fancy, don't get me wrong, but it also looks… surprisingly normal."

"The word you're looking for is 'modern,'" Kirara supplies dryly.

"Yeah, modern!" Kinji snaps his fingers. "I guess even an ojou-sama has to live somewhere normal when she isn't… wait, what the hell. Shiki. Shiki, is that a cursed spirit sitting in a flower vase?"

Shiki follows the direction where Kinji is staring incredulously, rubbing his eyes in disbelief. There is, indeed, a cursed spirit hidden in a flower arrangement to the side, as he has so astutely observed.

To be specific, there is a minor frog-shaped cursed spirit –one that does not even properly qualify as a Grade Four– tied to the flower arrangement. The cursed spirit lets out a pitiful croak next to the curved branch laden with small apricot blossoms.

"Yes," she says. "It's a cursed spirit."

"… Is this another sorcery family thing?" Kinji's face twists and makes a funny expression. "Using cursed spirits as interior décor? Seriously?"

Shiki gives her classmate a strange look for the assumption, "Who would use cursed spirits as decoration?"

Kinji stares at her, then pointedly gestures towards the flower arrangement in the hallway.

"That's not for decoration," she corrects the misunderstanding.

"Shiki, it's literally right there in the middle of your flower arrangement," Kinji does not appear convinced.

"I am aware of its location, yes," she nods. "But it's not there for decoration. It's been placed there because–"

"Oh! Shiki, you have guests?"

Tsumiki.

It's Tsumiki who has just rounded the other end of the corridor, and peers out towards them with a bright smile.

"Tsumiki-chan!" Kirara is the first to wave and offer his greetings. "It's good to see you again. We were asking Shiki about it just earlier; we heard that you had an accident recently. Are you feeling okay?"

"It's great to see you as well! And I'm fine, really," the girl answers cheerily. "I don't even remember what happened, to be honest, so it's all a bit of a blur. I'm perfectly fine, although it's just –eeek!"

Tsumiki, being the sort of person who likes to keep a tidy space, had reached out to straighten the flower arrangement in the hallway. However, this also meant that her fingers naturally drifted a little too close to the tiny frog-curse that Kinji had spotted earlier. Unfortunately for Tsumiki, she'd only noticed when her hand was hovering right above it.

"Don't worry, it's just a… hold on a second," Kirara freezes, as a sudden realization seems to occur to him. "Tsumiki-chan, you can see it?"

"Whoa, whoa, wait a sec," Kinji breaks in, sounding equally as confused as his fellow classmate. "I thought she was a non-sorcerer?"

"She was." Until very recently, when she'd been cursed by an unknown party. They're currently still looking into matters on that front as best as they can. Shiki does not intend for the curse on her friend to go unanswered.

"Tsumiki is a sorcerer now?!"

"No, no, no," Tsumiki shakes her head rapidly, frantically waving her hands in front of herself in the negative. "I'm definitely not a sorcerer. I just… since getting cursed, it seems like I can see cursed spirits now?"

"… Huh," Kinji stares at her, still surprised. "That must've been a shock."

"Oh, it really was. Still is, honestly," Tsumiki turns towards Shiki. "Okay, we really need to talk about where these cursed spirits are being hidden all over the house! This is just getting ridiculous."

"Hold up, you're the one who put that cursed spirit there?" A brief pause, and then Kinji's voice takes on a tone of utter delight. "Shiki, Shiki, Shiki. Is this a prank. Did you put a cursed spirit in the middle of the flower arrangement to play a prank on Tsumiki-chan?"

"No," Shiki mercilessly dashes her classmate's hopes. Really, what gave him the idea that she was the type of person to play pranks? "It's desensitization training that Satoru-niichan came up with, in order to help Tsumiki get used to seeing cursed spirits in her surroundings without reacting adversely and drawing attention to herself."

"That's kind of… huh. Okay, I can definitely see how that would work," Kirara rubs his chin. "This also definitely feels like the sort of 'training' that Gojo-sensei would come up with. Didn't he come up with movie-training for Okkotsu before?"

"Movies and pranks are definitely Gojo-sensei's style," Kinji agrees. "So you put a cursed spirit in the flower arrangement because of your cousin, huh?"

"… Megumi was the one who put that cursed spirit there, not me."

A glint enters Kinji's eyes. "But you did hide cursed spirits in the house too, didn't you?"

"Shiki tried tying a cursed spirit to our cat's tail," Tsumiki informs him with a sly little smile. "Unfortunately, Mi-chan wasn't too enthused by it."

In fact, the cat had viciously batted away the mouse-shaped cursed spirit before making a decisive escape into Tsumiki's arms. Honestly, if Mi-chan's claws were capable of channeling cursed energy, Shiki seriously thinks that the cat would've been able to exorcise the cursed spirit on their own.

At least then its furry little paw would've been good for something else other than leaving deep scratches in high-quality furniture and shredding perfectly good kimonos…

Kinji laughs, and pats Shiki on the shoulder. "At least you made an attempt."

"That is kinda funny," Kirara laughs.

… Next time her friends start acting like this, Shiki is going to set Mi-chan on them.

"Hey, Tsumiki-chan," Kinji suddenly claps his hands together. "Hypothetically, would you be interested in visiting a pachinko parlor?"

"I-I'm sorry?" Tsumiki blinks rapidly, and the confused expression that she's wearing makes it clear that his abrupt question has caught her completely off-guard.

To be fair, Shiki hadn't expected Kinji to pose this question to her, either.

"Pachinko, the best game in the world," the boy whose Domain Expansion is literally based on pachinko says. "Wanna come along with us? Kirara and I are trying to convince Shiki to come along with us, but so far it's been no dice. Maybe she'll change her mind if you come along with us, too!"

"To… play pachinko?" Tsumiki frowns. "That's illegal, isn't it?"

Kinji shuffles his feet and whistles, "Pachinko is perfectly legal–"

"Not for minors, it's not," the girl huffs, this time narrowing her eyes at the boy suspiciously.

"Don't sweat the details," Kinji waves a hand with a small laugh. "Besides, it's only illegal if you're caught, right?"

"No, I'm pretty sure that's not how this goes–?"

"Pachinko is part of Kinji's cursed technique." Shiki is aware that pachinko is a gambler's game, and it's also illegal for minors according to the country's laws. Considering that it's somehow been made into an intrinsic part of Kinji's cursed technique, there's no doubt that Kinji has already flouted these laws in the past… Shiki would not presume to comment upon it, though. It is what it is. "I'm not familiar with the game, so it would be best to get a better understanding of it sometime… although now is probably not the best time for that, Kinji."

"Eh?" The boy raises an eyebrow at her. "Why not? You're finally back in the country again, and it's spring break right now. Seems to me it's a good time to take a bit of time to yourself and check out new things, no?"

Under normal circumstances, perhaps. But currently, Shiki has other concerns to be mindful of. Namely, that Tsumiki was still adjusting to being a sighted individual, and Shiki didn't want to leave her friend alone until she'd adapted to her new situation.

There was also the fact that Tsumiki had been cursed. Even though it was too late to do anything about something that had already happened in the past… Shiki staying close to Tsumiki in the aftermath would be a clear sign that she would not tolerate such a thing happening during her absence. Thus, it would serve as an unspoken warning to those who might begin viewing Tsumiki as a viable target.

Concerns about Tsumiki aside, there was also something else that needed to be taken into consideration: Shiki had literally just been named the Gojo clan heir. Running off to a pachinko parlor right on the heels of this could potentially be construed as…

… actually, never mind. What did Shiki care about playing into the traditionalists' image of a proper clan heir? Maybe a trip to a pachinko parlor would be a worthwhile activity, if it would nettle the traditionalists.

Shiki was not pleased by what they'd done, gathering together the branch families and confronting Satoru-niichan the way they did. Right now, she really couldn't care less about what they might think.

"C'mon," Kinji slings an arm over her shoulder, clearly sensing weakness upon her prolonged silence. "You said that you wanted to familiarize yourself with pachinko before, didn't you? Except there was always other stuff that took priority. Well, now here's your chance!"

Shiki gives a sideways glance towards her grinning classmate. "… You're not being very subtle."

Kinji sniffs, "Who says I'm trying to be?"

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Somehow, they end up heading out in an entire group, all seven of them. Tsumiki hadn't seemed very convinced by Kinji's insistence that age was not a concern when it came to playing pachinko ("This is definitely illegal, oh my god."), but somehow she'd been coaxed by the boy into coming along anyways.

If Shiki had to take a guess, then… maybe Tsumiki was actually curious about pachinko as well?

Megumi had also been dragged out of the house in this impromptu trip. Counting Shiki and her classmates, as well as Choki and Mutsuo who were accompanying them, somehow their group turned out to be a seven-man crowd.

"The more the merrier!" Kinji had cheered.

Neither Choki nor Mutsuo had seemed particularly enthusiastic about heading to a pachinko parlor, but they didn't protest against making the trip. Most likely because both of them were aware that Kinji's Domain Expansion was quite literally based on pachinko, so this trip was an inevitable one.

The first thing that Shiki notices upon entering the pachinko parlor that Kinji enthusiastically guides them to is the noise.

Upon the automatic doors sliding open, they are immediately greeted by an almost thunderous deluge of sound. A sound whose source would be the rapid clack-clack-clack of countless small metal balls clattering and colliding against each other in the colorful machines filling the room.

The second thing that stands out here is the smoke.

Smoke is not something that Shiki is unfamiliar with. Shoko-san smokes, and so occasionally there is the faint scent that lingers around her. Sun-san's cursed technique literally involves manipulating the smoke that he breathes in from his smoking-pipe, and the bitter scent had been considerably more pronounced on him.

But inside this crowded room that's filled with clustered machines and people avidly fixated upon said machines, the scent of smoke is thick and overwhelming. There are many who have cigarettes held between their fingers, to the point where it feels as if this is something expected and normal.

It's… strange.

The noise, the claustrophobic surroundings. Flashing lights and endless clack-clack-clack of small metal balls colliding together repeatedly again and again. It's all so very strange.

Shiki finds herself experiencing an odd sense of being… out of place, in a way. Most of the people playing pachinko here are too engrossed to pay them much mind, but there are a few who glance curiously towards them as they pass.

… Maybe Shiki should've changed into her 'street clothes' before following her classmates to a pachinko parlor. It's a little too late to think about that now, though.

Kinji seems to be very familiar with the staff working here. The boy makes a beeline towards the reception desk as soon as they enter, and it doesn't take long before they're quietly led towards a secluded side room, still filled with the same bright-colored machines.

"So, first you start with these…" Kinji raises a basket filled with small metal beads, and begins explaining.

The general gist of what Shiki understands is as follows: These metal beads are meant to be fed into the machines. Following this, the player then presses a lever on the side of the machine. The lever launches the ball through the machine, and through all the many pins and small boards acting as maze-like obstructions in the machine. If it lands into the 'jackpot' hole, then the player wins and is rewarded with a deluge of more metal beads by the machine. Either to continue playing with, or to exchange for prizes.

The basic rules don't seem so difficult to grasp, thankfully. Despite how complicated the strange machine appears to be on the surface, and the other convoluted rules that come up as the game progresses… really, it's the unfamiliarity and novelty of it all that Shiki finds herself struggling with more than anything else.

Fortunately, Kinji doesn't seem to mind explaining how things work to her. Watching him play, it's easy to see that there are numerous similarities between the rules of this game and the ones of his Domain Expansion.

Except, rather than being rewarded with small metal pellets upon winning, Kinji's Domain Expansion continuously maintains his cursed energy reserves at maximum capacity when he hits a jackpot. And the secondary rules regarding his domain's 'preview performances,' involving all the different-colored balls and shutters, are all rules that serve to slowly stack the odds in his favor until he finally receives a jackpot, and all the benefits that come with it.

…

Pachinko is a very fast-paced game. Colorful, and dizzying.

After a player is finished with their game, they can take their winnings and trade them in a small corner shop down the street. These small metal balls can be exchanged for money, or for other items in the shop. In this case, the one that Kinji takes them into has three entire shelves full of various alcoholic beverages prominently displayed in its storefront, and a wide collection of different brands of cigarettes behind the glass casing of the front counter. There's also another section of the shop filled with what appears to be souvenir items, and a few bento boxes to the left of that.

Kinji decides to exchange all of his earnings for store-bought onigiri. He comes out of the store with a large plastic bag dangling from his wrist, filled with triangular rice balls.

"They had, like, six different fillings? So I just grabbed a few of every one of 'em," the boy holds the bag out to them with an air of satisfied victory. "Eat up! There's plenty to go around for everyone!"

Indeed, there are a lot of rice balls. After a round of the bag being passed around –Choki and Mutsuo included– there's still quite a number of onigiri left inside the bag when it's returned to Kinji.

Shiki stares curiously down at the rice ball in her hand. The entire thing is thoroughly wrapped in multiple layers of plastic, to the point where Shiki isn't even sure how to go about unwrapping it. She tugs cautiously at a corner, before looking around her to see how others are solving this issue.

Tsumiki notices her struggle. "Oh! See, you're supposed to open it like this…"

The girl demonstrates for Shiki by using her own onigiri as an example. There's a thin strip of plastic that can be peeled away from the rest of the wrappings down the middle, and from there, it's a simple matter to remove the rest of the coverings by lightly pinching the two corners and pulling away the plastic from the sides.

Although… perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it's not as simple as it seems. Shiki's own attempt at following her friend's example results in the wrapping getting stuck on the seaweed coating, and she nearly ends up dropping the entire thing when she attempts to backtrack and fix things.

Kinji snorts, then pauses. "Wait, you've never eaten onigiri like this before?"

The onigiri that Shiki is used to eating is served neatly on a plate, not tightly wrapped beneath ten different layers of thin, flimsy plastic.

She shakes her head mutely, and bites into the food.

The taste is… passable. Although to her palate, the grilled salmon inside the rice is far too salty, to the point where the poignant saltiness nearly covers up the original flavor of the salmon entirely. But it would be unreasonable to set one's expectations too high for convenience store food, wouldn't it?

Besides, Shiki isn't too picky about what she eats as long as it's not overwhelmingly sweet. She doesn't have a sweet tooth the way Satoru-niichan does.

Her next attempt at unwrapping an onigiri by herself goes better than her first. This time, the plastic peels away smoothly from the rice ball and seaweed covering inside.

A careful bite reveals this one to be… bonito flakes?

"I can't believe I sometimes keep forgetting that you're a sheltered ojou-sama," Kinji remarks from the side, watching her neatly nibble away at the rice ball. "You really don't get around much outside of sorcery stuff, huh?"

Shiki blinks at her classmate, "I am a sorcerer."

"So am I, but you don't see me fumbling my onigiri," Kinji waves his own rice ball, and takes a large bite out of it. "Seems like we gotta drag you out more often. What do you usually do for fun, anyways?"

"… I train?"

The boy rolls his eyes. "Like, what do you do for entertainment, workaholic ojou-sama. When you're not training or going on missions or hunting curse users."

"I'm not a 'workaholic.'" That would be Satoru-niichan, not her.

Kinji squints at Shiki suspiciously. "… You do know what the term 'workaholic' means, right?"

What is he trying to imply here?

"She likes dancing in her spare time," Megumi says from the side, swallowing a mouthful of rice. "That might sorta fall under 'training,' though…"

"You dance?" Kinji's eyes widen, and then he blinks. "… Wait a sec. I feel like this might've been mentioned before…?"

"During Obon, I think?" Kirara cuts in, eyebrows scrunched together. "Tsumiki mentioned that Shiki was good at dancing during the, uh, 'okuribi.' Except things kinda went sideways there and everything, what with the whole… curse user and zombie puppet creations going on…"

"Oh right, yeah," Kinji nods. "Man, that was a pretty wild time with Zombie Man and his zombie puppets last year. Can't believe how long it's been since then."

"It does feel like it's been a while," Kirara agrees. "Then there was the exchange event that happened afterwards. And after that, we stumbled across Okkotsu. Then Shiki ended up getting suspended…"

"Always one thing after another," Kinji laughs. "Never a dull moment around here."

Looking back on everything, it really has been quite an eventful year, hasn't it? And on Shiki's end, there were even more additions to be made to the list: Her mission in China, and encountering Tsukumo Yuki while she'd been there. Hunting down Geto Suguru in a merry chase that led her to India. Then, returning and becoming the Gojo clan heir.

Shiki wouldn't have expected half the happenings that ended up occurring when she'd first entered the Tokyo school. 'Never a dull moment' is most certainly an accurate way to describe her experiences.

"Speaking of," Kirara turns towards Shiki, "Do you know if you're going to be back when the school year starts?"

"It hasn't been half a year yet." Given all that's happened, Shiki would think that the elders would want her to fully carry out the length of her 'punishment,' instead of shortening it. At the very least, it would be their way of subtly expressing their dissatisfaction to the clan heir who was not their preferred candidate, while being able to maintain plausible deniability about it. In a way, this was quite similar to how Shiki's little pachinko trip here was also a form of wordlessly voicing her own dissatisfaction with the traditionalists in her clan.

… Politics. Shiki still does not have any fondness for it, and she doesn't think that she ever will. Even if she's been named the Gojo clan heir now.

Something will have to be done about the traditionalists. It's not that Shiki feels the desire to quell any and all dissenting voices within the clan; disagreements between people are only natural, and it's not always a bad thing. However, what the traditionalists had done, using an alliance of branch families to force Satoru-niichan's hand… is not acceptable.

The binding vow between them and Satoru-niichan ensured that the branch families were now solidly part of Shiki's 'faction' within the Gojo Clan. Currently, only the Shunryu branch family would be the exception to that, but the Shunryu's standing and reputation had recently taken a serious blow with the departure of their clansmen, Special Grade One sorcerer included.

That meant that Shiki more or less had the support of all the clan's branch families. Numerically, they even outnumbered the Yozakura main family.

The traditionalists would have to tread carefully in the future, even despite the slight advantage that they'd secured for themselves with the binding vow. Shiki was not a helpless puppet for them to move according to their whims.

… But the clan issues are something to worry about another time.

Here and now, Shiki is eating pachinko-gotten onigiri with her friends. With people whom she trusts and cares about. It's a rare moment, one that Shiki should be cherishing while it exists in the present, instead of being distracted by Gojo clan matters that will still be waiting for her after this outing has ended.

Good or bad, long-lived or ephemeral, all things eventually come to an end. But while that end has yet to arrive…

"Are you seriously going to be gone from school for a full six months?" Kinji tosses another onigiri at her. "Can't you, like, pull a few strings or something and come back early? 'Cuz if not, Kirara and I are seriously gonna start thinking of something to get ourselves suspended, too."

"Why?"

"C'mon, you really have to ask?"

Kinji's voice is nonchalant and uncaring. When she turns towards Kirara, the other boy simply responds with a small smile.

A small nudge at her elbow, followed by a light little laugh. The smile that curves over Tsumiki's lips is visibly exasperated, yet somehow unspeakably fond at the same time. "Just accept that your friends care about you, Shiki."

… Maybe this is really an unnecessary question that Shiki has just asked.

The girl hums thoughtfully, and begins fiddling with the plastic packaging of the new onigiri in her hands.

.

.

…

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Author's Notes:

Shiki finally visits a pachinko parlor! I did some more research online, but to be honest the rules and everything around pachinko still has me rather confused. So… yeah, there's no detailed game scene here, sorry. Feel free to use your imagination to fill in the blanks, though!

Next chapter: Year two, here we come. It might not seem like it, but the timeline has still been quietly moving forward in the background all this time.

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