The Strongest Misunderstanding: Gojo Satoru and Geto Suguru, the Curse of Love - A Night When True Feelings Slip Out ~Monkeys, Curses, and Misunderstandings~

It was the morning of the third day since the curse. Gojou Satoru lay on his bed in the dormitory, staring at the ceiling. Morning light slipped through a gap in the curtains, faintly illuminating his white hair. His Six Eyes, uncovered, blinked quietly as if drinking in the light. (I couldn't sleep.) More precisely, he was afraid to sleep. When he closed his eyes, the events at that ruin surfaced behind his lids. Suguru's hair, and its scent. Suguru's smile. And that voice. —Satoru's eyes are too beautiful. I can't look at them directly. Those words clung to the inside of his ears and wouldn't let go. He knew it was the curse's doing. He knew, and yet every time he remembered, something stirred uneasily deep in his chest, and all he could do was turn over in bed. Satoru sat up. His black sleep-shirt was stuck to his back with sweat. "...Man, what a way to wake up." He muttered to no one in particular and got out of bed. The dormitory hallway was quiet. A glance at the clock said six-thirty in the morning. Mornings at the technical school came early. The dining hall didn't open until seven, but he could already sense several students moving through the corridors. Satoru washed his face at the sink and rewrapped his black blindfold. He looked at his reflection in the mirror. His white hair was a disaster. "...My bedhead is tragic." He tried to smooth it down with his fingers, but it wouldn't cooperate at all. Resigned, he left the washroom as he was. On his way to the dining hall, Satoru glanced at the door of the room next to his. Getou Suguru's room. The door was shut. Either he was still asleep, or he'd already gone ahead. (I wonder if Suguru managed to sleep.) The moment the thought crossed his mind, his mouth nearly moved on its own again. Satoru clapped a hand over it in a panic. "...That was close." He let out a small breath. The curse was still very much intact. When he reached the dining hall—the "Jujutsu Tei"—about ten students were already eating breakfast. They sat in rows at long tables with miso soup, white rice, grilled fish, and rolled omelet. The technical school's cafeteria looked no different from any ordinary diner. Except that everyone in it was a trainee sorcerer who fought curses invisible to normal people. Tray in hand, Satoru scanned for a seat—and spotted a familiar back by the window. Black hair tied back in a single bundle. A tall frame, a hundred and eighty-five centimeters. Getou Suguru, eating breakfast alone. (Suguru's already here.) Satoru hesitated for a moment. Should he sit beside him, or somewhere else? Ever since that business at the ruin, it felt like a thin wall of air had sprung up between them. —No. That's just my imagination. Satoru deliberately made his footsteps loud and set his tray down across from Suguru. "Yo, Suguru. Mornin'." Suguru looked up. His gentle brown eyes found Satoru. For just an instant, something seemed to waver in them. "...Ah. Good morning, Satoru." Suguru smiled faintly. The smile was so soft that Satoru had to look away. (Why am I the one getting flustered?) Satoru took his seat and picked up his chopsticks. A bite of rice. A sip of miso soup. The same flavors as always. And yet today it was strangely hard to swallow. Across from him, Suguru quietly drank his miso soup. He caught a strand of black hair slipping from his shoulder and tucked it behind his ear with slender fingers. The gesture was oddly slow, oddly alluring— "The way you drink your miso soup is kind of sexy, Suguru." —He'd said it. The air in the dining hall froze. A second-year boy at the next table stopped his chopsticks midair. A third-year across from him sat frozen with miso soup still in his mouth. Tanaka-san the cook, poking his head out from the kitchen, stopped moving with a frying pan in hand. Satoru clamped a hand over his mouth. Too late. It was already out. The curse had leaked his honest thoughts again. "W-wait, that's not—" Just as he started to make excuses, Suguru's mouth opened. "Satoru's bedhead is cute." —This time, it was Suguru. Suguru clapped a hand over his own mouth, his ears burning bright red. His brown eyes were fixed on some random point in the distance. The entire dining hall went completely silent. The sound of one pair of chopsticks clattering to the floor. "...Huh?" "...What did he just say?" "...Let's pretend we didn't hear that." A low murmur spread through the room. But no one would look directly at Satoru or Suguru. The atmosphere of having witnessed something they shouldn't have seen settled over the cafeteria. Then someone set a tray down beside Satoru without a word. A black bob. Sleepy brown eyes. A thin cigarette at the corner of her mouth. Ieiri Shoko was looking down at the two of them with an expression of utter indifference. "What are you two doing first thing in the morning?" Shoko sighed and sat down next to Satoru. She pulled the cigarette from her lips and stubbed it out in the ashtray. "If you're going to flirt in the cafeteria, at least do it where no one can see you. You're ruining my appetite." "We're not flirting! This is a curse! It's because of that curse!" Satoru raised his voice. But the stares around him were cold. "Oh, really. A curse made you say 'the way you drink your miso soup is sexy.' How terrible." Her tone made it clear she didn't believe a word. "You don't believe me at all, do you?!" "Of course I don't." Shoko took a bite of rice and chewed slowly. Satoru looked at Suguru beside him. Suguru was still red-eared, silently staring at his miso soup. "...Suguru, say something, will you." "...What am I supposed to say?" "Hell if I know. But fix this atmosphere somehow." "I can't. It's partly my fault too." The two of them whispered back and forth. Watching them, Shoko sighed again. "...Did you two actually get cursed?" Her voice had turned a shade more serious. "Yeah. At the ruin, we got hit by light a curse spirit fired at us. After that, our honest thoughts started leaking out on their own." Satoru explained in a hushed voice. Shoko thought for a moment, then said: "Have you looked into that curse?" "Huh?" "A curse that makes your true feelings leak out. The library might have similar cases on record. You two haven't researched it at all, have you." Satoru and Suguru exchanged a look. —She was right. They hadn't. Three days since the curse. The two of them had been so desperate to keep each other's honest thoughts from spilling out that the idea of investigating the curse itself had never occurred to them. "...Should we try the library?" Suguru said quietly. "Yeah. After today's lectures." Shoko looked back and forth between them and gave a small laugh. "How nice that you get along so well. But never—ever—call each other sexy or cute in the cafeteria again." "I keep telling you, that was the curse!" Satoru's shout was swallowed by the din of the dining hall. That night. Satoru had books borrowed from the library spread open in his dorm room. Following Shoko's advice, he'd gone to the library after class, consulted the librarian, Satou-san, and checked out several volumes on curses. A Dictionary of Curses. Research on Specialized Curses. A Guide to Curse Removal. All of them old, and every turn of a page sent a musty smell into his nose. "...This is hard." Satoru closed the book. Curses came in countless varieties, and passages about curses that leaked honest thoughts were proving hard to find. A glance at the clock showed it was already past one in the morning. (Thirsty.) Satoru left his room and walked the dormitory hallway. The corridor lights were off, and only the green glow of the emergency lights faintly lit his feet. He turned the corner toward the water room—and stopped. At the far end of the hall, in front of the window, stood a figure. A tall man with black hair tied back. His profile, lit by the moonlight, floated pale in the dark. (Suguru...?) Satoru started to call out, then stopped. Suguru was murmuring something. "...For the sake of those monkeys..." Satoru's heart slammed against his ribs. —What did he just say? Before he knew it, Satoru had grabbed Suguru's shoulder. "What did you just say?" Suguru turned around slowly. His brown eyes, catching the moonlight, found Satoru. They had lost their usual gentle light and seemed to hold a deep darkness. "...Satoru. You're awake." Suguru's voice had returned to normal. "You just said 'for the sake of those monkeys.' What the hell was that?" Satoru pressed him, still gripping his shoulder. Suguru was silent for a moment. Then he laughed, a soft exhale of breath. "...You misheard. I said, 'I can't sleep.'" "Don't lie. There's no way I misheard that." "Satoru, let go. You're hurting me." Satoru came to his senses and released him. He'd been gripping far too hard. "...Sorry. But I can't just let what you said slide." Satoru looked Suguru straight in the eye. Suguru turned his gaze out the window, as if escaping Satoru's stare. "...It's nothing. Don't worry about it." "Don't worry about it? You—" "Satoru." Suguru's voice dropped, low and sharp. "I didn't say anything. That's good enough, isn't it." The words left Satoru speechless. An expression he'd never seen before surfaced on Suguru's face. Not anger, not sorrow. Something painful—like he was desperately forcing something down. "...I see. Fine, then." That was all Satoru said before walking past him. He drank some water in the water room and returned to his own room. He collapsed onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. (For the sake of those monkeys.) The words wouldn't leave his head. Calling non-sorcerers "monkeys." That was the language of curse users. It wasn't something Suguru—who stood on the side of protecting non-sorcerers as a sorcerer—had any business saying. (No way I misheard.) Satoru was certain. Suguru had definitely murmured "for the sake of those monkeys." And then he'd covered it up. A side of his best friend he didn't know. For the first time, Satoru learned that a dark shadow lived inside Suguru's heart. (What is Suguru carrying?) The answer was nowhere to be found. The next day. Satoru and Suguru visited a branch office of the Jujutsu Alliance to file their mission report. The Alliance's headquarters lay deep underground in Tokyo. This branch, one of its satellite offices, occupied the second basement floor of a mixed-use building in the city center. From the outside it looked like an ordinary office building, but powerful barriers covered the entrance—ordinary people couldn't even get close. The air turned cold as the elevator descended. White fluorescent lights lit the sterile corridor. Beneath his black blindfold, Satoru narrowed his Six Eyes. "Still a gloomy place, huh." "Satoru, watch your mouth. This is an Alliance branch." Suguru chided him under his breath. They showed their IDs at the reception desk and were led to a conference room in the back. Three councilors were waiting for them. Men in their fifties and sixties, all in black suits. Senior officials of the Jujutsu Alliance—the upper echelon of the sorcery world. "We've read the report. The curse spirit at the ruin was Grade 2, I understand." The elderly man seated in the center spoke without looking up from his documents. "Yes. We exorcised it together. No casualties." Suguru answered in a calm voice. "Hmph. You struggled with a mere Grade 2? You should have been able to finish it faster." Another man snorted. Satoru's brow twitched. "We didn't struggle. The curse spirit just used some unusual technique, so we were observing it. That's all." "Spare us the excuses. More importantly, another curse spirit has appeared at a non-sorcerer shelter. You two will go." The elderly man tossed the documents onto the desk. "A non-sorcerer shelter?" "A facility that temporarily shelters ordinary people frightened by curses. The monkeys are spr

日本語

What is Novelia? →

Episode 2

Name: The Strongest Misunderstanding: Gojo Satoru and Geto Suguru, the Curse of Love
Author: Novelia

What is Novelia?

Novelia is an AI-powered platform to read original light novels and fan fiction, create your own in just a few taps, and chat with the characters. New, illustrated episodes arrive daily — free to start.

Learn more about Novelia →New sign-ups get 5,000pt