Golden Week had barely ended when Gojo Satoru and Getou Suguru got into a huge fight.
Gojo was absolutely furious. Everything he'd said over the past few days flew straight out of his head, replaced by a single insult he repeated over and over again.
"Tomcat!"
He ignored Getou during class, cursed at him during breaks, cursed at him back at the dorms, and even kept it up after school.
The onlookers couldn't make heads or tails of what was happening. Ieiri Shoko, meanwhile, kept hallucinating a tiny white kitten in sunglasses letting out heart-wrenching, indignant meows.
Yeah... it had to be the piggy bank messing with her perception.
Gojo Satoru had completely lost interest in saving money, and with that, the Tokyo Jujutsu High campus ghost stories came to an abrupt halt.
"So... who did Getou cheat with?" After watching Getou Suguru desperately apologize for two straight days while Gojo Satoru threw an unprecedented sulking fit, Ieiri Shoko's first suspect was naturally Asou Akiya.
Completely entertained by the spectacle, she privately asked him, "Did you and Getou sleep together, and Gojo caught you?"
She raised a hand before he could respond.
"Just so we're clear, I don't discriminate against high school boys' sexual orientation."
Cold sweat instantly broke out on Asou Akiya's forehead.
"It really wasn't me," he denied immediately. "Gojo and Suguru just had a falling-out."
Shoko only cared about one thing. "Then who's the 'Tomcat' supposed to be?"
Asou Akiya let out a sigh. "There isn't any Tomcat. Here's what happened..."
Two days earlier, during an outing, Gojo Satoru had discovered that his newly purchased apartment had gained a new "neighbor."
The person stepped out of Getou Suguru's apartment wearing a nightgown, carrying a bag of trash. The moment she saw Gojo, she greeted him with obvious delight.
"Amanai Riko?" Gojo froze.
Using the Six Eyes, he thoroughly inspected every corner of Getou's apartment. The place was filled with the lingering traces of Amanai Riko's cursed energy, enough to indicate she had been living there for several days. In contrast, Getou Suguru's cursed energy residue had already disappeared completely.
What did that imply?
Getou Suguru had given the newly renovated apartment to Amanai Riko!
The apartment they had agreed would become their neighboring homes had instead been handed over to an ordinary non-sorcerer!
In Gojo Satoru's straightforward understanding of romance, an unmarried girl living in an unmarried man's home was the same as living together. Keeping it a secret and hiding it from friends only meant one thing—they were dating behind everyone's backs!
Their ages weren't an issue in Gojo's eyes. Arranged engagements among children were hardly uncommon within the Three Great Clans, so becoming engaged while still underage seemed perfectly normal to him.
In that instant, Gojo Satoru puffed up with rage like an angry pufferfish. The moment he found Getou Suguru, he relentlessly called him a Tomcat.
No matter how Suguru tried to explain himself, it was useless. Gojo's anger stemmed from two things. First, he regarded the apartment as their shared territory. He hadn't even invited Akiya or Shoko over to see it, yet Suguru had the nerve to let someone else move in. Second, Suguru had betrayed the sacred brotherhood of single high school boys by secretly keeping a girl at his place!
"Gojo's too angry to listen to reason right now, and after being scolded nonstop, Suguru's getting fed up too. Besides, you know Gojo's never actually seen what a normal couple looks like," Asou Akiya said with a helpless shrug, having no intention of getting involved.
As long as Gojo Satoru's and Getou Suguru's safety wasn't at stake, he always stayed as far away from their disputes as possible.
"An apartment?" Ieiri Shoko asked with an amused smile. "How come I never knew they had a little love nest somewhere?"
"Apartment," Asou Akiya repeated, the faint smile on his lips carrying an inexplicably chilly edge. "Whenever they need me, they stay in the dorms. Whenever I start getting on their nerves, they find somewhere else to hide and enjoy some peace and quiet."
Just then, Asou Akiya's phone rang.
Its Gojo.
He gave Shoko an apologetic nod and stepped into a corner to answer.
"Akiya! Getou called me a romance idiot! He keeps saying he's already apologized!!"
"Oh."
"I fought him!"
"And?"
"Obviously I won! Getou got so pissed that he ran away from home!"
"...Huh?"
Asou Akiya had long since grown numb to the fact that they settled arguments with their fists.
But running away from home...
Well, somehow that suited them perfectly.
After all, a person could have more than one home.
Which also meant they could run away from home more than once.
The one who was actually secretly raising a child off-campus, Asou Akiya, patiently soothed Gojo Satoru over the phone. Neither of them had any right to laugh at the other—no one wanted the distinguished title of "Tomcat."
After school, Asou Akiya didn't even have time to eat dinner before Gojo Satoru rushed him out the door to deal with the apartment.
Gojo Satoru insisted that the apartment—which he hadn't spent a single night in—be sold immediately. "Sell it cheap", he said. Make Getou next door furious. He swore he'd never set foot in the place again.
Asou Akiya contacted a real estate agent and used the key Gojo Satoru had given him to unlock the apartment in Tokyo.
Gojo Satoru and Getou Suguru had bought neighboring luxury apartments on the top floor.
The moment Asou Akiya and the agent stepped inside, both of them were stunned.
The reason was simple.
The expensive furniture had been smashed to piece, the kitchen had partially collapsed, and the entire apartment bore unmistakable signs of having been torn apart by Blue.
Asou Akiya silently thanked his lucky stars that he hadn't given Playful Cloud to Suguru yet. If Suguru had been wielding a special-grade cursed tool on top of everything else, his close-quarters combat ability would have reached another level entirely. He could have flattened the entire building in minutes—and terrified every resident living below.
The agent looked utterly heartbroken.
"The renovation's basically a total loss."
Having weathered countless storms and having once witnessed a Grade 1 cursed tool snapped clean in two, Asou Akiya remained perfectly composed. He calmly discussed the listing price with the agent.
"List it as an unfinished property. Considering the next owner will have to spend even more on demolition and renovation than buying a bare unit from the start, we'll sell it at half price. But I have one condition: the buyer must be a young woman with a stable job or a female student attending a nearby school. She also has to be able to pay in full. I don't have time to deal with mortgage paperwork."
The agent's eyes lit up. "Can I buy it myself?"
Asou Akiya glanced at the rugged-looking man before him. Since the neighbor was supposed to be a woman...
"No."
Once the Golden Week holidays ended in early May, Amanai Riko would return to school. She almost certainly had no idea that Gojo Satoru and Getou Suguru had fallen out, and Getou would never tell her about it. Besides, looking at the school calendar, Japanese students had summer vacation from August to September and winter vacation from December to January. Sooner or later, Amanai Riko would be staying in the apartment next door again.
In the end, the real estate agent listed the apartment at a price far below market value. Asou Akiya also hired a construction crew from the Gojo clan to perform basic repairs, making sure every trace of Gojo Satoru's presence was removed from the apartment.
With Gojo Satoru's troublesome request finally taken care of, Asou Akiya headed off to pick up Fushiguro Megumi from school.
That evening, Asou Akiya cooked dinner himself. As they ate together, he listened to Megumi talk about everything that had happened at school. Every now and then, Akiya shared a few amusing stories from his own school life, gradually guiding the boy toward a better understanding of the world of jujutsu.
With the housekeeper gone home for the evening, it was usually just the two of them.
Thinking of Zen'in Naoya's stubborn pride, Asou Akiya said to Fushiguro Megumi, "I'll leave a portion of dinner for Uncle Naoya every day. If he wants to eat it, then he has to stay here overnight and keep you company. If he refuses to eat—or eats it but won't admit it—then help me throw it away the next day."
Fushiguro Megumi is still too young to be left alone, and in Akiya's eyes, Zen'in Naoya's role was simply to watch over the house and the child.
After a brief silence, Megumi said quietly, "It feels like a waste to throw food away."
Asou Akiya had once thought about getting Megumi a dog, knowing how much the boy liked animals. But the life of a jujutsu sorcerer was filled with danger at every turn.
He swallowed the words that had nearly slipped out.
As they cleared the table together, Asou Akiya asked Megumi to help wipe it down before saying, "You're right, I owe you an apology; I shouldn't have waste food. How about this instead? If Naoya only comes to eat but doesn't do his job, next time you can sprinkle chili powder all over his meal."
The mere mention of chili made Megumi wrinkle up his little face in sympathy. He nodded in agreement and wiped the table with even greater determination, insisting that Akiya go clean the kitchen instead.
Seeing that his gentle lessons were already beginning to take effect, Asou Akiya smiled to himself and continued with the chores at hand.
That night, he brought home a children's height chart and a bathroom scale, placing them in a corner of the living room.
"Stand here for a moment."
After measuring Megumi's height and weight, Akiya carefully recorded both in a small notebook before handing it to him. "You'll keep this. I'll check your height and weight regularly so I can buy clothes and shoes that fit you."
Megumi hugged the notebook tightly before carrying it into his bedroom and locking it away inside his desk drawer.
He had a room of his own.
A key of his own.
Towels embroidered with his name, along with all the daily necessities he needed.
The toys his two young uncles had bought for him were enough to fill an entire storage cabinet.
Here, no one overlooked his existence.
Toji had also left him an inheritance of fifty million yen.
He was no longer an orphan living under someone else's roof.
"Akiya-san... if you're ever too busy, then let Naoya-ojisan take care of me."
Curled beneath his blanket before bed, Megumi clutched the edges of the quilt in both hands. Beside him lay the Ugly Treasure, serving as his sleeping companion.
He had even been fortunate enough to have Akiya read him a bedtime story.
Asou Akiya gently coaxed him, "All right. Naoya and I will work out a schedule between us. And if neither of us is around, that's okay too. I need you to be brave, Megumi. Just give us a call, as long as we're not dealing with a real emergency, we'll always answer."
Under the gentle cadence of Asou Akiya's reading of The Happy Prince and Other Tales, Fushiguro Megumi gradually drifted off to sleep.
To help the three-year-old develop an ear for languages, Akiya always read each story three times: first in standard Tokyo Japanese, then in Chinese, and finally in English. He wanted Megumi's young mind to absorb the rhythms and intonations of each language while naturally correcting his pronunciation. As a result, the fairy tales written by Oscar Wilde at the end of the nineteenth century became Megumi's bedtime stories.
Only after those green eyes had remained closed for a long while did Akiya gently stroke the boy's forehead.
"Grow up healthy and happy, Megumi."
In the original story, fifteen-year-old Megumi's greatest source of stress had always been other people. Only when he was with animals could he truly feel at ease.
But this world is filled with people.
Avoiding them altogether is impossible.
Asou Akiya returned the book to the shelf and switched off the light. Children in Japanese kindergartens didn't receive pocket money, so there was no need to worry about comparisons between classmates. Even so, he made sure to keep Megumi's meal card topped up, so the boy would never have to worry about food at school.
"Whether you become a jujutsu sorcerer or not, Toji left you the freedom to choose... Follow the path that brings you the greatest peace of mind."
Seeing that Asou Akiya wasn't waiting for it, the Ugly Treasure hesitated for a moment before climbing down from the child's bed and slowly crawling toward the door.
"Mommy... Mommy... Hug..."
The Ugly Treasure was a child who wanted its mother, too.
Lying in his little bed, Megumi vaguely heard the voice in his sleep as he slipped into REM sleep.
He dreamed that a man lifted him into the air, weighed him in his hands for a moment, then pulled him into a broad, burning-warm embrace.
"You're still so light, little brat. Did I not mix enough formula for you? Sorry about that. Ever since she died, no woman has been willing to be your wet nurse. Hell, your old man never got that kind of treatment when he was a kid either..."
Megumi struggled with all his might to push the man's rough embrace away.
Yet tears streamed uncontrollably down his face.
Sobbing until his nose ran and his face was soaked with tears, he cried out, "You gambling addict! You worthless jerk! Why do you always have to fight with other people?!"
The man loved gambling and always squandered every last yen he had. He had never known how to raise him properly.
Instead, he had simply kept sending him from one family to another.
Megumi hated those wealthy women's households.
He hated hearing the women flirt and joke with the men.
It was disgusting.
It made his skin crawl.
But he had to endure it, he had to hold it in.
He and the man called his father had no home, nowhere to go. They were as pitiful as stray dogs wandering the streets.
The man's large hand easily covered his entire little head. "Ah... Sorry. I guess that's because you're my son. If you'd been someone else's son, maybe you'd have had a better life..."
"No! That's not true! That's not true!"
Amid tearful cries and screams, Fushiguro Megumi jolted awake.
He wiped the tears from his face, jumped out of bed, and instinctively went looking for the adult in the house.
The house was empty.
He had left behind the households with women in them, but the price was having to spend time by himself.
Megumi stood there blankly for a while, unable to adjust.
Then he switched on the living room light.
In the midst of his lingering gloom, he noticed a note left on the dining table.
[I made breakfast for you. It's in the refrigerator, so remember to heat it up before you eat. I also bought you a little cat-shaped step stool so you can reach the microwave.]
[If you get lonely, don't be sad. Toji loved you, and we'll do our best to love you too.]
[—Asou Akiya]
The note wasn't written in plain text alone. It combined simple drawings with Japanese so Megumi could guess the meaning even if he couldn't read every word.
At the bottom were three doodles: a large black cat, a little black cat with green eyes, and a pig with blond bangs.
Megumi burst into laughter through his tears.
"Is Naoya-ojisan the pig?"
Naoya-ojisan hasà a terrible temper. He definitely couldn't let him see this drawing.
Realizing that, Megumi carefully tucked the note away inside his pencil case, making sure he could look at the three little animals every day.
"Good night, kitties... And little piggy."
...
I didn't lose my home.
I'm doing my best to keep living, you stupid old man.