Ren let his gaze drift just a fraction of an inch over the monk's shoulder.
Standing right behind Geto was a literal walking natural disaster. There was a short, hunched figure with a single, massive eye and a volcano for a head, puffing faint wisps of smoke into the cool Tokyo air.
Next to him loomed a towering, muscular monstrosity with branch-like protrusions growing out of its eye sockets, wrapped in pale rags.
And hovering just beside them, draped in a white sheet, was a bizarre, bright red octopus-like creature with stark, unblinking eyes and black-tipped tentacles.
They were Special Grade Curses. Three of them. Just standing casually on a Shibuya sidewalk.
^_____^
"Ah, man, totally my fault," Ren said, his voice muffled perfectly by the black surgical mask. He let out a sheepish, slightly awkward chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck. "Long day at work. My brain's basically fried. Wasn't watching where I was going at all."
Geto's serene, closed-eye smile didn't waver. He tilted his head slightly, his dark robes shifting in the evening breeze. "It is quite alright," He replied smoothly, his voice pleasant and disarming.
"The streets are quite crowded during these times. Do be careful."
"Yeah, yeah, for sure," Ren mumbled, playing the polite but eager-to-leave civilian to perfection.
He dug a hand into his jacket pocket. He carefully bypassed his phone and his keys, his fingers brushing against a small foil-wrapped chocolate he had grabbed from the boutique's breakroom.
With perfectly practiced nonchalance, Ren pulled the chocolate out and held it up toward Geto.
"Here," Ren said, offering an easy, apologetic smile that reached his eyes above the mask. "Peace offering for bumping into you. Have a good night, man."
Geto blinked, a flicker of genuine surprise crossing his features for a fraction of a second before his calm smile returned. He reached out, his long fingers plucking the small candy from Ren's palm.
"How thoughtful. Thank you," Geto murmured.
"No sweat," Ren replied.
He shoved his hands deep into his pockets, adjusted his posture to look perfectly relaxed, and stepped forward.
He merged back into the flow of the Shibuya crowd, letting the sea of people swallow him up.
Behind him, the group of curses stood in silence for a moment. Geto looked down at the small, cheap chocolate in his palm, a quiet chuckle escaping his lips.
"How amusing," Geto murmured, effortlessly peeling back the foil with his thumb.
But Jogo wasn't smiling. The short, volcano-headed curse turned his single, massive eye to glare into the sea of pedestrians, trying to track the teenager's retreating back. A thin, irritated wisp of dark, sulfuric smoke hissed from the crater on his head.
"Geto," Jogo rasped, his voice grinding like tectonic plates. "That monkey..."
"What about him?" Geto asked mildly, popping the cheap chocolate into his mouth.
Jogo's singular pupil narrowed into a sharp, vertical slit, his heavy cursed energy spiking just a fraction. "Did he see me? His eyes were staring straight ahead, but right before he bumped into you... his foot shifted. He altered his stride perfectly to avoid stepping on Dagon's tentacles. And he didn't brush against Hanami either."
Hovering beside them under its white sheet, the red octopus creature let out a soft, bubbling noise of confusion, blinking its stark eyes.
"A monkey with absolutely zero cursed energy?" Geto replied smoothly, turning away from the crowd.
"Highly unlikely, Jogo. It was a mere coincidence. Tokyo is full of lucky fools who avoid death every single day without even realizing it."
Jogo ground his teeth. The ambient temperature around him flared by several degrees, causing a nearby businessman to unconsciously shiver and hurriedly cross the street to avoid the sudden, suffocating heat.
"I don't like it," Jogo growled, his hands curling into fists. "I should burn him to ash right now, just to be sure."
"You will do no such thing. Not yet," Geto said. His serene smile didn't vanish, but his tone dropped into something much colder and far more authoritative. "We are here on business, remember?"
Geto gestured down the brightly lit Shibuya street, nodding toward a generic, neon-lit family restaurant resting on the corner.
"We need to sit down, have some tea, and actually discuss the conditions for our alliance."
...
Two miles away, tucked beneath the heavy concrete arch of a train overpass, Ren finally stopped walking.
The rhythmic, deafening clatter of a commuter train passing overhead drowned out the city noise, but it did nothing to quiet the frantic hammering against his ribs.
Ren leaned heavily against the cold, graffiti-covered pillar, sliding down just a fraction as the adrenaline completely dumped from his system.
He let his head fall back against the concrete with a dull thud.
"Fuck my absolute, god-awful luck," Ren muttered, his voice echoing faintly in the damp shadows of the underpass.
He reached around to his lower back, his fingers pressing against his jacket to feel the solid, reassuring shape of the Wraith's Fang taped to his spine.
It was the only reason he had seen them. Without the blade's ocular resonance, he would have walked straight through Hanami or Dagon like a completely blind idiot.
He squeezed his eyes shut, replaying the encounter. Jogo had definitely noticed him. A Special Grade curse with centuries of combat experience wasn't going to just ignore a human who perfectly sidestepped invisible tentacles.
Thank god Kenjaku—Geto— whatever was too obsessed with his own grand schemes to care about a random civilian handing him cheap chocolate.
And Ren knew exactly where they were going. The family restaurant. The meeting where Jogo would demand to fight Satoru Gojo, officially kicking off the absolute nightmare timeline of the Shibuya Incident.
"I need to get stronger. Fast," Ren breathed out into the cold air.
Pushing himself off the concrete pillar, he shoved his hands deep into his jacket pockets and started walking the last few dimly lit blocks toward his apartment.
He had just turned the corner onto his street when his phone vibrated violently against his thigh.
Ren pulled it out, squinting at the bright screen. Maki.
He let out a long, grounding exhale, forcing the lingering tension out of his shoulders, and swiped to answer. He instantly slipped the 'clueless, normal boyfriend' mask back into place.
"Hey," Ren answered, his voice dropping into its usual relaxed, teasing drawl. "You miss me already? It hasn't even been twelve hours."