Mirror Eyes & Bright Blue Skies | Jujutsu Kaisen

ⅫⅠ. His Determination

[A/N: art above is used with permission of the artist, asianism on Instagram. ]

"Yo, anyone in there?

Gojo snapped his fingers in the Ikuko's face, having just noticed her glazed eyes and worrying that she was about to reject his inquiries yet again.

However, she blinked to attention, and her face lightened with a smile. It was a thin smile, to be sure, but it was firm with determination.

"Sorry, Gojo-san... You said you wanted to know about my abilities and irregularities?"

He nodded, "Correct."

"Let's see," she began, "I've told you about my senses, and I suppose you saw yesterday how all those curses seemed drawn to me."

"I did."

She nodded, "I'm not sure why, but curses just seem to follow me as if I'm a, uh, tasty snack, which has caused some... things in the past. Besides that, I'm not sure..."

Is she purposefully hiding it? he thought, frowning.

"Are you sure there's nothing else?"

At his prompting, Ikuko's brow furrowed, hands fiddling at the hem of her sleeves. Her antics seemed trustworthy, at least, and soothed his suspicions somewhat.

Eventually, "I don't know," she said, "It's hard to pinpoint what's 'not normal' when my only reference frame is myself..." she looked at him, seemed to notice something in his expression, and said, "Have you noticed something?"

He smirked, "Remember the funeral home?"

"The funeral home?

It took Ikuko several seconds of blank staring before a light of recognition flickered behind her eyes, widening them in turn.

"How? Why? Were you... stalking me?"

"Who do you think I am?" Gojo put a hand to his chest, pretending to be offended, before letting an innocent smile slip onto his face, "Of course I was. Anyway, the funeral home..."

"Hold on! You're not allowed to say something like that and not explain yourself!"

Whoops.

Gojo tried his best to dodge the question, both physically and verbally, as Ikuko literally and figuratively hounded him down. At first, he tried simply walking away. But she just walked after him. Then he tried his favorite tactic: plugging his ears and saying "Lalala, can't hear you." But she just yanked one of his arms down and glared at him. Then he'd attempted changing the subject again, this time to sweets. Surely that would work, right? Surely no one could resist talking about sweets... But alas, Ikuko remained unswayed.

Finally, he relented, huffing, "Maki-san's been tainting you, hasn't she?" he said, "Fine, have it your way, then! Once upon a time, I was on a mission to retrieve that cursed object at the funeral home, but you just so happened to get to it first. So I 'stalked' you."

"Oh. That makes sense, I guess."

"Of course it does. But that's beside the point. Do you remember doing anything strange at the funeral home?"

She hummed as she thought, "Well, everything about that place was strange, but something I did...? I suppose there was the thing I did to that curse."

Ikuko paused for a moment, gaze unfocusing, and bit her lip. In contrast, Gojo's gaze hyper-focused on the woman's subconscious action, lingering a little longer than he'd ever admit to himself.

He shook himself out of his trance, "What thing did you do?"

"It's difficult to explain. The curse attacked me out of nowhere... so, I grabbed it, and it-it just-"