Floating Like a Lilo ── Itadori Yuuji (✓)

01 POISED OF BIAS

All my life I've been searching for something
Something I can put my finger on

friends,
BAND OF SKULLS

The weather was terrible-Masamichi Yaga always thought Tokyo weather fluctuated too uneasily for his liking. He could feel the darkness creeping across the sky as he waited inside his office, mostly unperturbed by the mauve twisting around clouds. What was irritating him more than the blotty arrival of nightfall outside his window, was the indisputable fact that Gojo Satoru rarely arrived on time.

Having the young man at his doorstep was harder than lighting a match in the rain. And believe me, Masamichi has tried.

Masamichi found himself rubbing the ridge of his nose in vain. A wave of exhaustion rolled over his dismal expression, largely from the relentless meetings that overwhelmed his schedule as of late. He had heard the name 'Ryoumen Sukuna' more times in the last week than his entire life-that told him more than enough about the troubled state of the sorcerer world in the present.

That haunting name, full of carnage and evil. It chilled him ever so slightly. Masamichi would never say he would be afraid of such matters-compared to what he had lived through, it seemed almost trivial. Yet, there was a certain tension to his shoulders when the matter was discussed amongst the lips of the elders. Sukuna. Su-ku-na.

His eyes quietly flitted to the window, face paled by the dry and grey clouds. The weather did more than unsettle; it was an omen, a foreboding of what will come. Masamichi knew that there was a deep secret once stitched in the past, a secret that was being pried open by the higher ups and their babbling.

Such meetings which filled his head over the last few days were at first glance, typical. The general stir of curses that came from human dissatisfaction, their usurping increases, the power struggle amongst the clans. And now this.

When he first read the report it almost astounded him that such events went quietly unnoticed for six years. That the [L/n] clan still lived on. That you existed.

His nails dug deeper into his stuffed doll.

And after the half an hour of silence to himself, Masamichi watched unamused as Gojo Satoru sauntered into his office, a place both knew quite well.

The tall man was wearing something that fell short of a grin on his pale face, lips barely twisted into something tense; it looked as if he was bothered by something. What is was, Masamichi had neither the intent nor the means to uncover. After all, Gojo was a man veiled by many secrets, ones that hid behind nonchalant eyes and wrinkles of a smile. He was someone that took years to take apart, slowly and gently, with human hands and fragile lies. Once fractured, he could never ever be repaired. And now, he walks as though on broken glass, like the blood of his past could measure up to the strength of his mind.

"Satoru," Masamichi was blunt; he gritted between his teeth, almost frustrated, "Do I need to buy you a wristwatch?"

Despite the blindfold, Gojo's expression was plausible to read. A quick, fleeting yet memorable smile flaunted his face, "Gomen, Masamichi-sensei! At least I know what you'll be getting me for my birthday."

His hair was a reminder of something long gone and lost; battleship grey when deprived of light under the ghoulish moon, but also the colour of snow in springtime. Sometimes it wavered between those two states, of crushed ice in winter ponds frozen over, or the swan's wing around sakura blossoms. Such strands did not fare to become a silver lining in the wound he was digging further into, merely presenting Gojo as pure, sane, loved.