（☉∀☉）— chapter thirteen
"your-long-dead-friend"

     "EVERYOOONE! I HAVE GIFTS!"

      HIYORI gently sheathed the katana she was yielding as she heard Gojo's scream from across the courtyard. Her full eyes fell on the sight of the white-haired man running towards them with a box on wheels behind him. She curiously narrowed her eyebrows at the unknown object in the distance.

      The three first-years were alongside the three second-years in an evening training session. Today, they were focusing on how handling weapons could be incredibly helpful in battle. Your cursed technique might not always be enough, you should always have a back up plan. Maki had explained earlier in the day, and Hiyori had been warming up to the idea of having a lightweight and slender katana at her waist.

      "What the hell is he doing?" Kugisaki exhaled, she was out of breath from the head-to-head training session with Maki that was interrupted a second ago. She heaved forward to rest her palms on her knees, desperately trying to catch her breath, Maki really must've done a number on her today.

      As the students had stopped whatever training exercises they were working on, Gojo had grown near enough to come to a slow stop in front of them. He rolled the decently sized box in front of his long body, yet it still didn't reach the top his waist.

      "I thought that all of my students have been training so hard for the Exchange Event that a little gift was in order," Gojo brightly grinned towards the students, giving the box a good echoing slap on the side of it. The Kyoto Sister School Exchange Event was actually being held in exactly a month, and Gojo was right — they had been training exceptionally hard.

      The students all remained unexcited, though.

      "So, I have this for you guys!" Gojo excited pointed towards the box, he even managed to do a twirl with his right leg raised high in the air. "TA-DA."

      Kugisaki pinched her face up as she cringed, switching over her shoulder to exchange glances with Hiyori, "Overly excited adults are creepy."

      "Can he even be considered an adult?" Hiyori nudged her elbow into the body of Kugisaki, who immediately started snickering from the redheads sly comment. Kugisaki had to choke back a laugh as Gojo interrupted her with a cheerful-sounding announcement.

      "It's your-long-dead-friend, YUJI!"

      If you had asked Hiyori what she thought was in store for the day, she would've said nothing unexpected. It would've been classes with a mix of training both with her fellow students and then later in the evening with Gojo. She would shower. Occasionally eat when she remembered or had the time. That's what she thought was in store for the day, not this.

      Not the unexpected meaning she was finding out her best friend was still alive.

      It felt as if the world started moving in slow motion, time was momentarily being grateful and giving her space to process without others noticing. She couldn't believe the sight in front of her. Just as Gojo unlatched the box, there he was — Yuji Itadori, the cheerful pink-haired boy, popped out from inside. Her purple eyes widened, pupils dilated within a second. Her pink lips fell ajar, and it felt like a vacuum reached down her throat and sucked out every bit of oxygen from her lungs.

      The rest of the Tokyo students did not have such reactions — mostly because the second years had never actually met Yuji before. Both Fushiguro and Kugisaki had dull, stunned reactions, somehow not finding this the most surprising news in the world.

      "Yori!" Yuji happily exclaimed, attempting his best to climb out of the box without tripping and collapsing to his butt. He was a bit bummed to not have better reactions from his fellow students.

      But at least he had Hiyori.

      After the moment of pure shock finding Yuji Itadori clearly alive in front of her, other emotions started flooding her veins. She had grieved for him, she was already processing his death — and now be wanted to just appear again? But then again a river of happiness flooded her system seeing the pink-haired boy alive and well in front of her. But then uncontrollable anger started flooding her heart. There were so many emotions flying in and around Hiyori right now she couldn't even process what she was actually feeling anymore.

      But then a furious rage was the only thing that filled Hiyori's eyes.

      Yuji didn't even see the hand snapping in his vision, that was how incredible Hiyori's speed had increased. Combine that with Yuji's comfortable state, there was no way he was even attempting at dodging. Within a second, Hiyori's palm collided with Yuji's cheek.

      The smack against skin rang throughout the air, immediately gaining everyone's attention within a second. Each of the sorcerers in the vicinity let out a gasp, either slightly amused or if the action simply shocked them.

      Yuji winced, and his eyebrows furrowed together in confusion. His brown eyes instantly shifted into puppy eyes, staring down Hiyori — he innocently pouted. The redhead was fighting back tears, she refused to cry here in front of everyone else. Her hands had squeezed into shaky fists, trying to control her fuming anger and utter sadness.

      "Fuck you too, Gojo," Hiyori glared dark and vexed daggers in the white-haired man. She raised her arm and extended it towards Gojo standing a few feet away. She knew she wouldn't have a surprise attack nor the capability to slap him with his infinity either. Just her middle finger was extended towards the white-haired man. "I know you had something to do with this."

      Hiyori immediately dodged on her heels and darted from the group. They still had some time left for their training season, but she simply couldn't find her breath while being in the same vicinity of Yuji and Gojo at the moment.

      Yuji was okay hiding his death from her? Perhaps their friendship differed than what she originally saw. Did he not think she would be devastated? How'd he react if the roles were revised? It was so damn selfish.

      Once she deemed herself far enough away from the crowd, she finally caved and allowed herself to let the tears lose. Watery tears started rolling uncontrollably down her warmed cheeks, but she still felt the fury growing in the pit of her stomach.

      Satoru Gojo. . .he knew the whole time.

      There was no way he didn't know Yuji was alive. Now that she thought of it, Gojo had disappeared randomly fairly often the past month. He wasn't around as much, he always said it was because of missions — he was probably with Yuji the whole time. She scolded herself for not glancing deeper into his actions before placing her trust in him.

That backstabbing lying son of a bitch— Was one of the many furious thoughts flooding her head. I can't believe I ever trusted a man like him.

      So, every interaction she had with him had a lie written into it. Whenever he consoled her, whenever he genuinely seemed interested in her well-being, whenever he was teasing her. It was all fake. Hiyori couldn't even describe the rage that was bubbling in her system. It was the same situation as the sly and flirty comments, was this his kind of idea of playing with a toy?

      Unbeknownst to her, her purple had already been replaced with her watercolored eyes.

      Back with the lingering crowd of jujutsu sorcerers, the three second years — Maki, Panda, and Inumaki had already departed. This wasn't their conversation, and didn't want to intrude. Kugisaki had cheered as Hiyori left, not that the redhead had noticed — the brunette loved seeing Hiyori so feisty. An awkward tension had filled the air, and not just from Hiyori's slap. This was still pretty stunning news to both Kugisaki and Fushiguro too.

      "Why wasn't she excited to see me. . ." Yuji was still holding onto the scorching skin of his cheek with his palm as he muttered. She really didn't hold back, and that was super fast, what the hell has she been up to the past month? His eyes were deflated, his body posture weakened and leaned over a bit. "Gojo-sensei, why did she seem so surprised?"

      Gojo clicked his tongue, placing an index finger on his bottom lip. After a pause, he shortly laughed, "Y'know, I think I might've forgotten to tell her."

      The three first year jujutsu sorcerers stood still as Gojo talked so nonchalant, so uncaring, so. . .unserious. The leftover group was a bit stunned, to say the very least. He seemed to hold no compassion whatsoever for Hiyori and how this would affect her, which rather pissed the three younger adults off.

      "What! So, she didn't even know I was alive this whole time!?" Yuji gasped, and then it all suddenly clicked and made sense in his head. She probably thought I was fine with her not knowing. . . He took off in a mad-dash after Hiyori towards the training center without another word to the fellow jujutsu sorcerers.

      "That was kinda messed up," Kugisaki purposely avoided Gojo's eyes as she shook her head in disappointment at him. She shortly followed the path that Hiyori and Yuji had taken, not in a such a rush though.

      Then it was just Fushiguro and Gojo left to their lonesome. Fushiguro placed a hand on the white-haired man's shoulder to give it a supportive squeeze, but a sigh escaped his lips instead, "Really not cool, Satoru."

      And with that, Fushiguro released his grasp from Gojo, shuffling to follow his friends footsteps. And finally, that left Satoru Gojo by himself.

     He had always said he was fine taking the blunt end of the blade at the moment from others, because of hiding Yuji's survival from them. He knew he would have to face the consequences of his actions, nonetheless. But he believed that hiding Yuji away until now was the absolute right decision, Yuji can handle himself now after all the training he went through.

      He didn't even end up needing to wait until the Kyoto Sister School Exchange Event. Yuji had already increased beyond planned in power and strength the past month, he could certainly handle himself quite well.

      And it wasn't that Gojo necessarily liked the idea of using grief as a motivator for Hiyori, but it had worked. She had improved so much the past month and a half that Gojo because of the motivation from her departed friend. It was genuinely something Gojo had never anticipated, her progress was truly impressive. He had innocently killed two birds with one stone, essentially.

     But if he had been so alright with all of this, why did it sting even worse than imaginable hearing the venom from Hiyori Hinata as she spoke to him?

a/n: well if it ain't the consequences of ur actions SATORU