ITSY BITSY SPIDER. ― ( Jujutsu Kaisen )

CHAPTER TWO. a boy named yuta

It was one of the many matters Arisu and Ryosuke didn't see eye to eye. She believed it was good for Satoru. It made him look less close to a god, reminded the others that he was also human; flesh and bone, born to a mother like the rest of them. It was good for her to remind herself that.

For once, Ryosuke didn't say anything. He was too busy typing on his phone.

"Mom's going to chew me out for not bringing you along." To six and five-year-old Satoru and Arisu, no monsters in closets, no ghosts in shadows, no curses were scarier than Gojo Narumi after her husband's siblings commented on her son's lack of discipline. She towered over them like a giant straight out of the pages of a fairytale with her finger waving in their faces while the little girl cowered behind the instigator of all of their crimes. A girl in her position didn't have the same privilege to misbehave, but it was impossible to not get caught in the clan's prince's antics when she was required to be by his side every second. Her guardian never separated the girl from her own blood when that happened. "And she already guilt-tripped me into promising I'd go."

Narumi was a good person. Better than Shiori and Shohei, better than her late husband, better than the mother who sold her weeks-old baby to her distant relatives to fund her getaway, and as much as Arisu struggled to accept, better than Kousuke-sama.

"I feel bad about sending you alone." She was glad that Satoru couldn't see the mischievous smile on her lips, or so she thought. The woman had an idea of how the Six Eyes saw the world but not what he saw. "I'll come with you if Ryo is also coming."

Satoru heaved out a relieved sigh, a little exaggerated but fitting his character. He was still standing in the middle of the room with his hands on his hips as if he was in a hurry to wrap it up and drag her outside to show her the new stray he found. He sure loved collecting them.

"Of course he's coming. When did he ever miss—"

"No." The already faint smile on the black-haired man's lips was wiped away the moment his name left hers. He turned the phone face-down and placed it down on his leg.

"Huh? What do you mean no?"

Outright insults weren't Ryosuke's style. His face was saying 'Are you that dense?'. "It means I won't be going."

Satoru countered his attitude with a bratty voice. "I get that. Why not?"

Ryosuke took a moment to decide whether answering or telling his cousin to mind his own business would end up less troublesome. "I have other plans. I thought you already knew. I told Arisu two weeks ago."

"Did you really have to bring that up?" she protested.

Satoru turned to Arisu, then to Ryosuke again, and repeated the motion a couple of times before he decided that he was more disappointed than he was surprised. "Since when you are conspiring with him behind my back?"

"I was going to tell you." She choked on a guilty chuckle while shifting in her seat. His six eyes on her soul almost made her forget which sin she was confessing. "He's trying to shift the attention away from himself! Let's focus on what's important here. Ryo isn't attending Shiori's birthday. Her 60th birthday! Who knows, hopefully it might be her last."

In her eyes, Shiori was a despicable woman, the embodiment of everything ugly and two-faced in the jujutsu society; in Satoru's, she was just another annoying relative. Ryosuke shared a close bond with his aunt, closer than he had with his parents, closer than she had with her siblings. The eldest child and the only daughter of Kousuke-sama had taught her nephew the art of swordplay, honed him into the respected sorcerer he was today. He was her 'perfect boy', and her perfect boy was missing her special day.