Chapter Text
The Gojo estate was quieter than usual, which only meant one thing: something important was happening. Satoru sat on the polished floor of the inner shrine room, legs tucked beneath him in an uncomfortable way. He wasn’t fidgeting. Not because he wasn’t bored, but because he knew better. Everyone had made it clear: if he disrupted the process, they’d have to start over from the beginning. Again.
The air hummed with cursed energy, the kind that clung to skin like static. The walls of the shrine seemed to pulse in rhythm with the ancient object resting at its center. A lacquered box sat atop a raised altar—black with silver inlay, bound in sacred wards. Inside it lay the Ring of Spirits, a cursed artifact older than any living clan member. At a glance, it was just a twisted iron ring, spiderwebbed with cracks like veins. But it held power. And worse—tradition. Expectations.
He was way too young for this.
Most children didn’t present until at least twelve or thirteen. Satoru had gone through his secondary gender awakening two months after his tenth birthday. The day it happened, the estate had erupted into equal parts celebration and emergency strategy meeting.
"An Alpha at ten," they whispered behind paper fans and veiled glances. "The Six Eyes truly mark him as blessed. He'll shape the balance of power among the clans."
He didn’t care about any of that. He didn’t want to be an Alpha. He wanted to run outside, chase clouds, and sneak sweets from the kitchen. But the moment he presented, the ritual became inevitable. He was too valuable now.
A pair of elders stood at the doorway in ceremonial robes. A third priest entered with a censer, its smoke curling like spectral fingers around the room. Satoru’s grandmother stood behind him, silent but watchful.
“Do you understand what will happen, Satoru?” she asked, voice sharp but not unkind.
He nodded, trying not to scowl. “I’ll hear the first words my soulmate will ever say to me.”
“That’s right. The one who is destined for you. An Omega who will help stabilize your cursed energy. Strengthen your bond properly, and they’ll…” she paused, “complete you.”
He hated the way she said it. Like his whole life was just a puzzle waiting for someone to fill in the missing piece. He didn’t need some random Omega to make him “complete.” Still, he kept quiet. He did not need another lecture on the “proper behavior” for an Alpha clan head was. The sooner this was over, the better.
The ritual began.
Incantations echoed low and slow, thrumming in his ears like a heartbeat. The artifact flared to life with a whisper of light—blue, soft, strange. It hovered for a moment, then dropped like a stone, hitting the floor with a sharp clang.
Satoru flinched. Then, silence. He was about to say something, maybe ask if it had failed, when the sound came. A voice, low and calm, threaded into his thoughts like silk:
“Not interested…This is a terrible first impression.”
Satoru blinked.
He didn’t know what he’d expected. Maybe something sweeter. Something romantic, like the stories his nursemaids used to tell. But no, that voice was dry, composed, like it belonged to someone who didn't care about his name or his titles. Someone who wasn’t impressed by the Gojo clan or the Six Eyes.
Feisty for an Omega. It made something in Satoru's chest tighten in anticipation, just a little.
..
By the time Satoru turned fifteen, the ritual felt more like a curse than a blessing.
He’d grown tall, unreasonably tall, and even more powerful. His Six Eyes had sharpened, and his cursed technique had bloomed with precision that terrified even the elders who once praised him with thinly veiled intentions. On paper, he was everything an Alpha should be: dominant, brilliant, unshakably in control. And he was all those things in practice as well, but ruts had changed things.
He’d had his first one at twelve. That was early, too—just like everything else with him. It was brutal, confusing, and left him feeling like his skin didn’t fit. By his second and third he’d learned to manage it, technically. In times like this the clans influence had it’s benefits. There was no remedy that was out of reach.
But no matter how many times he meditated, took suppressants, used rut aids, or worked himself half to death with cursed energy drills, nothing took the edge off like it was supposed to. Because the ache wasn’t just physical, and it wasn’t purely hormonal either. It was bond-deep, and he still didn’t have a bond. The ritual had barely given him anything: a voice. One line. That was supposed to be enough to anchor him to fate.
“Not interested…This is a terrible first impression.”
At ten, he’d thought it was kind of funny and surprisingly bold. It made him curious as to what kind person his soulmate would turn out to be. Now, it just pissed him off.
“Who the hell says that to someone they’ve just met?” he muttered one night, sprawled out across his tatami mat. His shirt hung open, chest damp with sweat. The air in his room was thick with his scent—hot, frustrated, laced with the sharp burn of something unspent.
He stared up at the ceiling, jaw tight. He’d gone to dozens of social gatherings, endured clan-arranged banquets, accepted endless offerings from ambitious families who paraded their Omegas like bargaining chips. But nothing, not a flicker of recognition. Not even a wrong match.
That was the worst part. The ritual didn’t tell you when you’d cross paths or where. It didn’t give a name, a face, or a scent, just a sentence. You’d only know it was them the moment it happened. So every time he met someone new became a moment of anticipation and inevitable disappointment.
Day after day, he’d force himself to attend miserable elite social gatherings—Telling himself “If today was the day it happened it would all have been worth it”— yet every time he’d be met with failure. He was tired of waiting. But more than anything, he was tired of being so goddamn lonely while being tied down to some faceless phantom.
Satoru rubbed a hand over his face, fingers digging into his temple. “I swear,” he muttered, “when I find you… you better be worth the damn wait.”
..
Satoru ran to Tokyo Jujutsu High the moment he was old enough to apply. The idea of spending the rest of his adolescence trapped under the suffocating weight of the Gojo clan made his skin crawl. If he stayed any longer, he was sure the oppressive traditions would calcify around him, fossilizing him into the perfect little figurehead they'd always wanted. He needed out.
Tokyo was freedom—chaotic, cursed, unpredictable freedom. More importantly, it was new. New buildings, new rules, new people. Maybe even, his soulmate.
A calculating senpai who’d challenge him. A bratty kouhai who’d tug at his patience. A stranger met mid-mission, blade to blade, curse to curse, heart to heart. The possibilities played like film reels in his head, each more dramatic and romantic than the last. Anything was better than waiting.
But as with most things in his life, reality refused to indulge him.
His first year passed in a whirlwind of cursed techniques, combat training, and late-night arguments with Suguru about random things. He made friends, real ones. People who liked him not because of his family name or his power, but because of who he was beyond all of that. That alone made everything worth it.
Still, no perfect first meeting with his soulmate.
His second year arrived quietly, slipping in while he was busy laughing too loudly at one of his own jokes. One day he blinked and realized it was April again. The sakura trees were half-shed, leaving petals like paper scars on the concrete. And just like that, the new first-years had arrived.
Satoru stood with his usual swagger. Sunglasses low on the bridge of his nose, hands buried in the pockets of his uniform jacket. The weather was perfect—the air smelled like fresh grass and challenge. It was the kind of day that hinted at change, even if it didn’t say it outright. Perfect for a new student welcome party.
“I hear the new first-years already arrived,” Satoru said, eyes gleaming with anticipation as he leaned against the windowsill. “Time to get this ball rolling!”
“Just don’t over do it on the greeting,” Suguru groaned. “Upperclassmen are supposed to be welcoming.”
“I am welcoming,” Gojo replied with mock offense, his voice dripping with honeyed innocence. “I’m like the sun. Bright. Warm. Only dangerous if you get too cocky or careless.”
Suguru rolled his eyes. “Just… try not to make anyone cry.”
But Satoru was already halfway out the door, fingers tapping rhythmically against the wall as he walked.
When they reached the courtyard, the new students were already waiting at the edge of the training field. One boy radiated excitement, barely keeping himself from bouncing in place. The other stood beside him with arms crossed, mouth drawn in a sharp line, like he already regretted enrolling. Gojo’s grin widened. He practically skipped across the courtyard, stepping into the training field with an unnecessarily flashy pulse of cursed energy—just enough to ruffle hair and egos.
“Hey there, you must be my adorable little kouhais~,” he sang.
The boy with brown hair quickly turned to introduce himself. “Yes, I’m Yu Haibara! You’re Satoru Gojo right?” The boy practically sparkled with enthusiasm. “I’ve seen all the reports on your missions! I can’t believe you’ve taken on so many special grade curses!”
Satoru winked, soaking in the attention like a sponge. “I am pretty great, aren’t I?”
The other boy—taller, with blond hair and an unreadable expression—shifted slightly. His gaze swept over Gojo from head to toe. Not curious, not starstruck, not even dismissive. Just... annoyed.
“What's with you? Too amazed to speak?” Satoru’s smirk widened. “If you want, I can give you a demonstration of my skills lat–.”
Before he could finish, the blond boy cut in, voice calm but razor-edged. “Not interested” and then after a quiet sigh, “This is a terrible first impression.”
Satoru’s world stuttered. It was like a switch flipped in his chest. His cursed energy jolted under his skin like a live wire. The words slammed into him like a punch to the ribs, forcing the breath from his lungs. He knew that voice. That dry, disinterested tone. The exact cadence he’d heard in the ritual all those years ago.
His soulmate.
Satoru didn’t speak. He just stood there, staring, sunglasses slipping halfway down his nose as he tried—and failed—to make sense of what was happening. Across from him, his soulmate stood like a closed door. Calm, measured, and completely indifferent. But something was wrong. Something his body was trained to detect before his brain could name it.
There was no scent.
Not suppressed. Not faint. Just… nothing.
No hint of sweet Omega pheromones, not even the musky edge of another Alpha. His cursed energy was present, steady and well-controlled, but his presence —his secondary gender—was like a blank page.
Gojo blinked, hard.
‘Wait. Wait, what?’ His mind scrambled. ‘Is this the wrong person?’ No. No way. The voice was identical. The tone, the cadence—it was the same one he’d heard during the ritual, etched into his memory like scripture. So… not the wrong person.
‘Was my fated pair never meant to be an Omega?’ Nothing in the ritual had ever said so, not explicitly. That had all come from the elders. Their assumptions. Their convenient, lineage-driven interpretations. They’d assumed an Alpha’s soulmate meant “bondable Omega.” Someone who could carry the Gojo bloodline. But maybe fate didn’t give a damn about the Gojo clans continued existence.
His gaze flicked again to his soulmate. Still watching him. Still unimpressed. ‘Male Betas can’t have children,’ his mind supplied automatically, an echo of a thousand quiet lectures. A single-track future, taught to him before he even knew what he wanted. ‘Do I even want children?’
He paused.
That answer didn’t come as quickly as he’d thought it would. The clan wanted them. He was supposed to want them. It was his “duty”, his “legacy.” But he —the part of him that existed under the weight of his name, his power, his title—had never really thought about it. Not seriously. Not for himself. And now here he was, faced with the person fate had tied him to.
Not what he was expecting, but still his. And still staring, he realized.
His soulmate’s brow ticked up, just slightly.
Satoru snapped out of it, blinking rapidly. He was still frozen in place, silent, unmoving, possibly gaping like a moron. “Oh,” he said. “Uh… Hi.”
“Are you alright?”
“Yep,” Gojo said, voice about two octaves too high. “Peachy. Totally normal. Definitely not having a minor existential crisis right now.”
“Right,” Nanami said evenly, tone perfectly neutral. “So... introductions.”
Satoru jolted a little, as if remembering he was still on Earth. “Yeah. Of course.” He cleared his throat and tried to act like he hadn’t just spent the last minute mentally spiraling. “Satoru Gojo... You already know that, though. Sorcery legend. Alpha.” He added the last part with a smirk, but it landed with all the energy of a damp paper towel.
“Kento Nanami. First-year. Beta.”
Satoru twitched. Beta.
“Cool,” Gojo said, a bit too quickly.
Nanami studied him with a detached kind of curiosity, like someone observing an animal pacing in its enclosure. “You seem... uncomfortable.”
“What? No. I’m great,” Gojo replied. “Super great.”
The silence that followed said no one believed that.
Nanami’s expression didn’t change, but something in his posture shifted—less defensive, more resigned. “Let me guess, you’re not used to people who don’t immediately fall at your feet?”
Gojo scoffed. “ Please, That’s not—well—okay, I mean, people usually —” He stopped himself and sighed. “I just wasn’t expecting…”
“Someone unimpressed?”
He forced a crooked smile. “Yeah… something like that.”
Nanami didn’t respond. Just shrugged, like Gojo’s entire presence didn’t mean much to him either way. He’d turned towards Suguru at this point, but Satoru wasn’t really processing the words they were exchanging.
‘Maybe he is an Omega,’ he thought frantically. ‘Some Omegas are born with really faint scent profiles. Or maybe he’s just suppressing it with meds or barriers. That’s a thing, right? Modern medicine, cursed scent blockers, all that? And with the way Omegas are treated on average it makes sense that he’d try to hide it.’
He risked a glance at Nanami again, zeroing in on his uniform. Crisp and buttoned all the way to the collar. Sleeves long enough to cover both wrists. Absolutely no skin exposed. No way to even catch a glimpse of the delicate dips of scent glands at the neck or the subtle swell of them along the wrists or inner arms. ‘Damn it. He’s covered up like a nun.’
Gojo felt heat rise in his neck, and not from embarrassment. From sheer frustration. He needed to know. Fate had thrown this impossibly composed boy in front of him, and now it was just silence and mystery and no clues to work with. His mind, as it often did, flooded with ideas.
‘What if I sparred with him? Got him in the training hall, upped the heat in the room a bit. Make it so he’d put on something more revealing. Maybe just a light shirt, tank top... no sleeves. Sweat would bring out a scent, right? Or at least—’ He clapped a hand over his own face. ‘I'm thinking like a complete pervert.’
It wasn’t that he had a problem with being with a Beta. He didn’t.
Probably.
Maybe.
Okay, no, definitely not. It’s just… He’d been told his whole life that he’d bond with an Omega. That a proper Alpha like him would need the scent match, the hormone balance, the reproductive potential, the… children.
‘Right. That.’
The clan wanted children. But did he ? If Nanami was truly a beta like he said, would the clan accept him? Accept the results of the ritual? Or would they just tell him to find someone else? Maybe they’d try and set him up with some kind of surrogate.
Satoru looked at Nanami again. Steady. Stern. Self-contained. His cursed energy was neat, cleanly maintained like the lines of his uniform. Nothing messy. Nothing vulnerable.
Whether he’s lying or telling the truth,’ Satoru thought, ‘ he’s mine. I know that much.’ The realization hit harder than he expected. His soulmate was finally right in front of him. He couldn’t wait to get to know him. To charm him. To tell him about the ritual and see his reaction.
Nanami glanced sideways at him. “You’ve gone quiet again.”
Gojo blinked. “Just thinking.”
“Dangerous,” Nanami muttered.
Gojo coughed, straightened, and forced a cocky grin. “Well, if you’re lucky, maybe someday I’ll share my thoughts with you.”
Nanami stared at him. “...Hard pass.”
‘He’s perfect.’ Satoru thought as his grin widened.
“Moving on from intros,” Suguru interrupted, “We actually came down here to see you for a very specific reason.”
“Really?” Haibara asked turning his head in confusion.
“Yes!” Satoru exclaimed “You’re thoughtful senpai’s have prepared a new student welcoming party!”
Haibara’s eyes lit up. “A party? Really?”
“A Jujutsu High classic… starting now” Gojo declared, flinging one arm around Suguru’s shoulders and the other dramatically toward the sky. “Music, food, spectacle! Everything a good party needs.”
“It’s not as dramatic as he’s making it sound.”
“Don’t kill the magic, Suguru” Gojo muttered, elbowing him. “This is about building excitement. Hype. First impressions !”
Nanami raised a brow. “And throwing your cursed energy around in the middle of the courtyard was part of that?”
“Yeah, that move tends to impress people. But, you’re a bit of a tough audience member.”
Nanami, unamused, exhaled.
“Anyway!” Gojo clapped once, loud and abrupt, forcing a few birds from the nearby trees. “Why don’t we walk and talk? We’ve got cold drinks, snacks from the local convenience store, and one more person for you to meet.”
Haibara looked thrilled. Nanami looked like he was internally calculating how far he could get if he just turned and walked away right now. Gojo, ever the showman, stepped forward and gestured dramatically.
“This way, my kouhais! Follow your charming, devastatingly handsome senpai!”
As they started toward the path to the classrooms, Gojo subtly slowed his pace to fall into step behind Nanami. The thoughts in his head weren’t gone, but they were quieter now. Less panicked, more plotting.
For the first time in years, the tether to his soulmate wasn’t just a theory or a hope. It was real. Walking five steps in front of him, in a perfectly pressed uniform, with no scent and no softness.
Gojo smiled to himself. ‘You don’t have to fall for me right away, Kento. But you will someday.’
~~~
Nanami stood stiffly at the front of the classroom, shoulder to shoulder with Haibara. Both of them wore celebratory red and white sashes looped diagonally across their uniforms. Perched on his head—against his will—was a cheap green party hat, tilted slightly to one side like a crown of mockery.
Gojo had put it there.
Nanami had tried to remove it once already, but he’d caught Gojo watching him with that damn glint in his eye—the one that promised mischief and boundary violations.
He had no doubt the moment he took the thing off, it would reappear on his head in some dramatic fashion, probably accompanied by confetti and a personal commentary about how he “looked too serious for a party.” So for now, he left it. Begrudgingly.
He and Haibara made for an odd visual pairing. Haibara practically vibrated with enthusiasm, his eyes bright as he laughed with the others and asked questions about cursed spirits like they were cool instead of horrifying. Every few seconds, he bounced slightly on the balls of his feet, like a puppy trying not to beg for attention. He fit right in.
Nanami, on the other hand, stood like a fixed post. Arms at his sides, back straight, mouth drawn in a line that was two degrees short of a full scowl. If he had access to a mirror, he was certain his expression would scream discomfort.
It wasn’t that he wanted to be miserable. He didn’t even dislike the upperclassmen. Suguru Geto was surprisingly thoughtful. Shoko Ieiri was dry and sardonic in a way he found oddly reassuring. And Gojo, well… Gojo was chaos wrapped in charisma and topped with infuriating persistence. Not preferable, but potentially tolerable in short bursts.
That wasn’t the problem. The problem was the air in the room.
It was thick with scent. Alpha pheromones—dominant, heady, and potent—lingered in every corner like the afterburn of smoke. Even with his custom suppressants—twice the average prescription strength, specially formulated—Nanami could feel his instincts tensing under the weight of it. His skin prickled along the nape of his neck, his pulse fluttering slightly too fast beneath his collar.
Nanami kept his breathing shallow. He could handle this. He had to handle this.
If he so much as flinched, if he gave the faintest sign of strain, it would unravel everything he’d worked for. The Beta designation on his school records, the scent masking techniques drilled into muscle memory, the medical lies signed in subtle handwriting. Jujutsu society was harsh enough on Omegas who played by the rules, he had no illusions about what would happen if they discovered one hiding in plain sight.
This was the life he’d chosen. Control or nothing. Silence or exposure.
Still, part of him ached—not with fear, but with pressure. The unbearable kind that made his glands throb beneath the scent patches, the kind that curled like static across his nerves, the kind that whispered, ‘ Get out. Run. Before someone sees through you.’
He clenched his fists and kept his expression neutral. Or, more accurately, he kept it from dipping into an outright scowl. That was as close to a smile as he could manage right now. He endured. Let the hat dig awkwardly into his scalp.
The scent in the room—thick and oppressive—coated the inside of his lungs like oil. Three Alphas, all powerful in their own right, two of them already high rank sorcerers, their cursed energy humming just beneath the surface like pressure before a storm. It was overwhelming. And beneath it all, threading through like the sharp sting of citrus or static or something else equally difficult to ignore, was him.
Gojo.
Nanami could feel the weight of his gaze even before he looked up. Why was he doing that?
From the moment they’d exchanged words, Gojo had been watching him—openly, brazenly at times, and other times with a subtlety so clumsy it was borderline insulting. Like he thought glancing over the rim of his sunglasses somehow rendered him invisible.
It wasn’t a searching stare, not quite. Not expectant, either. But there was intent behind it. Something calculating. Curious. Persistent. Nanami’s mind spiraled through possibilities.
‘Did he suspect something?’
Maybe his suppressants were failing. Stress could disrupt the stability of the masking compounds—he knew that. He’d taken extra doses this morning, but even so, the air around him felt tight, warped, like it was pressing in too close. Was Gojo close enough to pick up on something subtle? Some unconscious scent marker bleeding through the cracks?
Or was it the Six Eyes? Could Gojo’s technique see past the chemical barriers, past the illusion of Beta neutrality he’d spent years perfecting?
Nanami’s throat tightened, just slightly. No. That didn’t track. Gojo didn’t act like someone who knew. If he had seen through it, he would’ve said something. Loudly. Gojo didn’t seem subtle. Not when it came to anything that mattered.
So what was it, then? Why the constant attention?
Nanami resisted the urge to shift under the weight of it. He didn’t give Gojo the satisfaction of a reaction. Instead, he breathed slow, shallow pulls of air, forcing his body to behave, forcing his nerves to still. He reminded himself that this wasn’t his first performance. Just a new stage.
And yet, as Gojo tilted his head and stole another not-so-subtle glance, Nanami couldn’t help but wonder. ‘What exactly is it that you see when you look at me, Satoru Gojo?’