"Eh… uh, I have no idea."
Jin stared at her for a moment, his expression making it painfully obvious that he wasn't buying it.
"She's lying," Gojo said with complete certainty.
"For sure," Sukuna chimed in from inside Jin. Those old me were only useful as background hype anyway.
Jin looked back at Jean, narrowing his eyes slightly. "Jean, you mind telling me why you don't want to say the truth?"
Jean looked startled, and for a moment, Jin could almost see the realization cross her face that she might have been caught. It was almost like she genuinely believed she could get away with it.
"I am not lying," she insisted. "I told you the truth."
Jin sighed, exhausted by the entire exchange.
"At least look at me when you lie."
He paused briefly before adding, "That'll make it more believable."
Jean looked like a deer caught in headlights, and Jin was starting to think she had a split personality.
A day ago—or apparently four days ago—she had been cold and perfectly normal, then suddenly friendly, and then all shy when she asked for his help. Sure, anyone would be shy if they had to ask a question like that, not to mention the fact that they actually had contact.
Contact he hadn't even had time to savour, considering Jean had been draining him dry like a [].
You know what? Forget it.
Jin walked away.
I've had about enough of this already.
He made his way down the hallway and turned the corner, only for someone to suddenly bump into him.
Oh, not again.
Jin was already thinking that when he looked at the person who had run into him.
Jesus Christ, Scott.
"What happened to you?" Jin asked.
Scott looked like what would happen if cavemen suddenly started wearing proper clothes. [absolute []]
His clothes themselves were perfectly fine, though. Impeccably clean, in fact, so he definitely hadn't landed somewhere by accident.
Scott didn't answer at first. He continued heaving, whether from exhaustion or something else, Jin had no idea, but he was still leaving, so Jin decided to take him to the lab. He reached out and placed a palm on Scott's shoulder, only to hear him speak in a voice so low it could have been nothing more than a whisper.
"You say something?" Jin asked.
Scott spoke again, barely audible.
"...Jean."
This time Jin heard the name, but not enough to understand what he was saying, so he frowned and asked again.
"Speak up, Scott. If you can't, then stay still while I take you to the lab."
This time, Scott spoke clearly.
"Stay away from Jean."
The words churned in Jin's mind the moment he heard them, almost as if his brain, even with the Six Eyes, simply refused to comprehend the sentence. He stared at Scott for a moment, genuinely unsure whether he had heard him correctly.
"I'm sorry, what?" Jin asked.
But this time, Scott lost his patience, whatever little of it he had left apparently having finally worn thin. He started mumbling erratically, the words spilling out in fragments as though he'd been holding them in for far too long.
"...You talk to her and she ignores me..."
"...I care for her... she ignores me..."
"...You say a few words... she lights up..."
"You even spend time in private..."
"...I showed her my love... but she's all about you..."
"...Jin this, Jin that..."
"During lunch breaks..."
"Even during classes, she's all about you."
"What haven't I done for her? But she never sees it."
Jin was dumbfounded. He had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to make of this situation, because none of it made sense to him. Yeah, he had heard of different versions where Scott was apparently an obsessive lover toward Jean, but those cases were usually when the two of them were actually in a relationship, and most of the particularly extreme versions had Dr. Sinister's hand somewhere in the mess.
Even then, Jin couldn't make sense of what he was seeing, so he decided to hand it off to the teacher.
"Okay, I feel you, brother," Jin said. "But we've got to get you to the lab. Let the professor take a look at you."
Jin pulled on Scott's arm, intending to teleport them straight to the lab. But the moment his hand closed around Scott's arm, Jin turned his attention behind him and saw Jean, who had apparently been listening to the entire conversation.
"You were here? Why didn't you come explain to him?" Jin asked.
Jean flinched as Jin's gaze landed on her, shrinking back slightly, and Scott saw it.
Seeing that his "woman" had apparently been taken by another, he took off his glasses, intending to put a hole through Jin as his eyes lit up.
Jin sensed the intense energy and immediately turned back just in time to meet Scott's fiery gaze.
"Stay away from my Jean!!" Scott yelled as he unleashed the force beams.
Jin immediately teleported both of them outside the school grounds. Even if he had the Infinity, the school didn't, and even a slight tilt of Scott's gaze would be enough to tear straight through the building.
The beams went into the sky the moment they appeared outside.
Jin moved fast, knocking Scott out almost immediately. But right above their heads was a giant scar in the sky, one that would definitely draw the attention of world governments, wondering in all their wretched curiosity what the mutants were cooking up.
Jin looked down at the unconscious Scott lying on the floor.
"What in the hell just happened?"
He was still reeling from the adrenaline. Say what you want, even if you were immortal or invincible, having an entire dimension of concussive force aimed directly at you was definitely not something you wanted to face.
Jin crouched down and picked Scott up before teleporting to the lab, where he dropped Jin—very gently—onto the floor.
Before turning around, Jin looked toward the professor.
"Okay, Professor, you mind telling me what's going on?"
"My apologies, Jin, but I don't understand what you mean."
"I know you didn't plan this. That just isn't you."
This you, he thought inwardly.
But I'm sure you must have sensed Jin's emotions, so why didn't you act on it?
The professor was silent this time around.
Seconds passed in silence before he finally spoke.
"I... tried."
A/N:
Hello, my people!
I finally released a chapter! Yay! 🎉 I genuinely didn't think it would take me this long, but here we are. I wanted to work on a server for us, and at first, it was actually going pretty well. But in this life, if you're a broke mf like me, things just don't go your way. And they didn't.
So I worked, and I worked, and I worked, but somehow nothing worked. Trust me, bot programming for Discord is not for the weak. 😭 I managed to finish a bit of it, though—the part where you can chat with an AI directly in the channel or in a private thread, anyway.
That's all for now!
Oh, right, the idea of an obsessive Scott is something I saw in another fic, and I used it because I needed a reason for Jean to leave the school earlier than planned, while also making sure nobody could really hold it against him. So... obsessive Scott it is. 😂
Anyway, I'll see you all in the next chapter!
Oh, and here's the link to the Discord server if you want to join: https://discord.gg/hujpZKfwxA