Miko sat across from him, gripping the hem of her clothes so hard her knuckles turned slightly white.
That foul-smelling, twisted monster from earlier still wouldn't leave her head. And the image of Gojo making it vanish with a wave of his hand was burned into her memory.
She took a deep breath. It carried the sweet, milky smell of the ice cream shop, and it calmed the panic inside her a little.
She slowly looked up. Her eyes, which had been darting away before, were now unusually steady as she looked straight at Gojo and his sunglasses. Her lips moved. After working up to it for a long time, she finally gathered every ounce of courage she had and asked the question she'd been holding in for days.
"Gojo, you... saw that thing just now, right?"
Her voice trembled a little, and she quickly added, "And that power you used just now, what was it?"
Then she remembered how terrifying that cursed spirit had been. Her chest tightened, and she asked one more thing, with a quiet plea in her voice. "You can deal with things like that?"
Gojo didn't answer right away. He tilted his head slightly, and his gaze under the sunglasses seemed to settle on her tense face. A small smile tugged at his lips.
He raised a hand and gave a lazy, casual wave to the server sorting orders at the counter.
"Hi, could I get another ice cream boat?"
His voice wasn't loud, but it carried strangely well. The server looked up right away, smiled, said, "Sure, one moment," and went to make it.
Once he'd ordered, Gojo slowly turned back to Miko. His smile was still gentle, and he sounded a little offhand. "As for your questions, if you're not in a hurry, I can answer them."
"Please!"
Miko jumped up from her chair like she was grabbing a lifeline. She moved so fast that the chair legs scraped the floor with a small squeak, and the customers at a few nearby tables glanced over.
She didn't care. She bent forward and gave Gojo a deep bow. Her hair fell over her face and hid her expression, but her slightly trembling shoulders showed how anxious and desperate she was.
"There's no need to be so formal."
Gojo quickly waved his hands, sounding both exasperated and amused, and motioned for her to sit. "Sit down and we'll talk. Otherwise people will think I'm bullying you."
Miko slowly straightened up and sat back down, a little embarrassed. She kept her hands pressed tightly on her lap and her eyes locked on Gojo, afraid she'd miss a single word.
Gojo leaned back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head, completely relaxed. Then he started giving her a simple rundown on cursed spirits and jujutsu sorcerers.
He didn't use a lot of complicated terms. He just explained it in the plainest way possible.
Cursed spirits were monsters formed from human negative emotions, like fear, resentment, and sadness. They hid where people couldn't see them and sometimes hurt people. Jujutsu sorcerers were people who could see cursed spirits and had special powers, and their job was to get rid of cursed spirits and protect people.
Betty, sitting beside them, finally stopped stirring her milkshake. She looked up at Gojo, then nodded her chin toward Miko and cut in, sounding mildly curious. "Does someone like her, who can see cursed spirits, count as talented?"
Gojo smiled and nodded without hesitation. "Of course."
"She's got pretty decent talent when it comes to being a jujutsu sorcerer."
He paused, then added, "She can see cursed spirits clearly without knowing anything and without any training at all. That already counts as pretty impressive talent."
"If she started learning properly and put in some effort, becoming a Grade 2 sorcerer someday probably wouldn't be a problem."
"You call Grade 2 decent?"
Betty raised an eyebrow, sounding dismissive. She obviously didn't think much of a Grade 2 sorcerer.
"What, you think everyone's a genius like me?"
Gojo immediately lifted his chin, looking extremely smug. He was practically overflowing with pride. "In the whole Jujutsu Society, I'm the only one who's as strong as I am, you know."
"Huh."
Miko let out a quiet, puzzled sound. But it wasn't because of what Betty and Gojo were saying. She was too stunned by the new world Gojo had just revealed to pay any attention to their bickering.
She was an ordinary girl who'd lived an ordinary life since she was little. She'd always thought that what she saw and experienced was the whole world.
Going to school, coming home, hanging out with her best friend, eating ice cream, sometimes stressing over exams. She'd thought that kind of plain, peaceful life would go on forever.
If she hadn't happened to see that ugly monster crouched on a street corner a while back, and if she hadn't just watched Gojo make that monster vanish with some kind of amazing power, she'd probably have gone through her whole life clueless. She'd never have known that such a terrifying, mysterious side of the world was hidden out there.
That was why, when Gojo told her all this, Miko was completely dazed. Her mind went blank, and her head buzzed like she'd been hit with a sledgehammer.
Everything she'd believed about the world was completely overturned in that moment. Her once-calm view of the world had taken a hit like never before.
So much so that Gojo and Betty talked for ages beside her, arguing about sorcerer grades one minute and complaining about each other's attitudes the next, and she still hadn't snapped out of it.
It wasn't until Gojo was halfway through the second ice cream boat the server brought that Miko suddenly came back to her senses, and her eyes slowly focused again.
She blinked and looked at Gojo, who was still smiling easily. Deep worry instantly filled her face, and the fear that the shock had pushed down came flooding back.
"Gojo, is there any way to make it so I can't see these things?"
Her voice trembled slightly, and her eyes were full of pleading. She clasped her hands so tightly her knuckles went white. "They're really messing up my life. Every day, weird things show up around me and ask if I can see them."
"I don't know why they do it either. Sometimes they pop out of a corner, sometimes they hide behind me. They scare me all the time. I'm on edge every single day..."
Her voice got quieter and quieter as she spoke, and her eyes started to turn red. All the fear and hurt she'd built up over these days was about to spill over.
"That... probably isn't possible."
Gojo's smile faded. He frowned slightly, thought about it seriously, and then told her with some regret.
As far as he knew, once a sorcerer gained the ability to see cursed spirits, there was no going back to being a normal person. There had never been a case of a sorcerer becoming an ordinary person again and losing the ability to see cursed spirits.
"The reason you suddenly started seeing cursed spirits is that your jujutsu talent showed up as you got older."
He softened his tone, trying to sound gentler in the hope of easing her fear. "It's like how some people show different talents as they grow up. Some people can run faster or jump higher, some are good at drawing, some are good at singing. Being able to see cursed spirits is your talent."
"An ability you're born with isn't something that can just be wiped away later. It's already part of your body, like how your eyes can see sunlight and your ears can hear sound. Nobody can take it away from you."
"As for why those cursed spirits keep asking if you can see them, that's because they're weak."
Gojo's easy smile came back. He took another spoonful of ice cream and said it casually, like it was no big deal. "Strong cursed spirits don't need to beat around the bush like that. If they're interested in you or want to hurt you, they'll just come straight at you. They won't give you a chance to react."
"Think of it like two parallel worlds, the world of normal people and the world of cursed spirits. If there's no interaction between them, they can't connect."
"Once you can see cursed spirits, it's like breaking down the wall between those two worlds. Then they can sense you, and they can do things to you too."
"That's pretty much how it works."
"So that means..."
When Miko heard that, her heart sank. She swallowed on reflex, and her throat was so dry it hurt. She didn't dare think about how dangerous her situation had been.
"Before, if I'd answered them, or if they'd found out I could see them..."
She couldn't finish. Her voice was shaking badly, and her face was full of fear. She hugged her arms tightly, like she was seeing those ugly cursed spirits all over again.
"Yep, that's right."
Gojo nodded lightly. His tone was still relaxed, but what he said was harsh. "They'd attack you and kill you in the cruelest way possible. For weak cursed spirits, a human who can see them is a special kind of prey."
He could tell the girl in front of him was scared. Her face was pale, and her whole body was trembling slightly. But he still decided to tell her the truth straight.
He knew that instead of letting Miko keep living on luck and fear, it was better for her to understand the danger clearly. That way she could make the right choice.
Miko went quiet.
She kept her head down. Her long hair fell over her face and hid her expression, but her trembling shoulders showed how heavy her heart must be.
It wasn't like she'd never wondered what bad things might happen if she answered those cursed spirits.
She'd thought the worst would be getting cursed, having bad luck, or feeling sick. She'd never imagined the outcome could be so brutal. Death.
Images of being attacked and brutally killed by those monsters kept flashing through her mind. Her whole body went cold, and she couldn't stop a shiver.
"There's really... nothing I can do?"
After a long while, Miko slowly raised her head. Her eyes were red, and her voice was choked. Tears welled up, but she held them back. She looked at Gojo, still pleading with one last bit of hope.
"Well, it's not like there's no way at all."
Gojo smiled again as he ate his ice cream, a sly note in his voice as he deliberately left her hanging.
"Really?!"
Miko's eyes lit up instantly, like she'd grabbed the last lifeline. She leaned forward sharply, full of excitement and hope, and her fear and tears seemed to fade a lot.
"Yep. It's actually super simple."
Gojo smiled, raising his hand and making a quick clapping motion as he spoke. He said it lightly, like it was the most trivial thing in the world. "Smack. You just kill them."
Miko fell silent again. She stared quietly at Gojo as the excitement and hope slowly drained from her face, replaced by deep helplessness and hesitation.
Kill those horrifying monsters? She was just an ordinary high school girl who could barely bring herself to swat a bug. How was she supposed to take on those foul-smelling, twisted cursed spirits?
For a moment, the mood in the ice cream shop felt heavy. Only the street noise from outside broke the silence.
Betty rolled her eyes hard beside them and broke the tension, sounding exasperated. "She doesn't want to be a jujutsu sorcerer, and she doesn't want to see any of that junk. And you're telling her to go fight cursed spirits? Can you say something actually useful?"
"Isn't there any other way?"
Miko quickly jumped in. She still wasn't ready to give up, and she looked at Gojo again. "Like some kind of charm or something? So that if I wear it, I can't see cursed spirits, or they won't dare come near me?"
"Nope."
Gojo spread his hands with a helpless look. "At least, I don't know of anything like that."
"Unless you live inside a barrier set up by a jujutsu sorcerer and never leave. Then cursed spirits couldn't get close to you, and you wouldn't see them. But that's not really realistic."
He paused, then added, "You can't stay stuck in such a small space for the rest of your life, unable to go to school, see your friends, or live a normal life. How would that be any different from being in prison?"