Orange.

Coral.

Peach.

The color of energy, of vitality, of warmth.

You wondered what it was like.

Even though you had no ability to see it, you knew that feeling, the one of safety that one feels when the world around them seems lively. It's like everything is filled with life: the air, the sun, the trees, the birds. Even other people seem more enthusiastic than usual.

Today was thankfully one of those days where flowers sang and smiles bloomed.

"[l/n], just the usual?" a soft voice hummed, and you nodded.

"You know me, Kagayaku," you chuckled, "I'm not one for change."

She scoffed playfully. "You were 'one for change' when we added [favorite food] to the menu."

"That's an exception, I would change any day for [favorite food]!"

Kagayaku thought you were perhaps the oddest person she'd ever met.

She often found herself looking forwards to your presence, given that you would have the most interesting conversations. She was surprised, on the first day you met, about how you complimented the tea the café she worked in prepared. You didn't say "it's so good!", or "I love the flavor".

No, you said something truly peculiar.

"It tastes like purple."

She had to bite her tongue to prevent herself from stammering some half-thought of response. It tastes like purple?

"Actually... there's a hint of green."

You didn't even look up to meet her gaze; you just kept sipping the warm liquid, and commented on it using words she didn't understand, not because they were foreign but because they had no logical sense. She supposed you must've been crazy, or had some screws loose, since it was the only logical explanation to someone calling their tea "purple".

"Is... is the flavor good, do you like the tea, ma'am?" she asked, baffled with the way you were acting. As a waitress, she'd met quite a few different types of people but this was not one of them.

"It's lovely," you smiled, yet it was a concerning smile. You were grinning to the wall, your head not moving an inch even though she was on your right side. "Could I perhaps order another cup?"

You weren't showing any signs of being a threat, just a bit odd, so she didn't think to try to kick you out. For now, she would smile, take your order, and prepare another cup just as you asked.

"Would you like the same flavor as this one?" she asked for confirmation, but you only shook your head.

"I'm not an expert on tea," you laughed. "Could I get your recommendation? Please, just prepare me whatever you enjoy the most. I'm not picky."

After she'd stumbled into the back of the shop to prepare something for you, she brought back a cup of tea she thought might be pleasant. After all, she didn't want a dissatisfied customer, she was still a waitress who needed money.

You had described this cup as orange.

"It's not orange flavored," she had chuckled nervously, to which you had let out a full, contagious laugh.

"No, no, not 'orange', like the fruit. I meant the color," you had clarified as though it made more sense that way.

"Pardon me, but I don't fully understand."

"Oh."

That was all you said.

But it wasn't what you said then that mattered, it was what happened afterwards.

"Describe the color orange for me," you had said simply, taking another sip then setting the cup gently on the table with a faint thud.

"It's a mix of red and yellow, is it not?" Kagayaku responded.

"And how would you describe the colors red and yellow?"

"They're.. well, I'm not sure how to explain it," she frowned, tapping her bottom lip with her index while she thought about it. "It's just a color, how does one describe it?"

You raised a finger in the air, then motioned for her to come closer. You told her to hold the cup under her nose in a manner that allowed her to smell it, then close her eyes.

"Now, tell me what it smells like."

"It's... sweet. Warm. It smells like... something comforting. Like home."

You seemed satisfied with her answer, since you told her that was all you needed, and she could put the cup down. When she continued to stare at you, confused, you finally decided to explain.

"That's what orange is like for me. It's something sweet, warm, it's comforting. You see, I am blind. It's congenital as well, so I've never seen any of the colors. I like to imagine them in some way that allows me to see without seeing. It's quite poetic, if you think about it," you added with a smug laugh, somewhat proud of yourself for saying that.

As she smiled at you, in the present, she knew you couldn't see the way her lips curved upwards, but it didn't bother her. She never had to feign a smile around you.

"One cup of orange, coming right up."

You heard her footsteps recede, and knew she'd left to go make you the wonderful tea you'd grown to develop a taste for. Your fingertips tapped gently against each other, and you stared forwards at nothingness.

The world was so vibrant.

You heard it off in the distance: the birds chirping, the people chatting, the leaves rustling, the feet shuffling, the laughs echoing. There was so much to be heard and seen, so much to be taken in that sometimes you wondered how people with sight never got overwhelmed. Here you were, with only a portion of your senses functional, yet you could barely keep up with the little details.

The details were what made this day so perfect. The sounds, of course, were just right, but so were the smells. You'd purposefully altered your route so that you could pass by the bakery on your way here, and to say that it smelled like heaven would be an understatement. To add onto that, the flowers were blooming, and a subtle fragrance of sweetness lingered in your nose. Like the cherry on top of a sundae, this café provided you with addictive smells you couldn't quite get enough of.

The air was warm today, but not humid. It was a gentle breeze that swayed all that came across its path, like a tsunami of air that flowed in slow motion. It tickled and teased your skin, not unpleasantly, for if that was the case you might've worn extra layers over your current outfit.

"Your tea, [l/n]," Kagayaku chimed in, setting down the cup onto the table, making a brief and subtle thud as it did so.

You turned towards her - or, at least, where you thought the sound was coming from - and made an effort to display your smile as openly as you could. It was hard for people to understand that a smile had little to no meaning to you, but you'd learned over time that others seemed to appreciate it a lot.

You brought the ceramic up to your lips, well aware that it was too hot, and softly blew away the excess heat. It returned in a cloud of steam that slithered up your nose, and you simply enjoyed the smell for now. Once you judged it to have cooled down, you tipped it towards you and drank. The tea sloshed around in your mouth, and you kept it there for a moment to truly savor the flavor.

As always, it tasted orange.

You finished up quickly, then asked for the bill. You always made sure to give a generous tip, not that you had much money. It's just that you loved this café quite a bit: they didn't treat you like a child as the rest did. "Oh, darling, do you want me to help you find your fork to eat?" was just a slap to the face you didn't need, despite its good intentions, you were just as much of a person as they were.

Once you'd exited through the door, you brought out your walking stick and navigating the sidewalk. You'd familiarized yourself with the neighborhood, so it was a bit easier to walk around than other places.

You had some studying to do for midterms, so you would have to get home now. Going out on your own, without a friend or guide animal, was strongly discouraged, but you couldn't find it in yourself to explain it to them, how you would be fine. You saw, even if you didn't. It was difficult to understand how, yes, you couldn't see, but you still felt things. Like you had an extra sense that made living easier than you'd anticipate it to be at this age that allowed you to feel it when there was a person nearby.

Your doctors were baffled when you first presented signs of being blind. They'd screened you repeatedly, thinking it must have been cataracts, glaucoma, any type of disease, but you never fit any categories, which was odd. The way your most recent diagnosis went, they had described it as though "some unknown force was tugging at your eyes, covering them up and tearing apart your nerves in ways that science couldn't yet comprehend".

For now, you were grateful that none of your other senses had been affected, and it wasn't causing you any pain. The absence of sight was obviously quite mentally taxing and annoying all the time, but as the very least you weren't suffering from the severe headaches everyone had predicted you would, and you had your "sixth sense", as you called it, to help you navigate your surroundings slightly easier.

As you walked past what you judged to be the apartment in construction - which was noisy all day long and irked you thoroughly - just down the street from where you lived, you felt a chill run up your spine, despite the perfect weather.

Something was watching you.

You turned around, and saw what it was.

⇠▫◈▫⇢

Today, the world felt bland.

Things just weren't working well for Geto. It was one of those days where everything was dull and he simply went through the motions instead of really being there.

Everything felt so colorless, so suffocating, as if he was swimming through a tsunami of grey, only to end up drowning over and over again before he could reach the safety of the shore. Convinced that, if he tried hard enough, he might just be able to reach that fleeting stretch of land, only to have the tide pull him back in.

Ever since Satoru had started getting stronger, he was getting sent on missions by himself more and more often, and Shoko didn't go on missions in first place, so he was left to spend a lot of his time alone.

But it didn't really matter anymore.

He was supposed to go on a mission, exorcise a cluster of grade 2 and grade 3 curses that have been popping up all over the neighborhood. They seemed to have spawned near an unfinished apartment building, so he was sent there to take care of it before they attack another civilian.

Then, he'd get sent on another mission to exorcise more curses.

It's a never ending loop.

He didn't even realize what he was doing; Geto had just done the repeated actions he did each time, put up the barrier, went to go look around the vacant building. It was as hollow and dirty as it was from the outsides, pieces of broken equipment littered across the dusty floor, mold snaking up and down the walls coated with chipping paint. It would've been creepy, eerie almost, if a frantic yell hadn't pierced the silence.

"The fuck, the fuck, the fuck?!"

Judging by the language used and the tone of the voice, he guessed that it must've been another high schooler like himself. They must've been screaming because they found a body, or maybe saw that rare incident when normal people could see curses in a life or death scenario had occurred. Either way, he needed to go take care of that, and this made it much easier to locate the curses.

He broke out into a sprint, hoping to get there fast enough to save the helpless civilian...

...who was holding a walking stick that was stabbed through the center of a curse.

"What is that?! That's not a person, you're not a person, I didn't just stab a person, what?!" you nervously screamed, more at yourself than at the impaled blob with multiple eyes across its body. Your arm was shaking violently, and your breaths were ragged.

You could see the curse.

"Hey, calm down," he said, hopefully grabbing your attention, but all you did was continue to mutter to yourself.

"This... this is insane. I'm not... is that what a dog looks like? I swear, it's not... oh god, oh god, did I just stab a dog?! I'm so sorry, I didn't-"

...Were you really mistaking a curse for a dog?

He took a few more steps forwards, yet you still didn't notice his presence, going on and on about the tiny grade 4 curse you just injured, not even to the point where it was lethal.

Geto was about to get closer to finally get you to calm down, but from behind came jumping a grade 3. Right, his mission was to exorcise them, first and foremost. In fact, if you were acting deaf and was standing still from fear, that meant he could just do his thing and not babysit you, which was easier.

He jumped up in time to intercept its trajectory, sending out a slightly larger curse that he stored, the one that resembled a centipede with a large hole as its mouth, to go ingest the other one he didn't have control over, when he felt a smack on his nape.

You had just hit him in the head with your stick.

It wasn't anything he couldn't handle, and you didn't have any overwhelming strength, but it still caught him off guard; what on earth were you doing?

"Get away from me, why the hell am I getting attacked by dogs?"

Now, you was mistaking him for a dog as well? Had you been hit in the head and not thinking coherently or something? Geto just looked at you in confusion, but couldn't make out your eyes from behind the shades, much like he often dealt with when speaking to Satoru.

You seemed to be, to some degree, mad, since you brought the stick back and swung again. Luckily, this time, he was prepared, and brought up his palm to catch it.

"I'm not here to hurt you," he said calmly, hoping you would stop and actually look around you at what's going on.

"You talk?! Wait- what?! Are you a person?" you asked, brows knit in confusion.

He chuckled nervously for a lack of a better response. "Yeah, do you-"

"Oh my god! Oh my god, did I... what did I just stab? That can't be a person, I would never, I didn't know, I-"

Geto seized your shoulders, and directed your gaze back onto him to hopefully help you refrain from panicking. "No, that wasn't a person, that was a curse."

"A... curse? ...What is that?"

He was about to respond, run through the basics and how you should probably head over to Jujutsu Tech, but you cut him off with a yell. "Behind you! What the-"

He seemed to keep forgetting that he was supposed to exorcise a cluster of curses, not just one, and smiled to you. "One second, I need to deal with this."

You nodded, still weary, but appeased now that you knew he was human, something that Geto was still having trouble figuring out.

It was as though you'd never seen another person before.

⇠▫◈▫⇢

You just killed a dog and attempted to murder a person.

That was the only thought running through your mind; an unpleasant thought, at that. You'd been blind since forever, and the first time you see - or, if you could even call whatever that was "sight" - it's whilst shoving your walking stick through some creature's guts. You were just praying that this wasn't actually an innocent animal, for if that were the case, you don't think you'd be able to live it down.

What even was that? You weren't seeing, but it was like that sixth sense of yours was going haywire. And not just when you saw the first thing, but when that other person showed up. He was practically glowing, albeit still looking like a blob of light, but did that really matter? He was the brightest person you'd ever seen.

You had a few run-ins with people like that before, but this felt different. Each person, as you failed to explain coherently to your doctors, radiated some kind of energy of sorts, and, occasionally, you would bump into someone whose energy is beyond that of which you normally "saw", or rather felt, like they glowed without having a light.

This man, whoever he was, glowed brighter than the sun.

He told you something about a "curse", then said to wait a second, which led you to believe that there was something else going on which you didn't fully grasp. You heard him move around, even though his movements sounded fluid and almost lighter than air. You didn't exactly know what to do, but assumed that was the shock: after all, you did just stab something, something which didn't feel like a regular person nor an animal.

Time allegedly flies when you're having fun, but it does the same when you overthink, because by the time you'd calmed down, gripping onto your walking stick for dear life in case you felt you were going to get attacked again, the sound of motion in your surroundings had come to a halt, as though the stranger was done performing.

"That should be all of them," he sighed, panting slightly. What on earth had he been doing that could possibly leave him to be out of breath?

"Okay, now I'm going to need some answers," you turned back towards the energy, which also happened to be the source of the sound, "because I have no clue what in the good fuck just happened."

"No need to be vulgar," he hummed, footsteps receding off into the distance. "Follow me, I'll take you to Jujutsu High."

You stood in place, still confused. He couldn't really be expecting you to just follow him without knowing who he is, or where you're going? Jujutsu High sounds like some con artist hangout, and you weren't so naïve as to drag yourself into a trap.

The sounds of shoe soles tapping against the concrete floor ceased, and then shuffled, like he was turning around.

"I'll explain on the way," he said, some faint hint of exhaustion and annoyance in the background.

"No, I... I don't even know your name, you can't just tell me to follow you around. And I'm-"

"Geto Suguru. Now let's get moving."

"And," you stressed the word, glad he told you his name, but that had little to no significance by itself, "I'm sorry for killing whatever that was, but you said something about a curse. Explain, and I'll consider going."

He let out a deep sigh, followed by a groan. "That thing you just saw, with the eyes and-"

"I'm blind. I didn't see anything," you quickly cut him off.

He shut his mouth after you said that, a long pause ensuing.

"You're blind? Like..."

"Blind as in the inability to see anything, yes. I knew there was a thing in front of me, and it was moving so fast, I just... my body moved on its own."

"If you're blind, that explains the stick," he muttered to himself, "and the lack of trust. You must've sensed the cursed energy, then. I promise I'm not here to kidnap you."

"Saying that just makes me more fearful of getting kidnapped," you chuckled, a bit of panic behind the laughter.

"Fair enough. How about this, I'll give you the basics, then we go out to the school so Yaga can figure out what to do with you, okay, miss...?"

"[l/n] [y/n]," you completed, "and the second part of that sentence makes you sound like you're part of some cult and I'm gonna be a sacrifice or something, Geto."

He laughed faintly, and you noted that his voice sounded like orange.