Chapter Text
[2022]
Seokjin dreams of fire.
He knows it’s a recurring memory. The nightmare is both vivid and hazy — the stench of smoke, the crackling of flames—
And his mother’s screams.
And then darkness. Not the kind of darkness that comes in the middle of the night, but rather the kind of darkness that comes when you hit a wall. A dead end.
Seokjin dreams of fire, but he doesn’t really remember that night his home went up in flames.
The doctor said that’s normal. It was a traumatizing event.
And Seokjin knows why his mind would choose to forget that. He did not survive that night unscathed. While the actual flames barely touched him, the thick smoke made him pass out, and he didn’t wake up for three days. An unexplainable coma. But thankfully, he was pulled out of the crumbling house in time.
His mother, though — his mother wasn’t. Her body was so horrifyingly damaged that their clan cremated her remains before Seokjin even woke.
In the wake of the fire, his relatives approached him with fake smiles and insincere words. It weirded him out. They had never treated him this gently before.
And that had everything to do with his cursed energy.
Cursed energy. The power source used by Sorcerers and Curses alike — the very foundation of the Jujutsu world.
Seokjin could still recall the day his life first changed — the day a spark first engulfed his bloodstream.
That day, at the age of seven, Seokjin manifested his power. Getting it should have been a happy occasion, one that would make his family look at him with pride.
But instead, his mother gasped upon seeing his eyes, grabbed his shoulders and hissed, “Do not ever tell anyone. If you do, this family will use you to break the world. Promise me, Seokjin-ah.”
And seven was too young to truly understand what that meant, but the panic on his mother’s face was enough to plant fear in his heart.
“I promise,” he said.
He hid it. And hiding it made his clan look down at him, treat him as if he was other.
So at the age of 17, when his home and his mother turned to ashes, he ran away in the dark of the night. And he didn’t look back.
And now, at the age of 20, he is still keeping his promise.
—
[2022]
There’s a stranger at the door.
His knock wakes Seokjin, who snaps his eyes open immediately and slides his hand under his pillow. His fingers bump into a cool blade.
No one is due to visit him. Who would? He has no friends here in Miryang. He has no friends anywhere.
The pounding of his heart narrows his focus. Slowly, he gets up from his futon and creeps across his shoebox apartment; it only takes a few steps to reach the door. Careful not to make a sound, he tightens his grip on the handle of his knife and reaches for the door knob.
Another knock. Whoever it is never learned patience.
And whoever it is has an unnatural presence, even through the door. Cursed energy always leaves a stain when used — the way a thunderstorm leaves behind the scent of ozone, the way fingerprints linger on the handle of a gun. Remnants. It usually disappears after a few days of disuse, but this person is surrounded by it like a cloud.
Sorcerer.
Only Sorcerers feel like this.
Cursing his ancestors to high heaven — or the deepest pits of hell, more accurately — Seokjin switches tactics and heads towards the chair in the corner where he dumped some of his stuff the day before. He drops the knife and picks up a pair of sunglasses, sliding them on. He has a part to play.
And then he bounces back towards the door and opens it just as another knock sounds.
When he opens the door, he knows he made a mistake.
Seokjin has met this man before.
Just yesterday, in fact.
Fuck, this isn’t good. This man saw him do things.
Why did I let go of the knife, Seokjin laments.
Trying to salvage the situation, he bows and smiles with as much charm he could muster. “Hi! What can I help you with?” Act clueless, act clueless, he tells himself. You’re just a clueless 20-year-old living on his own, barely surviving but still just fine.
“How about you tell me your name,” comes the answer.
“How about no?” Seokjin’s tone turns sharp in an instant, the atmosphere turning tight with tension with his swift one-eighty.
The man holds up his hands — placatingly, not defensively. He’s not threatened. “Alright, sorry. How about I go first?” He gives Seokjin a shallow bow. “My name is Lee Sangyeob, a professor at the Jujutsu Technical College in Seoul. I know you know what Jujutsu is. I witnessed you wielding that power yesterday. I will have to insist that you come with me.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Seokjin is ruffled but he stands his ground. “I wielded no power.” He’s telling the truth.
“You were up against a Grade 1 Curse, and you very nearly took it out.”
And if you didn’t barge in to save the day, I would have, Seokjin thinks irritably. But there’s no way he would explain his personal situation to this man. So he just says, “I’m a very good marksman.”
“A very good, very young marksman who can see Curses?”
“Is that what they’re called?” Seokjin feigns ignorance. “I just saw a monster and naturally defended myself.”
“With arrows imbued with cursed energy?”
Fuck, okay, he’s not slipping out of this situation cleanly at all. He’d been doomed from the start; this Sangyeob person had caught him fighting a damn Curse out in the woods. Seokjin had snuck away from the scene when Sangyeob finished off the monster, but it was too much to ask that the incident would just be ignored.
Dropping his poor efforts at concealing his secrets, Seokjin sighs. “Okay, fine. I came across a Curse in the woods — weird, by the way, that’s the first time I encountered one here — and I tried to put it down. But I’m not a Sorcerer; I don’t practice Jujutsu. I can’t because I have extremely low cursed energy. So if you’re here to arrest me or whatever, you’ll just be wasting your time. Without my weapons, I’m completely harmless.”
The lies flowed smoothly off his tongue after a decade-worth of practice.
Sangyeob cocks his head, confusion flitting over his features. “Arrest you? Why on Earth would I arrest you?”
Now even Seokjin is confused. “What are you doing here, then? Why did you track me down?” He pauses. “In fact, how did you find me?”
“I asked around town for the tall boy with long hair covering his eyes and they pointed me here. Choi Sungjin, right?”
Even after three years of going by that name, Seokjin still fails to properly respond to it. “Just call me Jin.” He would have preferred Kim Seokjin, his real name, but that might give this man too big a lead to discover his identity.
“Okay. Jin-ah, if you allowed me to explain from the start, I could have made everything clear.” Sangyeob stands straighter, giving Seokjin a friendly smile. It looks genuine. “I’m here to recruit you. Low cursed energy notwithstanding, you were able to hold your own against a high-level Curse. It’s a bit late into the semester, but what do you say to coming to study at Jujutsu Technical College and becoming a real Sorcerer?”
Seokjin slams the door on his face.
—
For some reason, the Sangyeob guy is really persistent. He doesn’t stop lurking outside the apartment the whole day.
Seokjin wants to admire that, but he’s stressed more than anything. He’s all out of supplies — he needs food. Also soap.
Still, he stubbornly stays put, huddled on his futon, dragging his knife against a ceramic rod. Up and down. Repeat. The zinging sound is a comfort. He lets hours pass this way, never relaxing. His stomach grumbles.
Time has never sludged on so slow.
At some point, Sangyeob calls through the doors, “Is the thought of going to school that bad?”
“Yes, it is,” Seokjin answers sarcastically. “I didn’t even study high school!” Again, he’s telling the truth.
“You won’t need that knowledge in our institution,” Sangyeob insists. “You’ll learn how to fight and go against monsters. You’ll learn the system and you’ll see why people like you need to be a part of it.”
Sangyeob has no idea how laughable Seokjin finds all of this.
And how triggering.
‘Real Sorcerer.’ What does this man know about real sorcery? Does he know that it’s not all fairy dust and jaw-dropping miracles? And what does he know about the system? Does he know that it has been fucked up since its inception? If he does, then why would he say that Seokjin has to be a part of it?
Sangyeob is painting Sorcerers as if they’re heroic, and sure, maybe that's ideal, but the reality is far more chilling. And people like Sangyeob who have always just lived in the safety of an institution, far away from the center of it all… they’ll never understand.
They’ll never understand that the worst monsters are Sorcerers and not Curses.
That maybe a kid like Seokjin is the biggest monster they should be fearing.
—
In the end, Seokjin’s hunger gets the best of him.
It’s quiet outside for a while, but then Sangyeob knocks again. “Hey, you’re still in there, aren’t you? I have dinner. You can have this, no strings attached. I won’t pressure you to do anything. Just take this, please, I’m not sure you ate anything all day.”
Seokjin hasn’t. Evening has already fallen. But it’s not like he's a stranger to starvation.
But the crinkling of plastic outside sounds tempting. If it’s no strings attached…
When Seokjin opens the door this time, he has a knife hidden beneath the garter of his shorts. Just in case.
“Sorry if I accidentally prevented you from eating,” Sangyeob says sheepishly, almost shyly, handing over two big plastic bags of food. This might just sustain Seokjin for days. Maybe he can postpone moving to another city and looking for yet another job.
But he also knows he’ll be looking over his shoulder even if he stays, so it’s better to just go. The appearance of that Curse was already alarming, and now a Sorcerer knows his hideout — he has no choice.
Not to mention his little incident in Busan, the closest city from here.
That was days and days ago; he has to go. He’s been dawdling long enough and this is proof. Sooner or later, things always catch up to him.
“It’s too much,” Seokjin says, weighing the bags. He shifts from foot to foot, guilt trickling in. “I doubt you ate either. You can share this with me, but after that you leave.” It’s fine, he tells himself, I’ll leave soon, too.
Besides, the man looks harmless — or at least harmless enough to Seokjin. While he’s tall, he has a slender build. Fair, unblemished skin, features that wouldn’t look out of place on television — honestly, Seokjin wouldn’t believe he’s a Sorcerer if he couldn’t feel the aura he’s emanating. It’s hard to tell Sangyeob’s age; his face looks young but his eyes tell another story.
“Alright.” Sangyeob perks up. “Thank you.”
Ushering his guest in, Seokjin takes one last glance outside, sweeping his gaze down the cramped hall. It’s empty. One of the overhead fluorescent lights was flickering, but nothing weird overall. He closes the door and locks it.
The two of them settle on the floor, since there’s no proper table. Thankfully, Seokjin is a neat person, so despite the small space, it takes no effort to make things work. The rich scent of flavorful food fills the air, prompting Seokjin’s stomach to grumble angrily. There are many options to choose from, but he ultimately decides on fried chicken. Sangyeob grabs some japchae.
“Your place is quite empty,” Sangyeob notes, looking around.
“I live a simple life.”
“Clearly. So simple that it doesn’t look like you even settled down. How long have you been living here? You live alone, I assume?”
Seokjin doesn’t like that Sangyeob is picking up so much about him. But then it’s his own fault for inviting the man in. He changes the topic with a question of his own. “Don’t you have students to teach?”
“Six, actually,” Sangyeob says, poking at his noodles. “I’m in charge of a freshman class. But they can do without me for a day… probably. Hopefully.”
“What brings you all the way out here anyway?” Miryang is a small town. It’s the reason why Seokjin decided to live in it.
“I had some business in Busan.”
Seokjin stills.
“Found nothing there, though.” Sangyeob frowns. Muttering, as if speaking to himself, he says, “Or maybe it’s something… that forest is unexplainable…”
Sweat drops form on Seokjin’s forehead.
“Anyway — I was there for a few days, but no luck. My instincts tingled and they led me here — right into a battle between a kid and a Curse.” Sangyeob smiles at him. “So I do apologize, but I can’t easily let this go. I feel like fate led me here.”
“Is it fate or instincts,” Seokjin mutters. “Pick one.”
Sangyeob stops pretending he’s actually eating and looks Seokjin in the eye. “Listen. I have a feeling I won’t see you again after this night, so I doubt I have anything to lose. I’ll just say it. I simply cannot, as a teacher, allow a young man connected to the Jujutsu world to just go around by himself.”
Seokjin sighs, feeling as if he should have seen this coming. “Sir, with all due respect—”
“If you’re about to say that you don’t need us, I’m sure that’s true,” Sangyeob cuts in. “You’ve been doing well up to this point. But—” he looks around again, “is this any way to live?” He looks at Seokjin earnestly. “We have a dorm in school. A good dorm. You’ll have a nice room, complete supplies, free food, you’ll even have an allowance. The place is tightly secured. It’s safe, and it’s a learning ground for people like you. Let us teach you. Let us train you. And then you can just go on your merry way if you really don't like it. It's not like we can stop you. It’s a school, not a prison.”
To his own surprise, Seokjin finds himself torn. It’s a good deal, he admits to himself. Not only will he be given shelter and sustenance, he’ll basically be given money just to train. And Seokjin is a good fighter, but even he knows he’s lacking in many areas. He doesn’t give a shit about being a Sorcerer or being ‘part of the system’ but if he could improve his blind spots…
It’s stupid, he knows it’s stupid. Agreeing to this is an insane gamble.
Especially because the institution is in Seoul.
Seoul, the stronghold of Seokjin’s family. The family he’s been trying to hide from for the past three years.
But Seokjin has to admit that he’s also desperately out of options. There’s only so much money he could earn to sustain himself from the odd jobs he’s been picking up here and there. And just the thought of moving to another town, looking for another cheap apartment and another grueling job, makes him want to cry — especially now that a new option has been offered to him.
In Jujutsu Technical College, he wouldn’t have to worry about any of that. He’d have a bed. He’d have food. He’d have an allowance. He’d have training.
And most importantly, he would have a semblance of protection. What better place for him to hide than a nest of professional Sorcerers and Sorcerers-in-training? He’s at the perfect age to enroll, too. Twenty, presumably just like the other freshmen. Twenty, the age where all Sorcerers should have fully manifested their powers and enter one of the two Jujutsu Technical Colleges in South Korea. He’ll blend right in.
Can he keep his identity a secret? Can he be that careful?
If worse comes to worst, he can just leave, right?
Seokjin may not be fit to become a professional Sorcerer, but he’s a survivor more than anything. He has to think about himself, and make the best decision he can at any given time.
Taking a deep breath, he says, “Okay. Let’s do it.”