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I never have, and never will be frustrated by my own uselessness.
“I do get scared, Nanamin. But when people need help, I can’t spend much time worrying about what’s in here.”
Even though he never stopped smiling, I wasn’t sure if he was ever truly happy. It was the obvious conclusion. Jujutsu sorcerers are shit; this could never be a ‘happy profession’, if such a thing ever existed. Despite knowing this well, his grin never disappeared.
It didn’t annoy me, but it confused me. By the dozens, curses fell at our hands. Entities the furthest from humans as one could get. And yet, he still had this ridiculous grin spread across his face. It was far beyond my understanding.
Eventually my curiosity got the better of me. I asked him if he ever got scared, if he ever hesitated, and that was the response he gave me: that worrying was a waste of time. I understood that he needed to repress his fear, of course. One of the very first things a jujutsu sorcerer is taught is to control the flow of their negative emotions — to weave the darkest parts of ourselves into weapons with which to destroy darkness itself. But I didn’t understand why he had to smile. It didn’t look like he enjoyed battle any more than anyone else at the college. What was so amusing about the perpetual, mortal threat of a curse? Was that his way of stifling his fear?
I believed that my emotions had never needed managing, in contrast. That was what I continued to tell myself, because I had never been prevented from doing my duty because of how I felt. You could say my curse technique, Ratio, is a reflection of that. It’s straightforward and manageable in function, with no complex variables to disrupt its execution. Aside from making contact with the enemy, there’s nothing else to account for. I stare down my target. I strike at the point on their body. I repeat. Unlike my classmate, I didn’t need to put on an eccentric mask of false merriment. My flow remained consistent. At least, that was all what I told myself.
“Haibara. Damn it… Haibara!”
When that thing had us in its Domain, it held him by his neck, as if reared to crush it in a firm motion. I continued to strike at our target in a vain attempt to sever its limbs.
6:4.
With my technique, I see a line segment split at a 7:3 ratio on the target’s body, and my attacks multiply in effectiveness upon striking that point. If I’m even one tick off from the split, the technique has no effect. At the time, I knew that I wasn’t getting results. Despite this — or perhaps because of this — I kept up my offense.
6:4.
The stress of the situation was getting to me, though I'd refused to acknowledge it. Strike. Strike. A comrade’s life was on the line. And yet…
6:4.
The curse didn’t consider me a threat. It tortured me all for cruelty’s sake. Holding my partner up in its vice-like grip, shrugging off my attempts to strike it down. I couldn’t destroy its arm with my curse tool and strength alone. I had to land a successful hit with my technique. I had failed at least three times before the curse got sick of my futile efforts and slammed me into the ground in retaliation.
Each time I failed, Yu would peer down at me, gaze calm and undiscerning. And he’d smile. Even as his blood bubbled up in his throat and oozed from his mouth, and his broken arms dangled pathetically, he had mustered up the energy to flash me an earnest, kind smile. It was as strong as the ones before it. It only furthered my desperation and my anger. And yet, it also caused me to wander. At that moment, I had it in me to think: “Why do curses exist?”
It’s a silly question. Why do we need oxygen to breathe? Why is the grass green, and the sky blue? Why do we exist at all? There are “logical” explanations for all of these, but the true answer is far simpler; it's because that's the world we live in.
But I wasn’t content with that answer at the time. So I continued to ask that question, over and over in my head as I tried to free my partner. I grit my teeth so hard I swore they’d crack, repeating that question in my mind. Why must curses exist? Why must they hurt others? And I’d struck at the curse, over and over and over... Long after Haibara’s life had came to an end.
That smile finally fell with the rest of him; his muscle became jelly as he was dropped to the ground, like a toy rejected by its owner. But facing death at the hands of a curse, he held it to the very end. He could still spare a smile. I could not.
“I’ll exorcise you.”
I was not and am not like Yu Haibara. Curses are horrid entities, born from the worst parts of humans. Our fear, our anger, our sadness, given twisted form. Looking at a curse with my own two eyes, how could I possibly make such a face? It wouldn’t remove any fear. It’d be impossible, dishonest — like looking fondly at a heap of rotting garbage. Faced with the trash that killed Yu, smiling just wasn’t possible for me. Faced with the trash that is curses, smiling had never been possible.
Nonetheless, that mission was what allowed me to come to terms with a hard truth. A simple smile, and the person that it belongs to, are things easily extinguished. So in my cowardice, I quit. I ran away, settling into a humble, nothing-special living as a salaryman. If I wanted to live, it wasn’t going to be in a way where I would have to keep watching smiles disappear. That was what I had rationalized to myself.
But it’s funny. Four years of this job really gets to you. You eventually realize that, in the end, you’re still watching people die. You don’t see the blood bubble in their mouth, or hear the bones in their arms snap like toothpicks - but you can still see the life drain from their body, and the smile disappear from their face. You’re still present and aware, hiding behind a computer screen and a phone as co-workers and clients alike inch towards their demise in a monotonous system. I eventually found that I was watching myself die, slowly but surely. So much for a man like me, who once believed there was no point in a ‘purpose’.
“Right now… I feel grateful to you.”
“Thank you! Please come again!”
I could have never foreseen it this way, but the gratitude to be found in protecting those simple smiles had become my reason for being.
“Keep your gratitude. I’ve received plenty of it already.”
I think it was that sense of fulfillment, coupled with my own experience working with Itadori, that allowed me to finally understand Haibara in his final moments. It seemed so clear in hindsight. I could smile for myself.
“Mister Geto asked me something like that, too. I don’t like to do a lot of thinking, but… I just want to be able to give it my all with the things I know I can do!"
As simple as it was, he had his own reason for being. He felt peace knowing that he was fulfilling himself. Even as I let my emotions get the better of me, and failed to save him, there wasn’t the vaguest hint of resentment in his eyes. It was because of that that I felt no reason to blame myself.
After all, whether I succeed in my efforts or not, people will be hurt for as long as curses exist. If not curses, then humans themselves. People will die — if not in an instant, then slowly, gradually, to the ennui of life itself. That is a simple truth, and an unfairness of the world, imposed upon all. I can only refine what I know, and direct my frustration towards those truly deserving of it. To fulfill my reason for being.
I will never succumb to feelings of uselessness, lest I submit to the same unfairness that took him and many others. In the face of the evils of this world, I’m just…
I’m just...
“How dare they...?”