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“Why, you don’t look like you belong here,” Satoru says curiously. “What are you? A curse?”
The other man looks up at him with a coal-grey eye, perfectly relaxed.
“That’s not a nice thing to say to a stranger,” he hums. His pale hair is slightly darker than Satoru’s own and not quite so upright, falling over his strange metal-plated headband. He’s covered over half of his face with said headband, and a sleek-looking mask. It isn’t the oddest costume Satoru’s come across, especially since curses come in all sorts of—sometimes hilarious!—shapes and sizes, but it strikes him nonetheless as unordinary.
“I don’t have to be nice,” says Satoru. “But because I’m curious, I guess I’ll indulge you. Gojo Satoru! Now we aren’t strangers!”
The man chuckles. “Ah, how generous of you, Gojo-san. It’s wonderful to be familiar with someone here,” he says, and his eye has curved into its own little smile. “You called me a curse? I think that’s a rather unsolicited insult. As far as I recall, I haven’t done anything to you. Nor to anyone, really. I’ve been minding my own business.”
“Sorry, my bad. It’s just that,” and here Satoru narrows his eyes, tilting his head to the side as if to look at him from a different angle, as if it might lend him a hint about this conundrum, “your energy is different from most humans. It’s strange. You have far less cursed energy than the average person, but it flows precisely through set paths within your body, except for where it pools around your left eye. Is that where your technique is based?”
The man shifts against the tree he is leaning on, and something seems to change in the air. His gaze sharpens, peering back at Satoru warily, obviously unsettled by Satoru's apparently accurate analysis. His arms are lax at his sides. Satoru is sure that if need be, they would snap into action in an instant. “You seem to have gauged a lot from this brief interaction, Gojo-san. You’re very smart.”
Satoru cocks a grin. “I know,” he says shamelessly. “So, what’s your name, then, stranger? It’s a shame to have all this interesting information and no label to put it under.”
“Of course, of course!” Adopting a veneer of apathy, the man stretches, his fingers wiggling in the air as he reaches upwards, and Satoru rakes his eyes down the long, elegant lines of his body. “Please, call me Sukea! I’m quite certain that I’m fully human, aside from the inherent monstrosity of the human experience, after all. But I can’t help that.”
The shape of his mouth is almost discernible through the thin fabric, thin lips moving as he lies to Satoru’s face.
“Good to know. Thank you kindly for your forwardness.” A pause, and a shake of Satoru’s head. “But a fake name, Sukea-kun?” he sighs. “Ahh, I thought you’d be better than that, but maybe I misjudged you. Did I scare you off? It’s okay, you don’t need to be shy. I’m perfectly friendly.”
A laugh, and a head of pale hair tossing in amusement at Satoru’s bared, grinning teeth. “My apologies, Gojo-san. You’re somewhat intimidating, if you didn’t know, so I was a little hesitant. Hatake Kakashi, then.”
This is, Satoru notes with satisfaction, his real name. Hatake Kakashi… How unique. How interesting. A strange name for a strange man. He doesn’t know any clans going by the name of Hatake, and no one of significance by the name of Kakashi, and, well, if Satoru doesn’t know, then nobody else does. More than arrogance, it is simply fact, and the fact is that Hatake Kakashi, if not a curse, is a person who does not exist.
“I’m so glad you were able to overcome your hesitance, Hatake-kun! So what brings you to these parts? Are you looking for something?”
Hatake slides down the rough expanse of bark, landing on his rear in the dirt. His jacket (Kugisaki, precocious thing she is, would probably call it ugly) looks to be made from a very tough material, something like canvas, maybe, or tarp cloth, because it handles the scrape with a great and gracious tolerance. Long legs sprawl out on the grass and Satoru notices a bundle wrapped to his upper thigh. It bulges slightly, with the impressions of small, pointed edges—throwing knives, perhaps? Some sort of fun-sized bladed weapon. How cool.
“Maa, just searching for the way back to where I came from, you know?” Hatake says to the sky, dragging out his vowels. “But the road of life keeps stubbornly pushing me this way and that, so I’ve become quite confused.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. It’s very troublesome.” The man pulls a leg up, tucking his arm loosely around his knee. “Have you heard of Konoha, Gojo-san?”
Satoru brings a finger up to his mouth, frowning in thought. “I can’t say I have.”
Hatake exhales slow and steady. He nods and taps his fingers against his flank, and his dark eye goes cloudy, its pupil expanding as his mind wanders.
“I see, I see.”
He is very careful at modulating his voice—someone who is well-versed in deception, Satoru decides—and the colour of his voice hides his disappointment very, very effectively. Satoru’s just special for being able to tell.
Satoru’s special in many different ways—Hatake probably hadn’t expected company out in the dense patch of forest he’d hidden himself away in, and it’s not an unfounded assumption, really, since most people wouldn’t have given his location and muted presence a second thought. But Satoru was curious about the unusual little signal hovering out in the woods, burning like a candle flame, or pinging through the air like the hum of static electricity, so he’d gone for a stroll to check it out.
“I don’t suppose you’ve heard of jujutsu, or curses, have you Hatake-kun?”
“Afraid not.”
This neatly assures Satoru that Hatake is most likely not a curse, or a user of Jujutsu at all. This charming revelation doesn’t abate the mystery in the slightest, and it only makes him all the more eager to figure out about the situation with Hatake’s abilities. His status, his physical abilities.
He is injured. He doesn’t act like it, but Satoru can see and smell the blood, and even through the blindfold, he can see the man’s minimal cursed energy pulsing, as if he’s prepared to be attacked at any moment. Whoever had left him scratched and bruised (which isn't a bad look on the guy, frankly) must still be a threat to him, then. Satoru can't relate. He has no equal in power, see. Hatake seems to be able to sense Satoru's power. It’s somewhat difficult to read his face, what with the extreme coverage at all, but the one sable eye that is visible is watchful and wary, and it never lets Satoru out of its sight.
The attention’s kind of flattering, actually. Satoru lets himself smirk and saunters forward, crouching down to meet Hatake at eye-level. Hatake’s shorter than him, it seems, and it’s cute, paired with his dark, careful gaze and grey puff of hair. He moves very gracefully, his footsteps silent even in a leaf-strewn forest, so Satoru assumes he’s had training, has expertise in physical combat. Also, those legs? Very nice.
The other man doesn’t protest as Satoru leans forward into his personal space, so he takes that as an invitation to stretch out a hand towards the wound on the other man’s torso, one that he seems to be ignoring. Blood has seeped through his clothing, but he is unfazed. Is he using a reverse cursed technique? Has a very high pain tolerance, perhaps? Or maybe just a bluff.
Satoru can feel Hatake’s measured breaths against his forehead, and the ends of his own white hair trace invisible paths on Hatake’s green jacket. They are very close. He hasn't deactivated Infinity, but Satoru can feel the way that they are nearly touching. Something beneath the other man’s skin hums like lightning in empty air, is vibrating gently, is alive and perhaps wild, like the earth before a storm. He can smell ozone and it is clean and sweet.
His fingers brush against the dark fabric, the damp, crimson stain—and a pale, slender hand wraps immediately around his wrist.
“I’d rather you not touch that, Gojo-san,” says Hatake pleasantly.
“Ah, my apologies.” He stands back up. Cracks his back, showing his neck to the other man. “Well, if you don’t manage to find your own way home, you can come to Jujutsu Tech. Fix up those scrapes of yours? We’ll see what we can do.”
Still laid out in the grass, still looking, still feeling—to Satoru’s senses—like an otherworldly thing, Hatake waves a lax and lazy hand.
“A very generous offer, Gojo-san.” He smiles, beneath the mask. “I think I’ll take you up on it. Please lead the way.”