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All his life, Nanami Kento has known he’s different.
And not just because he can see monsters.
“Hey, are you foreign?”
It’s a new class, in a new school.
A young Kento looks up at several of his classmates crowding around his desk with excitement.
“No,” he says emotionlessly. “I was born and raised here.”
“But you have to be at least half,” the ringleader presses, reaching out and tugging at a bit of Kento’s blond hair. “No way you’re full Japanese.”
There’s a familiar well of rage that coils around inside him, like a furious dragon ready to burst free and burn anything in its path.
He steps on the feeling and fights to sound unbothered.
“My grandfather was Danish.”
The conversation dies after that, but Kento knows that’s not the end of it. Always, always, Kento has stood out next to his classmates, and they never let him forget it.
Though it’s tempting to take up his mother’s offer to dye his hair at times like these, Kento knows that wouldn’t really solve anything. Even the light color of his eyes is striking enough to make people wonder about him; just covering up his hair wouldn’t be enough.
He ducks into a familiar alley on his way home that day. It’s quiet; the only sound is a strange, watery groan. There’s a tall figure looming at a dead end, skinny, with way too many eyes.
“Do… you… have the time?” it groans, sounding like its in pain.
Kento takes a seat next to it with a frown.
“It’s 13:43,” he answers, folding his arms over his knees and digging his fingernails into his skin. The pain lets him focus just a little.
The monster doesn’t answer, just does its weird little sway. Most of them, Kento has learned, are best to be avoided. If he looks at them for too long, they get agitated and come after him, murderous intent clear.
This one doesn’t do much of anything, just stands around this alley and groans. Kento comes here sometimes when he wants to be away from everything else.
It’s one more reason he’s different, but for some reason, Kento finds dealing with monsters easier than the looks and comments his classmates send him—full of childlike glee at finding something to ‘play’ with and just as painful, as if he’s cutting himself on their pointed barbs.
Once he becomes a sorcerer, things get better.
In jujutsu society, no one cares about Kento’s blond hair and green eyes. If anything, he hardly stands out at all. The only ones who really care about backgrounds are the major clans but, since Kento is an outsider, those rules and expectations don’t apply to him.
It’s a relief.
For a while, Kento is good at something; for a while, he enjoys what he does.
He fits in here, somehow, despite it all.
No one bats an eye at his sour personality, at his flat expressions, at his little tendencies that always annoyed others. Instead, he finds himself pressed into the fold, friendships forced upon him until he accepts them.
Then Haibara dies.
It’s like a house of cards has come falling down.
Suddenly, all the friendships he’s made fracture at the seams, dissolving into nothingness, and the joy he used to feel at being useful turns into ash in his mouth.
What does it matter if he kills curses? What’s the benefit? Who cares?
He wants to leave. Go somewhere else. Live and do nothing on a beach, where there are no expectations of him. He's had enough of this life—being a sacrifice for a world that largely doesn't care about him.
Why not leave? Why not end up someplace no one knows him?
Kento starts to make a plan in order to do just that.
Finding himself back in the civilian world is disorienting, to say the least.
At almost every interview, he gets a similar surprised reaction as his potential employers look him over. They aren’t as forward as his old classmates, but it’s all the same.
“With your name, I thought you were, well, never mind! Is your English very good?”
Is it very good, not Do you speak English? because it’s already been assumed that with the way he looks, of course he speaks English, how could he not?
The familiar rage is back, hovering just under his skin. Ratio lines spark across his vision, letting him know just how much damage he could do, faster than the blink of an eye.
Kento doesn't allow himself to acknowledge the anger. It won’t do him any good here and he needs the money for what he wants to do, in order to get away from all this.
He forces a small smile. “Yes.”
The years pass.
His job is terrible, and he hates it, but the pay is good. It’s enough to achieve his goal of retiring to some faraway beach, and that’s what he focuses on, even if he can feel the way he’s becoming more and more despondent.
“Nanami-san!” His boss sets both hands on his shoulders, leaning in too close behind him, bringing with him the stench of cigarette smoke. Kento doesn’t flinch, though internally he sneers. “An American client is coming in about an hour. You’ve got it, right?” He pats both shoulders, a little too aggressively, before wandering off.
Kento’s eyebrow twitches but he saves his work and gets up, already mentally going through who he needs to talk to about the project before he goes into the meeting.
It’s annoying that he won’t have much time to prepare, but what else is new at this shitty job. While he used to try to argue that he doesn’t need to take on all the English-speaking clients, his boss has never listened. Somehow, just his appearance is enough to be a sell, never mind the fact that Kento is just good at what he does and that’s why he’s able to close out the contract. No, it must be because he looks like one of them.
The only positive is that Americans generally don’t react to his appearance or his English. He knows it’s accented enough that they assume he’s born and raised here, though sometimes if a meeting carries over to dinner, he has to answer the same type of questions he always gets. What are you? Americans are more straightforward but there’s always, always the sting that he doesn’t belong.
Always, he feels like he’s cutting himself into pieces, never able to fit anywhere.
Apathy hangs heavy on his shoulders. There’s no joy in this life. Only an endless pursuit of… something. If he achieves it, will it even bring him happiness?
Kento’s not quite sure.
The days pass, and with each one, it feels more and more pointless to go on.
Kento still wants to achieve his goal but more and more it feels like a distant dream, like something he'll never truly get.
And if he does, what's the point?
Even his favorite sandwich barely sparks anything for him anymore. How much longer will he have to live like this?
Then there’s a bakery girl, a heartfelt Thank you, and something reawakens inside of him.
He goes back to jujutsu society.
To his immense relief, Kento is accepted back just as easily as he was when he was a teenager.
While there’s a layer of melancholy over things—the dimming that life brings on as one gets older—for the most part, it’s better than his civilian job had been.
Once again, Kento belongs. There’s no questions about his heritage or his English skills or anything like that.
Instead of questions over things that he has no control over, the only thing that matters is what Kento can do. How he can hone his skills, how well he can accomplish the mission.
At the end of each day, even if it’s been the most tiring and annoying day ever, he’s grateful that it’s not his old job.
This time, he decides he’s not going to run away.
Yes, he’s risking his life, and there’s no escaping that the thought scares him, but even still, Kento realizes that he prefers this.
It’s not glamorous; in fact, it’s a thankless job that’s overall, pretty shitty.
Still, maybe by some miracle, he’ll make it to the beach.
His goal hasn’t changed, he’s still going to save up for that distant chance that he’ll be able to settle down and relax for once.
Kento’s not positive he’ll make it that far but if he’s learned anything…
He thinks it’s better to be satisfied in a place that accepts him as he is, rather than one he has to force himself to fit into.