Chapter Text
“Seonsaeng-nim,” one of the first-years whispered, “Why do you carry around that… thing?”
Heeseung snapped his flip phone shut with a clack. “It's useful.”
“It’s haunted,” Riki muttered.
“Everything’s haunted in this school,” Heeseung deadpanned, sliding the phone into his pocket.
The truth, of course, was worse.
Sunghoon had been a Grade 1 sorcerer, reckless and terrifyingly good at his job. Until he wasn’t. Until his body had been torn apart by a Special Grade curse two years ago.
And Heeseung, against every law the jujutsu higher-ups enforced, bound what was left of him into this flip phone.
Now Sunghoon’s voice cut through static whenever Heeseung flipped it open. Only when Sunghoon decides to do so, unfortunately. Sometimes the cover doesn't even budge. “You can't force me,” Heeseung remembered him saying. Ha, he can even speak with the phone snapped shut.
The classroom was filled with low chatter, but the moment the buzz was heard on Heeseung’s desk, every first-year sorcerer fell silent. Then, it opened, as if wanting to grab attention it already has.
Keypads were lighting up, alternating, as if someone was typing. Since it is now Sunghoon's vessel, he could do whatever he wants. Aside from speaking through the phone, he can also send a message whenever he wants to, obviously choosing the latter. He finally flipped it open and read the message.
“This is unnecessary. You can just speak, you know?” Heeseung arched his brow, giving a questioning stare at the message. There was another ping.
[Sunghoon]: I don't want to.
Casually flipping the phone close. “Ignore him,” he said, though his lips curled in the faintest smirk.
Across the room, one of the students leaned back, arms crossed, eyes narrowing at the faint cursed energy radiating from the device.
“You know… this reminds me of Yuta Okkotsu and Rika Orimoto.”
The mention alone made half the students stiffen. That story was legendary.
Heeseung arched his brow. “How flattering.”
“No— but worse,” Jungwon cut in sharply. “Yuta bound Rika by accident. His cursed energy was so massive that when he swore he’d never let her go, it anchored her soul to him. It was tragic, but it wasn’t deliberate.”
Everyone’s eyes drifted back to Heeseung. He didn’t flinch.
Jungwon's gaze flicked to the phone, hesitant. “You, on the other hand… you stitched him into that vessel on purpose.”
The room went dead quiet. The accusation hung heavy in the air.
Jungwon was one of the few students who knew the whole back story. He really admired Heeseung, but his decisions lately prompted him to side-eye his hyung more than usual. Sure, he makes stupid choices. But it was kind of inhumane, and Jungwon thinks it's cruel to bind someone like that. Still, it doesn't make Heeseung less of a great teacher.
From the speaker, Sunghoon chuckled low, lazy, almost smug. “See? I told you you were insane, hyung. Even the smart kids agree.”
He didn't even notice the phone flipped itself open again, Heeseung leaned back in his chair, shutting the phone with a snap. “Call it insane all you want,” he drawled. There was no shame in his voice. No guilt. Just quiet defiance. “He will stay with me.”
And that was what unsettled them most.
The tatami room was suffocatingly quiet. Paper doors slid shut, sealing Heeseung in with three stone-faced Jujutsu higher-ups.
The phone on the table buzzed.
[Sunghoon]: “Wow. A disciplinary committee. Again. I feel like a celebrity.”
Heeseung didn’t bother hiding his grimace.
One of the elders cleared his throat. “Lee Heeseung. We’ve reviewed your file, and…” He gestured irritably at the phone. “The… thing you’ve bound.”
“Thing?” Sunghoon cut in sharply, voice small, but sharp. “Excuse you. I had a grade before I died, you know.”
Another elder pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes, Park Sunghoon. Grade 1. But posthumous possession of a vessel complicates things. Your existence now… needs classification.”
The first elder slammed his hand on the table. “This is precisely the problem! A sorcerer cannot bind a consciousness into a man-made object. It is a violation of every exorcist law—”
Heeseung leaned forward, folding his arms lazily. “Violation? Maybe. But effective? Absolutely. You don’t see any curses running rampant here, do you?”
The room went dead silent.
The elders exchanged nervous glances. Finally, the eldest spoke, voice trembling between fury and uncertainty.
“So… what grade is this binding supposed to be? Heeseung himself is borderline Special Grade already. But together—”
“Disaster-level,” muttered another.
Heeseung tilted his head. “Sounds about right.”
From the phone, Sunghoon chuckled, “So what, we’re like a buy-one-get-one curse package? Cute.”
The elders looked like they were seconds away from an aneurysm.
“Lee Heeseung, you are not allowed to freely walk with something this dangerous—”
The phone buzzed again.
[Sunghoon]: Dangerous? Heeseung’s dangerous. I’m just handsome.
Heeseung grinned at the message, snapping the phone shut with a deliberate click. “See? He agrees.”
The elders stared at him in horror as he stood, stretched, and walked out like nothing had happened— phone casually swinging from his hand.
Behind the closed doors, one of the elders whispered “…Special Grade, both of them. But god help us, we can’t say that aloud.”
In the basement of Jujutsu High, surrounded by talismans and seals, Heeseung set up his seventeenth attempt.
“You know this is illegal, right?” Sunghoon drawled.
“Half of what I do is illegal,” Heeseung muttered, carving sigils into the floor. Yes, it was the seventeenth attempt of trying to resurrect Sunghoon.
“What if I come back with a tail?”
“I’ll still love you.”
“Bold of you to assume I’ll love you back if you ruin my face.”
The binding circle stretched across the concrete, lines of ink and talismans scrawled in desperate precision. The old flip phone lay in the center, screen shut, faintly thrumming with cursed energy.
Heeseung’s hands trembled as he pressed his palms together. “Sunghoon… just a little more. Just hold on for me.”
He poured cursed energy into the seals, threads of blue light creeping across the floor like veins. For a moment, the phone buzzed violently, screen flashing as if trying to burst open. Heeseung’s breath hitched.
“Come back.”
And then—
“Yo.”
A lazy voice cut through the tension. Heeseung whipped his head around.
Gojo Satoru stood at the entrance, hands shoved in his pockets, the dim light catching on the white blindfold covering his eyes. He tilted his head like he’d just stumbled into someone practicing karaoke.
“Didn’t think you were the type to play necromancer.”
Heeseung’s jaw tightened. “Get out.”
“Harsh,” Gojo said, sauntering closer. “You know the higher-ups would love to catch you in the middle of this. Bringing back dead sorcerers, binding souls into junkyard flip phones… you’re already bending the rules past its breaking point.”
The phone buzzed weakly on the floor, as if straining to speak. Heeseung’s eyes flicked to it instantly.
“Don’t talk about him like that,” he snapped.
Gojo crouched by the edge of the circle, peering at the cracked talismans. “You’re smart. Strong. You know as well as I do— this won’t work. Cursed energy doesn’t flow backwards. Once a soul’s gone, it doesn’t just… walk back into a body. Neither can it create one, if that's what you're aiming for.”
“…Then I’ll make it work.”
The air shimmered with Heeseung’s cursed energy, stubborn and raw. His voice broke slightly, but he kept pushing. “I’ll break every exorcist law they’ve ever written. I don’t care. Sunghoon deserves more than being trapped in a damn phone.”
For a long moment, Gojo was silent. The seals burned brighter, then flickered. The phone vibrated so hard it almost cracked. Heeseung’s heart leapt—
—and then the light snapped out. The circle collapsed into blackened ash.
The phone lay still. Silent.
Heeseung’s shoulders sagged. His throat closed up, but he refused to let tears fall.
Gojo stood, brushing invisible dust from his coat. “…I get it. Losing someone you love— it makes you reckless. But trust me. If you keep pushing like this, you’ll lose yourself too.”
Heeseung clenched his fists. “…Go to hell.”
Gojo’s smile was faint, almost soft.
“Already there, kid.”
He left, his footsteps echoing into nothing.
The warehouse was silent again. Heeseung picked up the phone with shaking hands. For a second, he thought it was just dead weight—
Then the screen lit up.
[Sunghoon]: Idiot.
[Sunghoon]: You burned half of your cursed energy for nothing.
Heeseung could only croak out an affirming hum.
[Sunghoon]: Thanks for trying, I guess.
[Sunghoon]: Don't do it again.
Heeseung let out a ragged breath, pressing the phone to his forehead. “…Next time. I’ll get it right.”
Class went on as usual.
“Seonsaeng-nim, are you okay? You look… uh, really tired.” The kids are starting to notice it, but of course, Heeseung would never tell what he was actually doing. There are things that you shouldn't do in a jujutsu school's basement, like you know… resurrecting your boyfriend, but he wouldn't take his own advice, so he opted not to say anything.
“Yeah, seonsaeng-nim, your dark circles are scarier than a curse.” The girl said, eyes filling with concern.
Heeseung pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m fine.” He clapped his hands to get all of the students’ attention. “Everyone, spar in pairs. Don’t die.”
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
[Sunghoon]: You look like shit.
[Heeseung]: Still prettier than you, though.
[Sunghoon]: …drop dead.
Heeseung’s laugh startled the class. “Focus on your training,” he barked, hiding the small smile that tugged at his lips.
Heeseung sat on the roof of a commercial establishment. Legs dangling over the edge, the city lights winking below— dulled, as he set up a veil, keeping outsiders safe. The hum of cursed energy settled like a second skin around the building, invisible to anyone but those who knew how to look.
He was on standby as the students take on the mission alone, since it was meant to be their first test. Heeseung’s role was simple: monitor, observe, only intervene if things got truly ugly. Sunghoon disagrees.
[Sunghoon]: You're just gonna sit there?
Heeseung murmured, “They need to figure it out themselves.”
He gazes at the building's fluctuating cursed energy. Watching the faint pulses ripple against the veil like breaths. Inside, the kids must’ve been steadily eliminating the pests. Messy, but steady.
“Let me hear you.” Heeseung urged softly, caressing the phone's screen. “You sounded like an anxious parent.”
[Sunghoon]: No.
[Sunghoon]: Parent? Don't insult me.
[Sunghoon]: I'm definitely the hot older brother.
The keypads of the phone were lighting up like crazy.
[Sunghoon]: And it’s not nagging, it’s called being realistic.
[Sunghoon]: You're just biased enough to deny it.
Heeseung tilted his head back, the night sky swimming with stars above the veil’s dark shimmer.
“Biased? Please. If I were biased, you’d be the top of my class.”
[Sunghoon]: Oh shut up, I would’ve wiped the floor with you in my sleep.
That earned a small, real laugh out of him— short and sharp, carried away by the wind. The veil thrummed again, another pulse. Someone inside had landed a good hit.
“See? They're doing fine.” Heeseung smiled, his gaze landing on the phone.
[Sunghoon]: For now.
[Sunghoon]: …bet one of them cries before they get out.
Heeseung arched a brow, thumb hovering over the keypad.
“Loser admits they miss me out loud?”
Heeseung stilled, his lips twitching into something caught between fond and pained. Then he sighed, flicking the phone half-shut before the kids’ yells reached him again through the veil.
[Sunghoon]: “You’re ridiculous.”
“And you like it.”
The veil pulsed one last time before dissolving, melting into the night air like fog. The building flickered back into ordinary light, its cursed stink scrubbed away.
Heeseung straightened from where he’d been lounging on the roof, watching the shapes emerge: three students, a little battered, sweat-streaked, but alive.
Riki was grinning like an idiot. Jungwon was clutching a new bruise like it was a badge of honor. And Sunoo… sniffled, wiping at their eyes in a way that screamed don’t look at me.
Heeseung flipped open the phone.
[Sunghoon]: HA.
[Sunghoon]: I KNEW IT.
[Sunghoon]: Now, hand it over.
He hummed, slipping down from the roof in a lazy hop, landing as his students stumbled toward him.
“Hand what over?” he murmured under his breath, smile faintly crooked.
[Sunghoon]: The admission.
[Sunghoon]: Say you miss me. out loud. [Sunghoon]: In front of them, preferably.
Heeseung’s jaw tensed as he pushed his hands in his pockets, walking to meet the kids. “You all did well,” he said evenly, scanning them for injuries. “Messy, but that’s expected. Nobody’s dead, so I’ll call that a success.”
Sunoo piped up, “Hyung, that curse was way nastier than you said!”
Heeseung shrugged, lips twitching. “And yet, you’re standing here. Consider that extra credit.”
In his pocket, the phone buzzed insistently.
[Sunghoon]: Don't think ignoring me will save you. I will hold this over your head for eternity.
Heeseung cleared his throat, pressing a hand to his pocket like he could muffle the smugness radiating through it. “Let’s head back. I’ll have you write reports in the morning.”
As they shuffled ahead, whispering complaints and relief, he flipped the phone open under the cover of his palm.
“Happy now?” he murmured low enough no one else could hear.
The phone buzzed and Sunghoon's voice sifted in. “Ecstatic. Say it.”
Heeseung let out a breath, staring at the kids’ backs. His voice softened into something only the phone could catch.
“...I miss you, idiot.”
The screen blinked. A beat of silence, and then—
[Sunghoon]: Good. I miss you too.
Heeseung shut the phone with a soft snap, slipping it back into his pocket before his students turned around. His face was unreadable again, the same calm mask of a teacher leading them through the city night.
But his fingers lingered just a little too long against the phone, stopping the corners of his lips from curling more than it already did.
The world would condemn him as an insane, selfish, and reckless sorcerer— binding his lover through a cursed flip phone.
But as Heeseung watched his students laugh tiredly on their way back to the dorms, as the faint hum of Sunghoon’s presence buzzed warm against his palm, he decided he didn’t care.
Let the higher-ups whisper. Let jujutsu history write him a heretic. If this was madness, then he would wear it proudly— because somewhere between curses and silence, Sunghoon was still here with him.
And for Heeseung, that was enough.