"Is this where you live?"
Shun followed Kurumi into the apartment complex she called home.
The building was definitely on the high-end side.
"To be able to live here, you must not be short on money. So why bother working part time there?"
He looked at her in confusion.
Kurumi pressed the elevator button and answered, "Well, these two apartments are basically the last assets my parents left me."
She lifted her shoulders in a helpless little shrug.
"If I do not work and just sit around eating and spending, I am going to run out sooner or later."
"..."
Shun realized he might have asked something he should not have.
"Sorry," he said.
Seeing him suddenly lower his head, Kurumi giggled. "You are not misunderstanding something, are you?"
"Hm?"
Shun looked up and blinked.
"My parents are both alive and well." Kurumi covered her mouth as she smiled. "It is just that their jobs are a bit special. After they gave me enough living expenses for three years of high school, they left."
"They are not dead."
Shun rolled his eyes. "Then why did you phrase it like 'last assets' just now?"
"I did not lie." Kurumi smiled. "They gave me some money and a place to live when I entered high school, and then never contacted me again. That basically counts as their last assets, right?"
She shook her head with a helpless sigh.
"Probably the precision you get from researchers. The two of them calculated my high school spending down to the last yen. They gave me just enough, not a bit more."
She frowned in mild frustration.
"But a girl at this age wants to buy makeup, go on trips, and do other things too, right?"
"Tell me I am not wrong, Gojo san."
"High schoolers should be studying properly," Shun said, shaking his head. "Do not spend all day thinking about going out."
Kurumi pouted. "If you talk like that, you will not have any friends, you know."
Shun seemed utterly unconcerned. "People who are not on the same wavelength are not friends to begin with."
"If you were still in school, Mr. Gojo, you definitely would not have any friends," Kurumi sighed.
"Sorry to disappoint, I am still a student. I also have friends."
"What? You are still in school?"
She stared at him in shock.
"What kind of school lets a jujutsu sorcerer like you attend?"
"A jujutsu sorcerer school, obviously," Shun replied as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Kurumi looked like something had clicked for her. "To think something like that actually exists in the real world. It feels unreal."
The elevator arrived with a soft chime, and she led him out.
This floor only had three units.
Two of them belonged to Kurumi.
She opened the door to one and said, "You can stay here tonight."
"I always keep this room tidy, so it is very clean. As for bedding, it is all in the closet."
Shun nodded to show he understood.
"Then I will not bother you tonight."
Kurumi leaned against the doorframe, waved at him and said with a grin,
"After all, it is late at night. Who knows if you might turn into a werewolf."
Shun raised a hand as if to flick her on the head.
She stuck out her tongue at him and darted off to her own room.
He could only shake his head helplessly.
After she left, Shun began to look over the room's layout.
He walked in slowly, sweeping his eyes over everything.
Just as she said, the room had been cleaned not long ago. It was spotless.
More importantly, he did not sense any trace of curses or cursed energy at all.
It really was a completely clean room.
He opened the closet and took out the bedding.
Contrary to what anime loved to portray, there was no "fragrance of a girl" clinging to it.
Well, that was normal. Kurumi lived next door.
This room was probably always meant to be rented out to others.
"Riiiing."
His phone started buzzing.
He did not even have to look to know who it was.
One glance at the screen confirmed it was Gojo Satoru.
He answered. "Hello, Uncle."
On the other end, Satoru's light, unserious voice came through. "Shun, how is the cursed spirit investigation going? Any progress?"
When it came to curse-related matters, Shun would not throw a tantrum over Satoru dumping work on him.
He carefully described everything that had happened today.
"Uncle, what do you think is going on with that clone? How am I supposed to find her main body?"
The cursed Kurumi's clone felt like a puzzle with no solution.
Even his technique that could attack the true body through cursed energy, no, his cursed technique, had not worked on her.
On the other end, Satoru muttered to himself, "What should we do, what should we do, what should we do?"
"..."
A vein throbbed in Shun's forehead. So this guy was not planning on giving any useful advice at all.
"Forget it, I will handle it myself."
By now, he pretty much understood that this whole incident was probably a test Satoru had arranged for him.
"Hehe, that is my Shun, so reliable," Satoru praised bluntly.
"Get lost."