CHAPTER 4
A TIME LOOP, BY DEFINITION

THERE WAS ABOUT an hour until the reception started (again), and Tabitha was standing outside Kento Nanami's door. Despite imagining her doing this very thing just a day ago while they were dancing, she didn't expect to be in this situation. But today, there was no sexual intent. She was looking for answers, out of pure curiosity. Kento knew something she didn't. Out of all people, it had to be her ex that was going to get her out of here.

She stared up at the room number. Room 101. Kento had been gifted with a room on the ground floor, where the walls were even thinner and he could hear just about every shout coming from the hotel lobby. Tabitha cracked her fingers and sighed. Here goes nothing ... She lifted her fist and knocked on the door.

Kento responded instantly. "Come in," his voice was muffled by the hardwood.

Chewing on her bottom lip, Tabitha turned the handle and walked inside. The room smelled like sandalwood and his typical cologne. His bed was tidy – he always made it in the morning – and his suit jacket was thrown haphazardly on the comforter. The door to the deck was slid open slightly, inviting in the scent of nicotine and salty ocean breeze. Tabitha strode more inside, taking off her heels by the sliding door when they started to burn, and stepped out onto the deck. His view was perfect, overlooking the beach at sunset.

A bottle of his favorite whiskey was placed on a little table, but he was already drinking a glass that rested on the deck railing. Tabitha's bare feet padded over to the railing and she leaned against it, watching him place a cigarette between his lips. He looked only slightly disheveled, with his tie loosened and his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows. When his eyes met hers, he gestured to the whiskey glass. "Can I get you one?" He asked so casually, as if they weren't ex-lovers in dire circumstances.

"No, thank you," she replied, sitting in one of the chairs by his small table. Her back was rigid though; she was in no mood to relax. "I have a feeling I want to be sober for whatever you're about to tell me."

Kento snickered, and while lighting his cigarette, he said, "It's called a time loop."

She raised a brow. "Pardon?"

"A time loop. It's what you're experiencing." He took a drag from his cigarette, and then corrected himself, "What we're experiencing."

Tabitha blinked, repeating his words in her head to make sure she truly understood what he meant. "Wait, you're repeating this day too?" Even though his back was to her, he shifted slightly so she could see his face. She watched him nod and flick ashes into a tray resting on the metal railing. "So what exactly ... is a time loop? By definition."

He thought for a moment, and then said, "It's like a ... temporal paradox, where a specific period of time is repeated over and over again. The loop will reset either when the clock reaches a certain time or when an event happens. It's rare for more than one person to recognize that they're in one and retain the memories from the previous loop, which is why I'm confused about your involvement in this."

She began rubbing at her temples while taking in his words. "Why is this happening?"

Kento shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine."

His calm demeanor interested her, and she saw right through it. Tabitha stood from her chair and leaned against the railing once again, her arms almost brushing his. She looked at him, noticing the way he refused to meet her eyes. He was watching the waves crash upon the beach, taking slow, steady drags from the burning cigarette. Despite her previous statement, she grabbed his glass of whiskey and took a big sip. Her eyes crinkled, wincing at the burn, and she set the glass back down in front of him. It took her a few minutes to adjust after such a heavy gulp.

When she finally got the courage to respond, her voice was soft. So soft that he had to meet her icy stare. "Why do I feel like you know more than you're letting on?"

Kento sighed, flicking more ashes into the tray, but didn't bring the cigarette to his lips again. He wasn't avoiding her eyes anymore, but now he was avoiding the question entirely.

Her hand reached out and squeezed his bare forearm. She continued, and her tone was even more quiet, so quiet he almost couldn't hear her over the ocean. "Don't lie to me again, Ken," she whispered.

Licking his lips, Kento relit the dying cigarette. "Now you're going to call me crazy," he said with the cigarette in between his teeth.

"I've never once called you crazy," she retorted, unable to let go of his forearm. "You're the sanest person I've ever met, even above my great-grandma."

He kept his lips in a tight line, except to blow out a cloud of smoke in the opposite direction of her face. She felt him tense up under her hand, so she lifted her grip off his forearm and walked back to her spot in the chair. Kento shook his head. He was fighting a war within himself, but over what?

"Whatever you're about to say really can't be as bad as you think it is," she added, crossing her arms over her chest. "Come on, Ken, I know we didn't end things ... the best. But I'm here to listen. I need to know. Just let me in –"

Kento sighed, flicking the ashes off his cigarette. "Time loops can be the work of a cursed spirit." He paused, eyes flickering to her, taking in her expression. "And cursed spirits can only be seen by jujutsu sorcerers."

Tabitha blinked at him. She pursed her lips, struggling to hold back the shock from her face.

"I knew you'd call me crazy," he snickered while shaking his head. "It's written all over your face, Tab."

"I didn't call you crazy," she defended quickly. "I just ... I feel like I'm being punked."

Now it was Kento's turn to raise an eyebrow. He watched her with the cigarette hanging from in between his teeth. "When have I ever been the one to do something like that?"

"Fair point." She tried relaxing, leaning back slightly in the chair, but her worry was evident on her face. "So ... ju ... jujutsu sorcerer. What is that?" Her cheeks tinged pink as she struggled with the word.

"We are humans secretly trained and employed by the government to defend humanity from cursed spirits," he replied, stubbing out what was left of his dying cigarette. "You would be categorized as a non-sorcerer. Most humans possess cursed energy, but sorcerers have a higher amount of cursed energy inside of us, which we then channel into jujutsu. Our high levels of cursed energy allow us to see cursed spirits, but non-sorcerers can also see cursed spirits only when they're on the verge of death or in extreme fear.

"When we pour our cursed energy into a fight with a cursed spirit, it will activate our cursed technique. Although, some sorcerers don't have a technique. I won't get into it." He waved his hand. "There are different types of techniques, but most sorcerers possess a single one that's called an innate technique. They're impossible to imitate." He took a moment, wondering why it was finally the right time to spill his guts to her, but something inside him knew that if he didn't, it would kill him inside. He tried to maintain an expression of nonchalance. "That's the basic gist. It can get very complicated when you start getting into sorcerer ranks, so I'll save you the boredom."

Tabitha raised a brow. "That was anything but basic, Ken. I feel like you left so much out." She had so many questions in her head that it was hard to pick one. "What is your innate technique?"

It felt wrong to finally tell her. This was supposed to be a secret that he kept close to his chest, a side of him that he never wanted her to see. All he wanted was to just be her Ken, a stoic yet loyal salaryman who loved her dearly. But the past was in the past, and she needed to know everything if they wanted to get out of this time loop.

After a long sigh, Kento revealed, "I have a Ratio Technique. Without getting into the gory details, the technique will divide whatever I'm targeting into ten lines and show me a weak spot at the ratio of seven to three. I alone can choose what part of the body I want to divide." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I guess that still gives you quite a gory picture in your head."

She grimaced, but she needed to know more. "And cursed spirits? You didn't get into them too much. What exactly are they?"

Kento knew that he was holding so much back. Even though he was pouring out all his secrets, he needed to keep some things at bay, but she was too curious for her own good. And he felt so much better to let it off his chest, to let someone in that wasn't a sorcerer – to let her in.

"Cursed spirits are spiritual beings that we're hired to exorcise," he explained. "Like I said before, every human possesses cursed energy, and it will leak out of humans – unbeknownst to them – from their negative emotions. The cursed energy then accumulates and ferments over time until a cursed spirit manifests. They're made to bring harm to humanity." Kento paused, reflecting on the first cursed spirit he ever saw, but the memory was gone in a flash. "Cursed spirits come in every shape, size, and look. Most are pretty grotesque and look like something from a scary movie. But there are some with high intelligence that come in shapes similar to the human body, or even take over a human host."

Tabitha hunched forward and held her head in her hands. She had never felt this bombarded with information before. He had kept so much from her for so many years ... it made her wonder what was true. "So this 'time loop' thing is the work of a cursed spirit," she said, trying to put the pieces together. "And they're most likely targeting you because you're aware of the situation we're in. But why am I stuck in this too? Why am I being targeting with you? I'm not a sorcerer."

"Fuck if I know," Kento shrugged. He wanted to be more helpful – not just for himself, but for her – and yet, he was still wrapping his head around what was happening. It felt like his life was on 2 times speed.

Her eyes flashed open, and she zeroed in on him. "When did this profession start?" She asked suspiciously. "I thought you worked as a stockbroker, Ken."

"I did, until 2018." He hesitated, swirling the whiskey around in his glass, before he added, "I went back to jujutsu sorcery after some convincing from my old classmates."

Tabitha thought for a moment. 2018 ... that had been when they were still together, living together.

She lifted her head more, eyes narrowing in his direction. "So everything was just a lie, right? Even before 2018, you had this whole life you never even told me about, all this knowledge that could've protected me against ... I don't know."

"Tab, do you think I liked keeping this from you? Do you seriously think I wanted to do that to you during our relationship?" He shook his head. The small vein in between his eyebrows emerged as he got more frustrated. "It killed me – every fucking day – to keep it from you. But I did it for your protection. I did it so we'd never end up in a situation like this."

"If it truly killed you to lie, why didn't you just break up with me?" She arched a brow. "Better yet, why didn't you continue working as a stockbroker?"

"I was too selfish to let you go." He said the words quickly, but his tone was so soft that it made her cheeks burn. "I didn't really have a choice in coming back to this profession. They needed me, and I couldn't continue working there. On our first date, I told you that I felt like I was always running away from something that I couldn't pinpoint. This job, this life – I'd been running away from it to be a salaryman. And I couldn't continue wasting my talents there when people are dying in the outside world, knowing that I could help prevent that."

It all made sense now ... The last year of their relationship, when he started spending more time at work ... that had been when he quit being a stockbroker. His "overtime" had been late nights dealing with cursed spirits and other monsters that lurked beneath the surface. And October 19 – when he had disappeared for almost 2 days – she understood it now. The tattered clothes, the messy hair ... And those times she'd seen him talking to a woman, she must've been another sorcerer or even an old classmate.

He'd never been cheating on her.

He had been risking his life every day, protecting her from the horrors she couldn't see. But he still lied to her, and she felt her heart break all over again.

A/N: I PROMISE AT SOME POINT THIS FIC WILL BE FLUFFY !! they just need to get their shit outta the way 😭😭