Autumn is the season of art and music; something in the air makes people seek out amusement. Jujutsu High students were sorcerers, but they were also students, and just as academic study alone isn’t all there is to school days, training and missions are also not enough to fill a life. Students must remain ready for battle, but without a change of pace now and then, they’d fall to pieces. Their bodies and minds wouldn’t be healthy and able to react to sudden threats if they didn’t also find time to play. Thus, both were necessary: training to steel their nerves and opportunities to loosen up.
The students’ nerves were on edge after the Goodwill Event, during which they had to drive away special grade cursed spirits, but the initial commotion eventually passed. Visiting students returned to Kyoto, and everyone’s lives started to go back to normal. In other words, the first-years at the Tokyo school now had some time on their hands, and Kugisaki was getting bored.
“Itadori, I’m bored!” she complained.
“I can see that,” Itadori replied.
“And what clued you in?”
“You’re rearranging the icons on your smartphone. That’s something only an insanely bored person would do.”
“Itadori, what is there to do in Tokyo?” Kugisaki demanded.
“Don’t talk to me like I’m Siri.”
“Fushiguro! Got anything fun for me?”
“You’re asking the wrong guy.”
“You boys suck!”
The autumn winds were turning chill. The first-years were bored at school, and the second-years were away on missions, so they couldn’t even train with the upperclassmen. In the absence of anything else to do, they walked to the convenience store. There was nothing they needed to buy, but they could check to see if any new magazines had come out, or any new soft drinks, or if the weather had gotten any colder.
Gojo had once speculated that convenience stores were a place where sorcerers, who often find themselves feeling detached from the outside world, could follow the trends. But in the students’ experience, he rarely said anything seriously. Ijichi had commented that in reality Gojo probably only used convenience stores to pick up emergency donuts, but that had earned him an attack to the back of his head.
“Isn’t there anywhere else to hang around? I’ve already seen everything in the shops around here,” Kugisaki muttered as she flipped open a tourism pamphlet on display in the magazine corner.
Beside her, Itadori was flipping through a weekly manga magazine. “Yeah,” he said. “Today would be a good day to go out and do something. Karaoke sounds fun, but it would probably keep us out until late, and we shouldn’t stay out at night.”
“And with this cold air, I’d need a proper warmup before singing Yosui,” Kugisaki contributed.
“So your first choice would have to be by Yosui Inoue?”
“Of course. Obviously, I’d choose Riverside Hotel. Just for you guys.”
“How considerate of you, but...no thank you!”
“Overreact, much? You look like you’re on a variety show.”
“The manga series I was following ended! Both of them!”
“Well, you were dead for a while,” Kugisaki said nonchalantly, peering at the manga Itadori held. She tilted her head, puzzled at how the boys couldn’t seem to avoid getting pulled into any manga with shonen in the title.
“Seriously? I’m in shock. Did it feel this way for Urashima Taro, from the fairy tale?” Itadori asked.
“Stop exaggerating! You were only dead for two months, right?”
“I didn’t get out very often, but I guess two months is long enough for a weekly series to end. Do you follow any manga, Fushiguro?”
“No.” Fushiguro didn’t bother to turn away from his search for gum. He didn’t seem the slightest bit interested in their conversation, but Itadori was used to that and didn’t mind.
“Tch! One serialization ended right in the middle of a story arc I was totally obsessed with!” Itadori exclaimed.
“Just wait for the graphic novel to come out,” Kugisaki said.
“Yeah, sure …” Itadori replied. “Speaking of which, all my manga, video games, and posters disappeared from my room. I guess because I was supposed to be dead.”
“Sorry about that, but you shouldn’t put up posters,” Kugisaki said. “Think about how the person who had to clean out your room felt, having to see all the hobbies of a kid who died.”
“Wait. You did that, Kugisaki?”
“Well...Fushiguro helped.”
“Thanks, Fushiguro!”
“If I had known you were alive, I’d have kept them,” Fushiguro said.
“Aw, it’s okay,” Itadori said.
“Why? Was there something I wasn’t supposed to see?”
“No … But, well. …”
Kugisaki’s eyes narrowed as she noticed the odd expressions on Fushiguro’s and Itadori’s faces, but she decided not to inquire about it. Perhaps it was better that she didn’t know. “Anyway, we can’t stand here reading forever,” she said.
“Isn’t there anyplace you wanna go, Kugisaki?” Itadori asked.
“What about you?”
“How about a movie?”
“Is there anything interesting showing?”
“Starshark vs. Megazombies is at the local theater.”
“A dead guy watching a zombie flick. Talk about morbid irony.”
“Well, that was harsh,” Itadori muttered.
Kugisaki gave him an astonished look. She was still cranky with him for not being the slightest bit apologetic about dying. She said, “I just think your taste in movies is worsening.”
“Really? Over the last two months Gojo Sensei showed me a ton of movies. Some were fun and others were absolutely exhausting. I must have watched about a hundred movies.”
“I bet Gojo has a bunch of weird old DVDs.”
“Actually, Starshark vs. Megazombies isn’t so bad. It was billed as a shark movie, and the sharks actually make an appearance!”
“Your geeky observations make no sense to me.”
“Oh?” Itadori asked.
“If you go see that, I’m leaving,” Fushiguro said.
“Huh?!” Itadori was shocked.
Kugisaki and Fushiguro seemed genuinely repulsed by Itadori’s suggestion. It occurred to him that he might actually be more of a geek than he thought. That hurt a little. But he really had been packing in a ton of movies, of both superior and inferior quality.
Itadori’s taste in movies had taken a nerdy turn thanks to Gojo’s recommendations, but also because he had gotten along so well with Junpei Yoshinobu, another movie geek. He realized his killer impersonation of Tom Hanks in Castaway might not go over well in current company and decided against it. The resulting sadness was one he couldn’t put into words.
If karaoke and movies were off limits, that really cut down on their options. Itadori flipped through the magazine he was holding as though it might offer ideas of something to do. But it was a manga magazine—there wouldn’t be any recommendations for local sightseeing spots or famous shops. He idly turned pages as he pondered this matter.
Then his hands suddenly stopped. The magazine was open to a two-page spread in a popular sports manga.
“Hey!” he exclaimed. “Autumn is sports season, right?”
“Why? Did you just come up with another bad idea?” Kugisaki asked.
“Let’s do some sports training to prep for next year’s Goodwill Event!”
“Huh?” Kugisaki made a sour face at Itadori’s suggestion.
Meanwhile, Fushiguro paid for his package of mint gum at the cash register. He figured the other two would probably come to a decision about what to do by the time he finished exorcising the fly head on the cashier’s hair.
This was how the three first-years ended up spending a cool autumn day engaged in sporting activities.
“This is what you meant by sports training?” Kugisaki asked.
“I always wanted to give this place a try,” Itadori responded.
It had only taken them around ten minutes to depart the convenience store, head to the train station, and board a train that took them to a large indoor sports center that had a few locations around the city. The offerings included a batting cage, table tennis, billiards, foosball, roller-skating, golf, and Segway rentals. And because there was also snacks and karaoke, they’d have no trouble killing time.
Sports centers like this could also be found in more rural areas, but this one was larger and provided a greater variety of amusements than most of the others. Even Kugisaki’s face lit up at the sight of this wonderland.
“This was a pretty good idea, especially coming from you,” she said. “Even if we get tired of the sports stuff here, we can always try something else.”
“I know, right?” Itadori said. “Show us around, Fushiguro.”
“I’ve never been here,” Fushiguro said.
“No way. And you live in Tokyo?” Itadori said.
“How can you even say you’re from the city?” Kugisaki demanded.
“You guys need to lose your prejudices,” Fushiguro said.
“Actually, I’m impressed,” Itadori said.
“Yeah,” Kugisaki said. “A person needs something to do other than setting fire to oil-covered ducks.”
“Why would anyone do that?” Fushiguro asked.
He was beginning to acclimatize to Itadori’s and Kugisaki’s bizarre moods. In any case, there was a lot to do here, so if he just let them go their merry way, they’d find something to occupy themselves. He was wondering what he himself would do to pass the time when he saw the arrow leading to the arcade area.
The video game corner looked substantial, but he definitely didn’t want to play another irritating fighting game. The game Itadori had talked him into playing in Akihabara a while ago had been pure torture.