A huge variety of sports equipment was available to try, and Itadori and Kugisaki were both active types, so he didn’t think they’d be interested in playing video games. Just then, he looked over and saw his two friends chattering away in the reception area.
“Cool! Kugisaki, we can ride a Segway!” Itadori said.
“Seriously? Tokyo is already the city of the future!” Kugisaki responded.
“Can just anybody ride a Segway?”
“Well, you don’t need a license to drive a go-kart, do you?”
“Point taken.”
“If we pass up this opportunity, we may never have an opportunity to ride one for the rest of our lives!”
“Yeah. Let’s play Mall Cop!”
“What? I don’t know that movie!” Kugisaki said.
“Well, at least you know it’s a movie. Ooh...I like this kind of Segway. It looks like the hoverboard in Back to the Future!”
“Okay, you’ve got a problem. Is this what months of doing nothing but watching movies does to the human brain?”
“Fushiguro, which Segway do you wanna ride?” Itadori said.
“I think he should ride the normal kind. That’d look hilarious.”
“Yeah, I wanna see that! Fushiguro! With perfect posture! On a Segway!”
“I know, right? That’d be awesome!”
Fushiguro realized then that they were including him in their Segway plans and stopped looking for other ways to pass the time. He might have been able to fend off one of them, but victory against both was hopeless.
“This thing keeps turning by itself!” Kugisaki squealed.
“Not so much pressure! Shift your weight to turn,” Itadori said.
“But there is no speed without strength!”
“Who said that?!”
“Ayrton Senna! The Formula One driver!”
“Gimme a break! I bet he doesn’t ride a Segway!”
Hmm... But riding a Segway does take some getting used to, Fushiguro thought.
Itadori bombarded Kugisaki with comments as she rode her skateboard-like Segway. Because it didn’t have any handles, she found herself squatting in a way that gave her the appearance of a baby penguin. Riding a Segway was different from roller-skating or skateboarding. The fact that Itadori could do it from the start made it seem like he really was an athletic prodigy.
Fushiguro thought they should have requested an instructor, but it was too late now. He scooted along the edge of the course, keeping an eye on his two friends from a distance as they chattered volubly. If he got too close, Kugisaki might ram into him or start spouting incomprehensible comments again. He still couldn’t figure out what she had meant about the oily duck.
“Those guys never calm down,” he said. He did have to admit, he was impressed by their ability to keep their hyperness dial perpetually turned to MAX.
Fushiguro thought that Itadori and Kugisaki had a similar energy. He once said, “You guys sure get along well,” but Kugisaki had looked offended. After that, he kept such thoughts to himself.
He had also considered the possibility that they went together well because the kanji for ita in Itadori meant “board” and the kugi in Kugisaki meant “nail.” Of course, by that standard, the fushi in Fushiguro could mean some negative things.
In any case, Fushiguro realized he was used to seeing them like that. As he watched them clowning around, he felt like he was watching a scene from the distant past. It had actually been a while since they had spent time together. Itadori had consumed Sukuna’s finger in June. Then Kugisaki came to the school in Tokyo. The time the three first-years had spent together before Itadori’s death had lasted no more than two weeks, and the time they had been apart had been much, much longer. During the nearly two months that Itadori had been dead, Fushiguro and Kugisaki had felt as if something were missing.
The death of a comrade wasn’t an uncommon thing for sorcerers to experience. Curses and curse users alike killed sorcerers. The number of sacrifices was countless, but that didn’t mean everyone was okay with it. For those who died—Itadori excluded—that was the end. For the people around the deceased, however, the death of someone close was just the beginning. There was that first intense pain in the immediate wake of a death, and then the shock of it that dragged on like a dull ache. And if the deceased had any last wishes, they became like brambles from which the survivors could never extricate themselves.
Fushiguro and Kugisaki were no exception. Itadori’s dorm room had been emptied. They had been in the habit of leaving a space for him when they walked side by side. They would start to speak to him, only to realize that he was gone. They woke up in the morning, passed the day, and then went to sleep at night, and as those unremarkable days grew, the reality crept over them that the deceased was really gone.
It was possible to try to find closure, but the past in which a friend had died—and in which, perhaps, you hadn’t been able to stop it—would never change. You could train hard to be stronger than before, but the repercussions of that day that you had been unable to save someone close to you would always remain.
Nonetheless, little by little Fushiguro and Kugisaki had accepted reality, moved forward, mourned and mourned some more, and eventually left the deceased in the past. They had overcome that time. Then, as if they had suddenly awakened from a nightmare, Itadori returned. It was just like something the King of Curses, Ryomen Sukuna, would do.
When Fushiguro had confronted Sukuna, he had learned that he could use reverse cursed technique, so it wouldn’t be strange for him to somehow reincarnate his vessel. But someone who was supposed to be dead was here with them. The person they thought they hadn’t been able to save was here now, laughing. Of course, that was a reason to be happy.
But part of Fushiguro was at a loss. According to his system of values, Fushiguro figured that Itadori was a good person. Misfortune and death befall good people as well as bad people. Given the injustice of that, Fushiguro thought it only made sense that the world should also offer up the occasional miracle. Yet Itadori’s return still didn’t feel real to him. In the bottom of his heart, he still couldn’t accept it.
“What’s wrong, Fushiguro? Something bothering you?” Itadori asked. He rolled up on a skateboard Segway looking like an old pro. Glancing over his shoulder, Fushiguro saw Kugisaki still struggling with the controls.
“Not at all,” Fushiguro answered. “Hey, how long are we going to ride these things?”
“We have to get off soon,” Itadori said. “There’s a time limit. What do you wanna ride next?”
“Is riding something our only choice?”
“How about the trampoline?”
“You’re just choosing things that I’ll look funny doing.”
“How did you know?”
Itadori laughed, his face utterly devoid of worry. His personality was plain to see there. He had the smile of a good person, but it was somehow different than before. Ever since he had returned from the dead, a look of immense sadness would sometimes pass across his features. It was as though somewhere behind his smiling eyes, he was trembling with the effort of holding back tears. And his smile resembled the one he had flashed before dying.
Fushiguro could tell something had changed in the past two months. He hadn’t heard all the details, but he suspected that Itadori had confronted death—his own death and the deaths of others. The deeper someone went into jujutsu, the harder it became to put on a bright smile. Since his return, Itadori had become more like a sorcerer, and Fushiguro found that to be a little sad.
“I wanna fight! Fight and win!” Kugisaki announced, jabbing her thumb in the direction of the ball games.
“Why? Are you from a warrior tribe?” Itadori asked. He couldn’t help but reply jokingly to Kugisaki’s demand.
“Well, you’re the one who said we should train for the Goodwill Event,” Kugisaki said. “So we gotta do something that involves sheer physical strength and skill!”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Besides, aren’t you some kind of super athlete? What club were you in at school?”
“The Occult Research Club.”
“The what now?”
“A society for the study of paranormal phenomena. It was a comfortable group. Like us here today, there were only three members.”
“Oh, sounds nice!”
I wonder how the other students are now, Itadori thought.
Not even half a year had passed since he had left his previous school. Apparently, the sorcerers had someone apply a skilled curse to the school, so Itadori believed his friend Iguchi was all right. However, he regretted leaving the Occult Research Club with only two members. That was less than the required number for a club. Besides, those two scaredy-cats who nonetheless hungered for thrills had finally learned the meaning of true fear. Did they even still like scary things anymore?
“Why’re you spacing out?” Kugisaki asked. “Have you been getting enough sleep?”
“No, uh … It’s nothing,” Itadori answered. He shook his head as if to dispel unwelcome thoughts, and Kugisaki let the matter drop.
“Okay. If we’re gonna do a competitive sport, we need something that’ll make the losers sweat,” Kugisaki said decisively.
“Okay, but no betting money,” Itadori specified.