See you tomorrow

Late at night, at Jujutsu High.

By the time Rihito pushed open his dorm room door, the sky outside had gone completely dark.

He tossed his backpack full of documents onto the bed, then flopped onto it on his back.

The mattress gave a muffled creak.

The trip to the psychiatric hospital had used up eighty percent of his cursed energy. The "diagnoses" inflicted on his right leg hadn't left any actual injuries, but the phantom pain still lingered.

It felt like someone was slowly grinding a dull knife against his bones. It wasn't fatal, but it left his whole body uncomfortable.

"Using Withering on myself... it works, but I can't do it often."

Rihito stared at the ceiling, replaying the battle in his head.

Applying his cursed technique in reverse had worked better than expected, but it demanded far too much precision in controlling his cursed energy.

One slight mistake, and he would become a pile of withered bones in less than two seconds.

And then there was that hand sign.

Rihito raised his right hand and formed it in the air.

His thumb pressed against his index finger, his pinky and ring finger curled inward. The motion no longer felt awkward at all, as though it were an instinct he had been born with.

"...A domain, huh."

The "Static Universe" he had forcibly deployed during his last fight against Mahito didn't even qualify as half-finished, strictly speaking.

It had no sure-hit effect, and its range was only a ten-meter radius, yet it consumed an astonishing amount of cursed energy.

With his current reserves, deploying it once would burn through nearly forty percent. By the end of the fight, he would be all but useless.

But it was currently his strongest trump card.

Gojo wasn't at Jujutsu High this time, so Nanami had taken over the evaluation for the second assessment.

Following the procedure, he would have to submit his mission report to Nanami tomorrow, then wait for his third assessment: an interview with Principal Yaga.

"Mr. Nanami, huh..."

Rihito had a fairly good impression of Nanami.

The man didn't talk much, but he was dependable. He didn't leave people baffled the way Satoru Gojo did.

Still, just thinking about submitting a report felt like a hassle.

Forget it. I'll deal with it tomorrow. Time to sleep!

Knock, knock, knock-

A sudden knock sounded at the door.

Rihito looked toward it, but before he could speak, the door was pushed straight open.

Itadori's unmistakable pink head poked through the gap, his face wearing the kind of smile that was impossible to refuse.

"Rihito! You haven't eaten yet, right?"

"...Itadori?"

Rihito sat up on the bed. Before he could say anything else, he noticed two more people standing behind Itadori.

Megumi Fushiguro wore an expression that said, "Why did I get dragged into this?" Nobara Kugisaki stood with her arms folded, curiosity in her eyes.

"Come on, come on! Our first dinner together as first-years!"

Itadori grabbed Rihito's arm and pulled him straight off the bed.

"Wait, I-"

"No waiting! The bentos are getting cold!"

Out in the hallway, Kugisaki followed behind them, her voice full of undisguised disgust. "Hey, Itadori, did you clean your room? That pile of snack wrappers from last time is still there, isn't it?"

"I cleaned it, I cleaned it!" Itadori answered without looking back.

Fushiguro exposed him without a change in expression. "By 'cleaned,' he means he shoved everything under the bed."

"Fushiguro, how could you betray me!"

Itadori's room was messier than Rihito had imagined. A few crumpled newspapers spread across the floor barely passed for a "dining table." Several convenience store bentos sat crookedly on top, with chips, chocolate bars, and a few cans of drinks scattered beside them.

Kugisaki stood in the doorway, looked at the shoes strewn across the floor, and took a deep breath.

"Could you boys have a little more respect for your surroundings?"

Fushiguro silently took off his shoes and lined them up neatly. Then he glanced down at Itadori's shoes.

The left and right shoes were at least a meter apart, as though they had been flung there.

He turned away and chose to pretend he hadn't seen them.

Completely unbothered by Kugisaki's disgust, Itadori plopped down beside the newspapers and began opening the bentos.

He picked up one box and pointed at the bright red food inside. "Kugisaki picked this one. It's super spicy. I tried a bite last time and nearly died on the spot. Don't touch it."

Kugisaki sat down beside him and snorted. "That's because you can't handle spice."

Itadori ignored her and pointed to another box. "This one's Fushiguro's. He gets the same kind every time. Boring as hell."

Rihito glanced at it. It was the most ordinary sort of makunouchi bento: rice, grilled salmon, rolled omelet, and a few simmered side dishes. Very Fushiguro, indeed.

"This one's mine. Help yourself!"

Itadori pushed his box forward a little. It had a bit of everything, as though he had taken a little of every dish in the convenience store.

Looking at the three wildly different bentos in front of him, Rihito didn't know where to start. Kugisaki reached out and held down Itadori's chopsticks. "The newcomer gets first pick."

Itadori paused, then scratched his head with a smile. "Oh, right. Rihito, you pick first."

Rihito looked down at the bentos.

The makunouchi was too ordinary, he didn't dare touch the super-spicy one, and Itadori's was too much of a jumble.

In the end, he picked up Itadori's box.

Itadori's eyes lit up. "Good taste!"

Rihito picked up a piece of fried chicken and put it in his mouth.

It tasted ordinary, exactly how a convenience store bento should taste. But the warm rice mingled with the sauce, suddenly bringing a sense of substance to his stomach, which had been empty all day.

He paused, then smiled, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly without him even noticing.

"How is it?" Itadori leaned over to ask.

"...Not bad."

"What do you mean, 'not bad'?" Itadori laughed and clapped Rihito on the back, so hard he nearly spat out the chicken.

Kugisaki had already opened her super-spicy bento. The red sauce stained the rice until it looked like lava.

Fushiguro ate his makunouchi in silence, occasionally looking up at the other three before lowering his head to keep eating.

"Rihito, how did your mission go?" Itadori asked indistinctly through a mouthful of rice. "The psychiatric hospital one."

"I ran into some trouble. The cursed spirit's ability was to impose 'diagnoses' and cause hallucinatory pain. A broken right leg, blindness... it hit me with four conditions at once."

Kugisaki stopped her chopsticks and looked at him. "Then how did you deal with it?"

"I used my cursed technique to remove the conditions from myself."

He said it very casually.

But Fushiguro and Kugisaki both glanced at him. Everyone present knew what applying a cursed technique to oneself meant.

Itadori didn't dwell on it. He simply nodded. "As long as you made it back alive."

Kugisaki picked up her chopsticks again. "All right, all right. Less mission talk while we're eating."

"It's already cold," Fushiguro said.

"Then we should hurry up and eat."

The four of them sat around the newspapers.

Itadori kept stealing Kugisaki's food, failing to learn his lesson even when she smacked the back of his hand with her chopsticks. Fushiguro silently pushed his rolled omelet toward Rihito without saying a word. Despite her complaints, Kugisaki still helped gather the scattered snack bags to one side.

Rihito looked at the three of them.

He suddenly thought of Junpei.

He remembered the boy being punched and kicked in the clubroom, yet stubbornly refusing to let go of his videotape. He remembered him gathering the courage to stand up in the movie theater and try to stop those three people. He remembered the little glimmer in his eyes when he said, "I'll treat you to another movie next time."

If Junpei were still alive, he would probably be sitting beside someone just like this, eating an ordinary dinner.

"Rihito?"

Itadori's voice brought him back.

"What are you spacing out for? Hurry up and eat. I'll buy you a drink afterward." Itadori grinned. "That new melon soda in the vending machine. I tried it yesterday. It's really good."

"...Okay."

Rihito lowered his head and kept eating.

The bento had gone cold, but he thought it was still pretty good.

After dinner, Itadori did indeed drag the other three to the vending machine at the end of the hallway.

He fed in some coins, and four cans of melon soda clattered out.

He handed everyone a can, then raised his own and loudly declared, "All the first-years are here!"

Kugisaki rolled her eyes. "What do you mean, all here? There are only four of us in the first place."

"Four still counts as all of us!"

Fushiguro pulled the tab and took a sip, saying neither that it was good nor that it was bad.

Rihito looked at the soda can in his hand.

The cold metal chilled his palm, and a thin layer of droplets coated the can.

He pulled the tab. The fizz of carbonation briefly sounded in the hallway, and the sugary sweetness of melon spread across his tongue.

It really was pretty good.

"You're going to submit your report to Mr. Nanami tomorrow, right?" Kugisaki suddenly asked.

"Yeah."

"Then get to bed early. Mr. Nanami hates it when people are late."

The four of them stood in front of the vending machine and finished their sodas.

The night breeze drifted past, carrying the dampness peculiar to early summer.

Rihito looked up and saw the outline of the distant classroom building swallowed by the darkness, with only a few windows still lit.

One of them was probably Nanami's office.

He had only just begun walking the path to becoming a jujutsu sorcerer.

But at least for now, he wasn't walking it alone.

"I'm off. Time for bed." Kugisaki tossed her empty can into the trash and turned to head back.

Fushiguro followed.

Itadori patted Rihito's shoulder. "See you tomorrow."

"...See you tomorrow."

Rihito watched their backs disappear at the end of the hallway.

He tossed his can into the trash, then turned and returned to his room.

Saying those words-see you tomorrow-didn't seem so difficult after all.