chapter 3 failure and burger
Peuh! What a bore!" grumbled Sukuna loudly, forming a disdainful mouth on his host's cheek. "You kids are a sight for sore eyes..." muttered Sukuna loudly.
"Shut up..." muttered the three of them, their spirits low as they trudged up the back alleys of Shibuya.
"Hours of wandering around without managing to get your hands on your target... No, really! "said the King of Plagues, turning a deaf ear. "And you call yourselves exorcists? You're as effective as an eel with a bow! It would have been better if you'd let me do it, at least I'd have..."
Yujii didn't let him finish, ruthlessly slamming her hand over her demon guest's mouth, cutting off his whistle with a loud crack. He was so annoying... But, alas, he was quite right for the time being. The three high school students had just spent the whole afternoon scouring the neighbourhood in search of a deadly plague, but in the end had come up empty... The teenager let out a deep sigh, quickly followed by his two colleagues.
"It does feel good when he keeps his mouth shut..." muttered Nobara, tossing back her hair in an annoyed gesture.
"Totally..." nodded Megumi. "But he's got a point there..."
"Please don't point it out," cut in the young girl, slightly offended by their failure. "I told you I should have dressed like a bomb, it would have attracted him in no time..."
There was an awkward silence after this statement, showing just how unconvinced the two students were by the proposed strategy. This spectacle made the demon in Itadori's skull laugh out loud, giving him another headache he could have done without. This day really did suck...
Letting out another deep, jaded sigh, the young man pulled his phone out of his pocket. The whole thing had made him crave an orgy of greasy food to console himself.
"Hey... are we going to have a burger before we go home?" he began for his companions, switching on the screen of his device. "Or a ramen? Or..."
He left his culinary inventory on hold when his eyes suddenly caught sight of an icon in the corner of his screen indicating a new message. Without waiting, intrigued, he tapped on his keyboard to come across a new conversation from an unknown number, coming face to face with a photo of a smiling young woman who was apparently a stranger to him. Perplexed, he flipped to the full screen, working his memory, when all the events of the early afternoon came back to mind, making him stop dead in his tracks.
"Ah!" he blurted out, drawing the attention of the other two astonished high schools.
"Itadori? What's wrong with you now?" asked Megumi, rubbing the back of her neck with one hand.
"It's her!" simply replied the interpellant, staring into the pixellated golden eyes facing him.
"Her?" repeated the teenager and the brunet, suddenly much more interested in what their colleague was saying.
"Yes, she... Her!" he continued, showing them the photo on his phone. "The girl I bumped into earlier!
"Hustled?" commented Megumi, unconvinced by the terminology used, raising an eyebrow.
"You mean bulldozed?" finished Nobara in a tone of voice.
"Raaaah, don't be like that, I didn't do it on purpose!" the accused defended himself, retrieving his mobile to read the messages following the photo. "She says she's fine too! And she's worried because you're being cruel to me! "He continued, showing them the conversation again, feeling a gentle warmth come over him. "Now that's a nice girl!"
"Kali...?" read the brunet in a flat tone.
"You must have made her feel sorry for you most of all..." said the schoolgirl as she turned around and headed back towards the station. "She looks European, real artichoke hearts. Don't get carried away for nothing..."
"What? No way! I'm sure she's not!" replied the scourge-bearer, a little sulkily.
Without further ado, he began to type on his digital keyboard, looking for an answer to send the young woman. He felt a bit stupid, not knowing what to write...
"Hello." he began awkwardly. "Well, hello again," he clarified.
"Idiot," Sukuna whispered in his ear, making his cheeks flush.
"I'm not asking for your opinion, you don't know anything about the modern world, so shut up", the teenager grumbled weakly.
His fingers hung in the air for a few seconds, unsure how to continue. He looked at the photo she'd sent him, her soft, flanked face, her eyes piercing through the golden distance, her autumn-coloured hair, the wide, dark jumper with the plunging neckline revealing her milky skin, having obviously replaced the shirt she'd soaked because of him earlier in the day. She was obviously in a café, as there was a huge mug in front of her, crowned with a mound of foam, the shape of which he finally noticed. He zoomed in with two fingers, revealing mini shibas sculpted from whipped cream, their chubby little faces floating on the hot liquid.
"So cute..." he murmured without realising it, making Sukuna roll her eyes and find it hard to understand her host's passion for 'cute' things. What a baby...
"I'm glad you're all right, Kali-san," he finally began typing again. "I'm sorry again for knocking you down and ruining your shirt. I'd really like to compensate you for the dry cleaning or the jumper, or... whatever you want."
He hesitated for a moment before adding.
"ps: I don't know where you are, but your coffee is absolutely adorable!"
Then, before changing his mind, he clicked sharply on the send arrow, feeling the fire rise to his cheeks. The King of Scourges was certainly right, she was going to take him for a fool...
"Itadori!" Megumi called out, bringing him back to reality. "Are you coming or are you putting down roots?"
"Coming!" replied the interested party, catching up with his comrades in a few powerful strides. "Sorry, sorry..." he continued as he reached them, still blushing slightly.
His two companions stared at him blankly for a moment before exchanging knowing glances, as if they were communicating telepathically.
"He sent her a message" Nobara dropped, rekindling the blaze in Yujii's face.
"So obvious..." commented the shadow manipulator.
"You're an open book, kid," snapped the millennial scourge, finishing off his host's embarrassment.
"Rah, but leave me alone!" defended the current target of all the attention. "You said I was a bulldozer, I'm just trying to be... polite! And courteous... That's all!"
An unconvinced silence stretched out after her tirade, in his mind as well, making him even more uncomfortable. Really, he wasn't being helped! Trying to regain some of his seriousness, he resumed his walk, once again tapping on his phone to look for a cheap, hearty restaurant nearby.
"Well, I'm off for a bite to eat. You can follow me if you like, otherwise we'll meet at the academy!" he declared as confidently as he could at the moment, moving away from his acolytes.
They gladly followed suit, a slight amused smile on their lips. They both enjoyed teasing Sukuna's host, largely because he always got off to a flying start, but he was still their comrade and they both liked him enormously. Yujii had this amazing ability to bring light to even the darkest places, with his way of being, his kindness, his candour, his childishness, his almost unfailing optimism... Despite the uncertain future that awaited them, they both hoped to find a solution that would allow him to escape his fatal fate as the bearer of the King of Plagues...
"Sorry, sorry, Itadori-kun..." Nobara tried to temporise. "Come on, tell us where you want to take us, where the food is absolutely unhealthy..."
Nobara immediately glanced over his shoulder at him, one of his eternal sparkling smiles stretching across his lips.
"Ah, I knew you were hungry too!" he declared, delighted.
The teenager held back a sigh. She didn't want to add another layer by pointing out that HE was the one who was hungry all the time, perhaps a consequence of the fact that he was harbouring the thousand-year-old demon...
"Enchaine, Itadori." said Megumi, a few steps away from him. "Where are we going?"
The hazel-eyed youth quickly resumed his internet search before nodding vigorously, sure of himself.
"Burger! Not far!" he said cheerfully, pointing in a direction to his left.
"Right, burger then. They'll probably have salads on the menu..." commented the dark-haired man.
"Surely..." repeated the schoolgirl distantly, hands behind her back, thinking to herself that a good pile of meat, melted cheese and chips wouldn't go amiss.
The trio set off again, guided by a cheerful Yujii, and soon found themselves back in the busy streets of Shibuya. Above their heads, the sun was beginning to decline, cooling the autumn air a little more. People came and went, mingling without ever meeting. The crowd here was a perfect mix of what modern Japanese society has to offer: stereotypical businessmen and women with drawn features, housewives rushing home to look after their families, happy students eager to taste their new-found freedom, eccentrics from the colourful neighbourhood, tourists from the four corners of the world... And them, future exorcists, so similar and yet so different from the others... Tokyo magic, Gojo sensei once told his two students, new to the capital.
The hazel-eyed teenager could only agree. He had been in the capital for only a short time and was constantly overwhelmed by the city's effervescence. He liked this side of his new life so much!
"It's here!" He finally declared, pointing to a colourful facade, turning back to his two classmates to check that they were following him.
Without waiting for them, he rushed into the establishment, obviously ready to devour an entire ox given his enthusiasm. His two companions caught up with him inside, being greeted by a wave of heat laden with the smell of frying and grilled meat as the sliding doors opened. You had to admit, it was rather appetising... Surprisingly, they found the young man not far away but at the counter, his eyes glued to his phone.
"Itadori, what are you waiting for?" said the master of the jade dog as he reached him.
"She's..." Stammered his interlocutor, "She answered me..."
"She did? The European?" Megumi continued, not really understanding the confusion this was causing her exorcist student counterpart. "And?"
"And... I don't know what to say to her!" replied Yujii, a little tense, almost slamming the sound screen of his phone against the dark-haired man's nose.
Yujii took hold of the boy's hand, moving the device away from his eyes to allow him to read the message that was causing so much trouble.
"It's so cute, isn't it?" she wrote, "I didn't even dare drink it because I didn't want to spoil the pretty work! As for compensation, please don't go to any trouble about it. Bumping into someone can happen to anyone, it's not your fault if you're full of it! But if you've got a good place to grab a bite to eat not far from the station, I'd love it, I'm still in Shibiuya and I don't know the area!"
"And?" sighed the young man. "I don't understand, what's got you so worked up?"
"I want to tell him to come here!" declared the high school student in an insecure voice.
"HEIN?" replied the other two in unison, Nobara having been listening attentively to the whole conversation.
"Yes..." resumed Yujii, the fire rising in his cheeks as he picked up his mobile. "I'd like to ask her out, to apologise for what I've done. If she won't let me pay for her dry cleaning, it would be the least I could do, wouldn't it?"
"Do you think she'll accept? She's got to be what? 20/25? 30 if she hides it well with properly applied make-up? She's not going to want to eat in a place like that with a bunch of high-school kids!" the young girl blurted out, crossing her arms under her chest, sure of herself.
"She just said yes..." smiled the bearer of the King of Plagues innocently, a broad smile on his lips, showing her the luminous screen of his phone where, in the meantime, he had made his proposal to the stranger who had accepted in the nick of time.
"WHAT?" gasped the future exorcist, almost picking her jaw. "It's fishy, I'm telling you! She's probably a pussy-grabber!"
A few blocks away, the woman abruptly stopped walking, letting out two powerful sneezes in quick succession. Kali straightened her hair and scanned the alley around her, eyebrows furrowed.
"Ola... Am I going to get a suit cut somewhere?.." she murmured to herself, rubbing the tip of her nose warily.
She shrugged weakly before resuming her journey, following Yujii's instructions to find him. It was such a godsend... All she had to do was zigzag a little through the alleys where she'd got lost before reaching him and she could continue to get to know him... er... No, put her pieces on the chessboard... Nothing else. She had to concentrate...
Suddenly, a heavy, threatening aura fell over the young woman's shoulders like a stream of tar. She stopped in the deserted alleyway she was now crossing, casting a glowing golden gaze over her shoulder.
"Oh...?" she blurted out, a little disdainfully, as she looked down at her new interlocutor, who unfurled his silhouette a few metres from her. "You, your timing is so good and so bad at the same time..." she continued as she opened her bag, Kyû taking the opportunity to extract himself from it with a powerful wing shot.
"I've only got a few minutes to offer you, don't waste my time..." she declared flatly as she started a timer on her mobile phone before nonchalantly tossing it into the air for her flying companion to pick up. "there's someone much more important I want to see..."
Without further ado, the clock ticking, Kali pulled her large dark jumper over her head, finding herself in a lacy bra facing her impromptu interlocutor, advancing towards him with a determined par, a carnier smile on her lips...
Her priority was still Yujii and Sukuna, and she was certainly not going to be picky...
...
A word from the author :
M: Hello everyone! Glad to see you all back in one piece! We couldn't believe it after Sukuna's tantrum in the last chapter!
Sukuna (wearing a virtual reality helmet that Megumi had pushed over his head just in time): I'm going to slaughter the lot of you!
Megumi: At least he's only slaughtering virtual zombies... he almost seems to like it too...
Sukuna: AHAHAH! YOU'RE ALL DEAD! High score, what the hell is this? Where are the humans to cut up?
Yujii: Blimey, looks like he's finished the game!
Nobara: What kind of violence do you have in store to follow up with before he realises the scam?
Megumi: OH I'm not a fan of that sort of thing, I only had one of those!
Yujii (going to change the game belly down) : Wait, I've got an idea!
M: Oh, I don't know why I can't feel it...
A few seconds pass before the inevitable happens...
Sukuna (yanking the helmet off his face): CHOPPING WOOD, PICKING APPLES OR CATCHING SARDINES, WHO DID THE TANUKI THINK I WAS?
Megumi, Nobara and M in concert, for Yujii: DID YOU PUT ANIMAL CROSSING ON HIM?
Yujii: Well, that would have relaxed him... wouldn't it?
M: Okay, new crisis! We'll deal with it... Thanks for reading, see you soon for the rest!
