"Oh."

"...sorry."

"... Yeah. Thanks. Um. So are you heading out or, um, what...?"

"...huh? No, what, we were in the middle of Earthworm 3, I'm not gonna just drop you."

"I-I mean it's kind of a dumb movie, 2's much better, and it seems like, uh, you've got kind of more important things going on?" Like dealing with the real life horror villain. Like that. The real life horror villain that nonetheless taught him how to use magic. Well. Cursed energy, but obviously it's magic.

"I mean we can do 2 if you want! I just figured, you know, since 3 was the one that got interrupted at the movies." Which in retrospect was perhaps not great, maybe Junpei would have some, uh. Trauma. About his bullies exploding in front of him in the cinema. Nice going, Itadori. "I like 2 a lot better, too, 1 and 3 are kind of boring."

Honestly watching his bullies get exploded in the cinema for being incredibly rude was more cathartic than anything else. Not that he knows to clarify this, or anything. Yeah it was messy, but. ... He's been watching horror movies lately, in an attempt to get over his own fears. They're much messier.

"I mean, it's, uh. I've already seen them all a couple times? But my point was more, like. Don't you have stuff to do?"

"Not really! And spending time with friends is important, too."

Wait are they friends????

Blink blink blink blink.

"....... Okay," he agrees, but then yeah he can go put on Earthworm 2 because how does one. Respond. To that.

Tōkan notices, though. "I mean, I guess we did just meet today but. I'd like to be your friend. If you would."

"I, I, I mean I'm not very good at having friends because I'm just generally a very nervous person and not a very good conversationalist or, uhm, whatever, but, I. Sure??"

"I like talking to you! And you have good and correct opinions about movies."

"I like talking to you, too! And, and. Most people don't want to hear me talk about terrible gross horror movies."

"Gross can't scare me."

"Probably for the best, considering!" Huff. "Is all the magic... stuff... associated with. Horrible stuff too??"

"It varies? Uh, the curses themselves are all pretty bad, some are just back aches but they get worse, but cursed techniques vary a lot. I have a friend who can summon shadow shikigami, I mentioned, and another one has a sympathy-based technique that lets her do—kind of voodoo but more? She connects one thing to a similar thing and then does something to one thing to do it to another. And my Sensei's technique is ridiculous, he can teleport and nothing can touch him and he can bring things to him or push them away."

"Huh. But what do you do with it, once you've got it? Mahito made it sound like it was mostly... hunting curses? But it's magic, right, you do other things with it too??"

"There are people who don't hunt curses, yeah. The problem is there's not really a lot of freeform stuff, other than some specific things that everyone can do you can't learn other people's techniques, and then it depends on what you have. Generic shikigami are useful though.

"But you don't need to hunt curses if you don't want to."

"..... But I could totally do magic for the rest of my life?" asks Junpei, sounding the most hopeful he's literally ever been.

"...yeah, absolutely. Did Mahito suggest you couldn't?"

"No, just, I mean. It wasn't clear how to, to. Make any kind of living with it without... Doing the constant fighting thing? And I think I'd just. Be the absolute worst at, at. Fighting curses or whatever. But if I could be magic and not go running off to fight the evil horrors that lurk among us, then. That'd just be the best thing?"

"Oh! Yeah. Akiho's mum—Akiho's the one with the sympathy technique—she's got cursed energy but she's not a sorcerer at all and she wasn't gonna get involved. Until Akiho did, because Akiho-chan is—very herself." He has a fond smile on his lips. "When I'm allowed to stop pretending I'm dead I want you to meet her and Inori-kun. But you can just have magic, if you want."

"And can do useful things with it? I don't know a lot of ways poison can be useful, but, um. Anesthetic what I thought of?"

"That would be good! And I bet your shikigami can just carry things for you, move them around. Non-sorcerers would think you have telekinesis. There are other specialised shikigami. And there's some direct cursed energy manipulation but that's harder. Oh also there's barriers, all sorts, and some people have jobs in keeping an eye out for curses and summoning a barrier to keep them contained while waiting for the sorcerers to come deal with them. We call those people 'windows', I think most people with cursed energy who aren't sorcerers or curse users end up doing that."

"Oh. That... all sounds nice, actually. Though I really don't know what Orizuki could pick up at this size, I guess I'm covered if I drop a pencil?"

Wow. A solid vision of the future that isn't filled with dread. That's kind of wild??