He nods but still looks kind of conflicted.

She has figured out by now that her friend sometimes needs time to put his thoughts into words. It's fine. She waits, fidgeting and pretending that she is fine, too.

"Hey, Inori! There you are! Bright as ever, I see. Lighten up, you always look like you've just come from a funeral. You've even dragged the new girl into it!" calls a tall woman with dark green hair, glasses, and a naginata on her shoulder.

Fushiguro looks up at her from where he's sitting at the garden with Hayashi and furrows his brows. "Zen'in-senpai," he says neutrally.

A short boy with white hair and the neck of his Jujutsu Tech uniform raised high enough to cover his mouth is half-hiding behind a statue accompanied by a literal honest-to-god panda.

"Egg yolk," he says.

"How many times have I told you to stop calling me by my family name, Inori, we've known each other for y—"

"Maki-san!" hisses the honest-to-god panda hiding behind the statue. "Maki-san what is wrong with you!"

"What."

"Have you not checked your phone? One of their classmates just died."

"Salmon," says the boy.

"W-what? Why didn't you say so! Now I look like some kind of heartless witch!"

"Yeah that's kind of how you came off," agrees the panda bear.

Hayashi cycles through a number of unexpected emotions. First is a flash of jealousy at someone just casually calling Fushiguro-san Inori, because she doesn't even do that, and they almost died together! Really, if anything should mean she's allowed to call him by his personal name, standing next to each other in the face of the King of fucking Curses is definitely it! Then she notes that... actually she could just start calling him Inori at. Literally any time. She's not really sure why she hasn't switched yet. She makes a note to fix that and ask his permission to call him by his first name the... minute they are alone together. It is far too embarrassing to get that personal with her the adorable cinnamon roll in front of other students. That she just met.

Then, naturally, comes the word 'funeral' and she gets a stab of fresh agony and the thought that, actually, she's not sure Itadori had a funeral. Or if he did, she hasn't been told and apparently isn't invited. Either one seems pretty goddamn awful, she can't decide which is worse. Furthermore: oh right, Itadori is dead. Ow. She does not want to linger in this awful horrible land of grief, she was avoiding it for a reason. It is still very fresh, it doesn't quite feel real, except all of the little reminders that feel far too real, showing up at unexpected times to stab her in the heart. It's not real, except it is, and she just has to move on with her life anyway.

Fortunately for her, a distraction comes from the horribly agony of one of her peers dying right in front of her, in the form of.... whatever. This is. That is happening in front of her, instead.

After a couple seconds of bewildered observation, she decides that, actually? This is hilarious.

Accordingly, she bursts out laughing.

"Hi," she wheezes, between giggles. "Actually, actually, no, no, scratch that." She takes a deep breath and stands up, getting some kind of handle on her giggles. "Let's just all back up and introduce ourselves properly and pretend that didn't happen."

"Hello!" She says, giving a polite bow to her upper-classmen. "It's a pleasure to meet you, my name is Hayashi Akiho."

"These are our second years," explains Fushiguro to Hayashi rather than deal with... any of that. "Zen'in Maki-senpai, I've told you about her; Inumaki Toge-senpai, his technique is cursed speech, he can force anyone who hears him to do what he tells them or even cause effects like explosions, so he only communicates by saying the names of food items; and Panda-senpai."

Okay that was too many words he'd like to stop now.

"Kelp," says Inumaki.

“Welcome to the Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College,” says Panda, stepping out from behind the statue and returning the bow. “Please forgive our... bad timing. Some of us need to learn how to be kind to our underclassmen."

"Look, I didn't know, okay? And new girl seems tough, they're fine. They're in the wrong profession if they flinch at bad manners."

"There's another second year, Okkotsu Makoto-senpai, but he's overseas right now," he says, pointedly ignoring Maki.

"Huh. All right. Well, I suppose I'll meet him later. And it's fine, if I can trade quips with the King of Curses I can handle a little social faux pas. Are the third and fourth years also hiding somewhere, ready to pop out and say hi, or?"

"No, we actually wanted to come talk to you two. They're off doing, I dunno, upperclassmen stuff, or whatever."

Panda gives a small sigh, then explains, "We were hoping to invite you to participate the Kyoto sister school exchange event."

"Isn't that meant to be second- and third-years only?"