Chapter Text
The sun is too bright.
Megumi groans and pulls his covers over his head. Except they're too scratchy and thin to be his covers.
"MEGUMI!" The most annoying man in the world croons. He begrudgingly sticks his head out of the sheets, eyes squinted.
Gojo stands in front of his bed in the infirmary, his smile wide.
Megumi wants to go back to bed.
"C'mon, sleepyhead!" The curse on his sanity beckons him to stand.
And unfortunately, he does feel strangely refreshed, so he brings himself out of bed.
"Y'know, the strangest thing happened this morning..." Gojo baits. Megumi stares, unamused.
"Yeah, I beat Todou."
Gojo's smile turns proud, and Megumi allows his guardian an arm around his shoulders.
"No, after that. Yuji brought you and Todou to the infirmary, but obviously Shoko won't heal delinquents!"
Gojo's arm gets promptly shoved off.
"But when I came to check on you, you were fine... More than fine." Gojo's tone holds far too much amusement, but Megumi can tell he's truly shocked.
Megumi's done with this conversation, he wants to get another juice box. But before he can leave, the freak he calls his Sensei calls to him, "Oh, and Megumi? Remember that you have a paper on the development and perfection of domain expansions because of your relapse in delinquency!"
Megumi slams the door shut behind him.
Could have been worse.
....
When he sits down, Yuji jumps.
"Yuji? Are you alright?" He asks.
Yuji gives him a strained smile. "Yeah! I'm fine! Just still surprised about the fight this morning."
Yuji hadn't asked him if he was alright.
So Sukuna had healed him.
Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. A large red eye pokes out of Yuji's cheek, watching him, leering at him.
Megumi shuffles in the chair, loosens his collar.
"Fushiguro?"
"Huh?"
Yuji's smile is a tight, fake thing.
"I asked if Gojo-sensei gave you a punishment?"
The eye on Yuji's cheek grows a smile -- no, a smirk.
Megumi huffs and looks away.
"Todou started it, shouting at me and laying his paws on me and shit."
He doesn't know what expression Yuji (or Sukuna) is making right now.
Yuji coughs. With the subtlety of an airhorn, he changes topics.
"Anyway, we got assigned to another mission this week, Nobara's coming too..."
Megumi realizes much later he probably should have apologized for beating up Yuji's friend, even if he deserved it.
....
Megumi has about half a library's worth of old books in his room -someone needs to make a wikipedia for sorcery- and two certain topics of books are in stacks on his bed, one on either side. He lounges comfortably, mind buried in diagrams and historical ancedotes.
The door opens.
He can't stop himself from tensing, but he doesn't look up.
He focuses on the words in front of him, he was in the middle of a paragraph, but he's lost his train of thought.
By the door, he feels a body, a gaze, an ocean of cursed energy, calm and contained. For now.
He always knows when Sukuna is around, can constantly feel his presence even when Sukuna hasn't made himself known. His senses always reach for that overwhelming power, drawn to it like a moth to a flame.
Be greedier, Gojo had said.
And Megumi hadn't felt greedy, exactly, when he opened his domain. He felt high on the power, on the fact that he *could*.
In those fights when he was younger, he'd felt that rush of adrenaline, of success, of righteous when stomping a bully under his foot. But it all floated away as soon as it came, leaving him bored on top of a pile of bodies.
What did it feel like to be at the top? He wants to ask Sukuna. It's on the tip of his tongue. And deeper under that, Did it feel like how I felt?
He feels the unblinking stare of four eyes, on his back, on his bare arms and where is sleeves have been pushed back, on where his hair falls over his face, on his own green eyes, turned firmly toward a page he's seeing but not reading.
Sukuna continues standing there and Megumi continues pretending to read, tension slowly building in his body.
Finally, he can feel Sukuna's mood shift from calm observation (admiration?!). He feels Sukuna's smirk like shivers on his back. Belatedly, he realizes his grip on the tome is white knuckled, and he hasn't turned the page since Sukuna walked in.
"So studious, my Fushiguro Megumi."
The taunt drips from Sukuna's lips, sweet as caramel before turning playfully sour.
It's almost friendly if not for the undertone of condescension.
Megumi's head had moved instinctively at the sound of Sukuna's voice, and he watches as Sukuna moves from standing right next to Megumi's bed to getting on it.
Sukuna kneels on top of the bed, less than a couple feet away. He always has to be the tallest, huh?
"May I?" Sukuna asks, voice deep and velvety and-. Whatever. Megumi isn't blushing. He isn't.
Sukuna's hands, strong and muscular, with dark claws and thick cursed marks around his wrists, are held out in waiting.
Megumi hands Sukuna the book he was reading, and then pretending to read.
"Ohhhhhhh!" Sukuna grins, almost giggling.
Megumi looks away. He's left his socks on the floor by his bed, and that's definitely more important than Sukuna's delight and his own embarrassment. He feels like a kid caught with his hand in a cookie jar.
But Megumi can't resist looking back and-.
Sukuna is looking straight at him.
"Fushiguro Megumi, why might you be reading a history of the double faced spectre?"
Megumi can't deny that he's red in the face anymore.
He wants to lie, say flatly that it's a school assignment have that be the end of it.
He should have, would have already said it in any other context, but it's the King of Curses in front of him, obsessed with him, and that obsession might be reciprocated.
He just.. he just doesn't want to lie to Sukuna, not Sukuna would ever have believed his lies anyway.
"I wanted to learn about you." No stuttering, no hesitation, but no eye contact either. Megumi keeps his gaze focused on where Sukuna's bare torso meets Itadori's uniform pants.
He feels Sukuna's pleasure all the same.
"I'm flattered, Fushiguro Megumi."
He sounds like he really means it. Megumi lets it marinate in his chest, the feeling that the King of Curses cares enough about his opinion to be flattered.
One of Sukuna's strong arms reaches around him to pick up a book from the other stack.
"And this?" Sukuna asks, holding 'The Compendium of Zen'in Techniques: Volume 3.'
Sukuna sounds interested, invested. Like he wants to know about him and how he wields sorcery, how he trains and improves.
Maybe he does.
He probably does.
Megumi meets his dark red gaze this time.
"I want be stronger." Sukuna never looks away.
Can he hear Megumi's motivations, see his thoughts?
I want to feel like that again. I want to fight someone but it isn't even a real fight. I want to feel overwhelming, unstoppable, omnipotent. I want to be the best.
It feels impossible, unthinkable, almost blasphemous.
Megumi has never before had this ambition.
There was never any hope, never even a speck of a thought of true growth when Gojo outshone his whole world, easily and on accident.
But Sukuna sees something in him. Ryomen Sukuna, who is from no clan, who really, truly sees something Megumi that keeps him forever on Megumi's heels. Sukuna, who might understand Megumi's newfound thirst for power.
Sukuna grins at him like he was promised a feast. "You need a teacher." He says.
He's right.