Chapter Text
“Hurry up, Itadori. We should get going if we don’t want this ice cream to melt.”
Megumi warily eyes the bag that he’s carrying. Inside, there was several slices of cake, soft serve cones, and bags of jelly gummies. This was nothing compared to the two bags hanging from both of Yuuji’s arms, though, which were filled to the brim with snacks and sodas.
“Hold on! One more sec,” Yuuji says, hurriedly shoving a coin into the slot of one of the many gacha machines lined up outside of the convenience store they were at. Megumi rolls his eyes but goes to lean against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest.
A soft, mechanical clunk rings through the air, then a little capsule falls out of the machine and into Yuuji’s palm.
“Damn it! It’s not the one I want! One more time, I promise!” He shoves the capsule he just got into one of the bags on his arms and fishes another coin out from his hoodie pocket.
Megumi says nothing, just quirks an eyebrow up. He pulls out his phone to try to kill some time while Yuuji messes around with a toy machine, for god’s sake. When he unlocks it, his messages app is on the screen, displaying texts from their school group chat from about a half hour ago.
6:02 p.m. (gojou sensei): whoever gets me some sweets right now will earn my eternal and undying love <3
6:03 p.m. (zenin maki): no.
6:03 p.m. (fushiguro megumi): get them urself u damn geezer
6:04 p.m. (gojou sensei): no can do, your sensei’s a busy man!
It was at this point, when Megumi was close to hurling his phone at the wall out of pure annoyance, that Yuuji had burst into his room.
“Fushiguro! Wanna come along with me to the store? We can get Gojou-sensei’s sweets and some snacks and drinks for the movie tonight!”
Movie... tonight? Oh, was today Friday? That’s right, Yuuji has been talking all of them into having a movie night every Friday.
“Tonight’s special ‘cus none of us are busy and we’ll all be there together! C’mon, Fushiguro, please!”
Megumi’s wondering why the hell he even has to come along with Yuuji in the first place, but one look at his pleading eyes tore down all of his defenses in a second. He grumbles and walks past Yuuji out into the hallway towards the front door. He can distantly hear Yuuji yell out “yay!” from behind him and his phone buzzes in his pocket with a new text.
7:06 p.m. (itadori yuuji): me and fushiguro will! ^_^
7:06 p.m. (gojou sensei): ah i knew i could count on my two favorite students!
7:07 p.m. (kugisaki nobara): hey! >:-(
And that was how Megumi wound up here, waiting for way too long for Yuuji to get some gacha prize that’s proving to be more elusive than the rest of Sukuna’s fingers.
Megumi increasingly worries about the state of Yuuji’s financial stability, as well as his sanity, as capsule after capsule drops out of the machine. How long was he going to keep at this? He verbally prods Yuuji to just give up after every other capsule he gets, but he doesn’t budge.
He decides to give Yuuji one more try before he would resort to using physical force to drag him away from the machine. But from the way Yuuji starts cheering and hopping around, Megumi’s pretty sure he won’t need to.
“I got it! I got it!”
Yuuji proudly displays his prize to Megumi. Hanging from his finger, it’s a keychain of what seems to be a spiny black sea urchin. There’s a cartoonish smiley face as well as blush painted onto it.
“It looks just like you! That’s why I wanted it!”
Megumi huffs and starts walking the path back to their school.
“You idiot! You wasted all that money on a keychain just because it looks like me? Which it doesn’t, by the way! That face looks ridiculous!”
“Well, of course it’s not the face that makes it look like you. It’s not as grumpy as yours is.”
Megumi can’t decide who he’s more annoyed with right now: Yuuji or Gojou-sensei.
“My face is not grumpy,” He mutters under his breath, then takes the chance to walk ahead of Yuuji while Yuuji stops slightly in the middle of the sidewalk to open up a bottle of soda.
He takes a sip and lets out a relieved sigh. “God, it’s so hot out,” he laments. “And hey, don’t walk ahead of me just because you’re mad at me! It was actually gonna be a compliment.” He jogs up and gets back into step with Megumi.
“What was?” Megumi genuinely doesn’t think anything Yuuji has said could be taken as a compliment.
“I was gonna say that you shouldn’t feel bad for having a grumpy face. Because it’s cute.”
Okay— Megumi is definitely feeling more annoyed with Yuuji right now. How can he just say that he thinks Megumi’s face is cute so casually? Does he not think about the repercussions of his actions? Megumi can feel his face start to heat up for some reason and he wishes he could take a drink out of that soda to cool down.
“Like, your lips are all pouty most of the time, but it actually kinda suits you, ya know? And I’m pretty sure-“
“Stop! Stop it,” Megumi interrupts. He isn’t sure he can take any more of this.
“What?” Yuuji asks and cocks his head to the side, as if he actually had no idea about the chaos he just brewed inside of Megumi.
“You can’t just go around calling other people cute, Itadori.”
“Well, why not? It’s not like you’re not used to it, with Gojou-sensei calling all of us cute all the time.”
“Just because he says it all the time doesn’t mean I’m used to it.”
And it’s different when you’re the one who says it, Megumi almost says, but thankfully he catches himself before he can. He hates to admit it, but when Yuuji called him cute just now, it had caused a completely different reaction in him than when Gojou-sensei does it. Instead of just pure annoyance, he also feels… flustered?
“Hm, does that mean I also can’t say that your spiky hair is cute? Look, it’s like you guys are twins,” Yuuji coos sweetly, dangling the sea urchin keychain in front of Megumi’s face.
“Okay, that’s it-“ Megumi stops in his tracks and thrusts his hands out in position, ready to summon his shikigami. The plastic bag around his wrist sways dangerously.
“Ah, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Yuuji shrieks, knowing exactly what was to come. “It was a joke! Don’t sic the dogs on me, please!” He dashes ahead of Megumi, almost in tears from laughing too hard.
“Don’t think I won’t do it!” Megumi yells after him, abandoning the idea of summoning his hounds for now and instead putting all of his energy into trying to catch up with the unfairly athletic Yuuji.
“Gah! it’s Gojou-sensei! Thank the gods! Help me!”
By this point, the two had crossed into the school grounds and had happened to run into Gojou, who was lounging in what was probably a stupidly expensive lawn chair.
“What’s got you so worked up, Megumi?” he asks nonchalantly, ignoring the way Yuuji grips onto the back of the chair, using it as an anchor point to swivel around so he was now cowering behind him. Over time, he has grown unbothered towards his students’ antics. His icy blue eyes, which are hidden away behind a pair of shades, barely even stray away from the sudoku book he’s scribbling in.
Yuuji’s voice calls out from behind Gojou. All Megumi can see of his target now is a little tuft of pink hair. “He’s upset because I called him cute!”
Gojou lets out a loud belly laugh. “Oh, Yuuji, what a rookie mistake! You know I’m the only one who’s allowed to call him that!”
Megumi grits his teeth and he swears he can feel a vein burst in his forehead. “Neither of you are allowed to call me cute from now on!”
“Wait, why do I have to be punished for something Yuuji did,” Gojou whines, his easy-going mood suddenly gone. A distressed sound comes from behind Gojou.
“Grow up, will ya? And here’s your stuff.” Megumi rolls his eyes and drops his bag onto Gojou’s lap. Gojou immediately starts to rummage through his goodies.
“Also, the next time you say you’re too busy to get your godawful sweets and it turns out you’re just sitting around on your ass like you are now, I’m gonna give everything to my dogs to eat and force you to watch.”
Gojou doesn’t respond at all to Megumi’s threat as he is too busy wrestling open a container of strawberry cake. Megumi stands there and watches, unimpressed, as his teacher then shoves an unreasonably large forkful of cake into his mouth with a happy hum.
“Oh, Gojou-sensei, look!” Yuuji finally emerges from behind the chair, probably having deemed that he was now safe from Megumi’s hounds. He dumps all of the contents of his bags onto Gojou’s lap as well. Scattered among the snacks and bottles of soda are the multitudes of capsules Yuuji had just gotten. “You can have some if you want!”
He doesn’t even question how or why Yuuji has that amount of keychains and abandons his cake in favor of looking through all of them.
“Wow, this one looks just like Megumi!” Gojou says, holding up the sea urchin keychain.
“I know, right?! But you can’t have that one though, it’s mine!”
“Why’d you put it in with the rest, then?”
The pair start to get into an argument over who deserves the sea urchin keychain more, slinging out reasons such as “I’ve known him for longer” and “but I’m the one who bought it”. Megumi decides it’s time to leave when Gojou suggests a friendly brawl to settle it, which Yuuji accepts immediately.
“I’m going to my room,” he says, stealing a bag of gummies now that Gojou was out of his chair and distracted with stretching out his arms, getting ready for his match with Yuuji. “Make sure not to kill each other.”
“Okay, bye! Don’t forget about the movie later!” Yuuji calls after him, also now preparing for the fight.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”