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"I ... I miss him," Yuuji says, into the quiet dusk air. He bows his head, staring at his hands. It takes Megumi a moment to realize they are trembling. He balls them into tight fists, knuckles white. "I miss Gramps," he whispers, and he wonders at how one word can hold so much pain and sadness.
It's not a side of Yuuji he sees at all, which makes reacting to it all the more confusing. Even though their rooms are right next to each other, all Megumi's really heard of is the occasional whoops and grumbles, and the thumps of items as they carelessly crash to the floor. Yuuji, he's come to realize, is loud, and open, and takes up so much space. So seeing him like this, curled in on himself, looking like a shell of the boy he catches glimpses of when he passes by his room (he always leaves his door ajar), with his headphones in, chewing at his pencil, or flipping through the latest Shounen Jump with as much gusto as a child opening a birthday present, it hurts. It's like a crack, a fissure that he wants to stop before it splinters and cracks.
"S-so ... D'you mind if I just ..." And he promptly folds in on him and cries.
Oh. Megumi has never been the best at comforting people. He doesn't even know where to begin. Chalk it up to an absentee father, and, well, Gojou sensei ... and, shit, he's really rather lacking in this department. His arms move up as if having a mind of their own, and he pats his back in what he is sure can be nothing less than embarrassing. Megumi realizes he has two options here--one, keep silent while he talks, no matter how much of an ass it makes him seem. Second, he could open his mouth and try to offer words of comfort, only to realize they will fall like boulders upon a flower bed, trampling everything in its wake.
Yuuji isn't graceful when he cries, which is good, because then Megumi would have even more reason to hate himself. The snot and tears are definitely starting to leak through the fabric of his shirt and into his skin. Still, Megumi dutifully stands there and takes it.
There's a desperation to the way he's clutching him. And all at once, that night at the hospital comes back to him, when he'd spoken to him for the first time. I'm in mourning right now, Yuuji had told him. And what had he said in response?
Sorry, but there isn't time.
A lash of anger cleaves at his own heart. He thinks he hears it shatter. How could he have said something like that? Instinctively, his arms around him tighten. He hates to see him like this, hear him like this, and a part of him says Yuuji shouldn't be crying. Well, he should, because it's healthy to cry, but also, he shouldn't be sad—
But he should, because that's what makes you human, and especially for someone like him, who's hosting the King of Demons, maybe it's now more important than ever for Yuuji to salvage his humanity.
So Megumi lets him cry for an embarrassingly long time, just enough that he starts feeling shitty for not having intervened maybe just a bit earlier.
Yuuji pulls away after what seems like hours, face puffy and eyes rimmed with red. "God, sorry, I—" He wordlessly accepts the handkerchief Megumi hands him (yes, he owns a handkerchief, and Nobara never lets him hear the fucking end of it). "I don't know what came over me." Still, he smiles, and it's like the sun. It's that smile, the one that makes his eyes crinkle. "Thanks for giving me your shoulder, Fushiguro."
Shit. Should his stomach be jumping like this when he says his name? Megumi doesn't know. He's starting to realize he doesn't know much at all. His cheeks tingle, but he can't quite place the feeling. "No problem," he mutters, and clears his throat. "Do you ... want to go grab something to eat?"
Yuuji wipes away the last of his tears. "Yeah? Like what?"
Megumi spreads his hands. "Whatever you like. It's on me."
His wallet probably won't thank him later, because if he's being honest, he kind of wants to spoil him. But it's fine, because it's Yuuji. And--fuck, that's it. All his logical reasoning boiling down to it's Yuuji.
A hand slaps his back, nearly sending him careening into the water fountain.
"What. Is. Up. Fuckerssss," Nobara exclaims, a standard greeting at this point. Megumi scowls as he straightens, rubbing at his back. It was so quiet and lovely just moments ago. She and Yuuji are exchanging a rather elaborate handshake that ends in a fistbump.
"Kugisaki," Megumi says slowly, "are you wearing those ... falsies again?"
In response, Nobara rips one off. He flinches, covering his face with his hands. She laughs.
"Fushiguro wants to take me out," Yuuji says, because of fucking course he would say that.
She sticks her eyelashes back on and leans her elbow against his shoulder. The ends of her hair gleam golden in the fading afternoon light. "On a date? Or with a sniper?"
"For dinner!" Yuuji pipes in.
"Oh, how sweet. Let me just make my exit before I vomit into the fountain."
Megumi sounds pained. "Believe it or not, I'm capable of good deeds."
Nobara sticks her finger down her throat and gags.
Maybe this was a horrible idea.
Not because the food isn't excellent (it is), or that the complimentary tea isn't up to mark (it absolutely is), or that it's too noisy and crowded (mercifully not), it's Yuuji.
It's the way he makes small talk to the waiters and waitresses, the way his hair is slightly tousled from the wind as they'd walked here. And the way his legs are bumping just a little against his own under the table.
Megumi shifts his feet under the chair, careful not to brush against him. He's starting to realize how painfully obvious it is that he really hasn't spent as much on one-on-time with Yuuji as he thinks he's had. Really, it was just that first time at the school, and he'd barely known anything about him.
Now, well ... Megumi knows a lot of things. Things that make him feel ... things. Like how his pink hair really somehow manages to bring out the glimmer in his eyes. Or that the scar under his eye adds a certain depth to his face that makes him want to keep looking. Or how bright he is, not only when he smiles, but just when he ... exists. Like the sun, drawing everything closer. Drawing him, too, away from his shadows. Perhaps he's frightened of what he would see if he steps fully into his warmth. It's safe, here, in the cool dark, where everything about him is just slightly distorted.
He drums his fingers on the table, racking his brains. He can't very well ask him, What do you want? Because they're at a burger joint, so it's not like they're exactly teeming with options.
Fuck. Megumi resorts to staring down at his hands. He's so bad at this. Top of his class and can't even manage to talk to a cute boy.
"Hey, Fushiguro," he says, in that easy and effortless way of his. He spins the laminated menu toward him and points with a grubby finger. "How's this sound?"
Megumi leans over and peers at the writing. Katsu burger. Two tender breaded pork strips fried to perfection and sandwiched between two buttery buns. Served with your choice of fries or salad. He smiles. It sounds homely, like something he'd have for lunch after school. "Of course you'd get something like that."
"Yeah, it sounds real good, but ..." He scratches at his head and sighs. "I dunno, that price tag isn't doing it for me."
All the more reason to get it, comes a disjointed, unmistakable voice. Yuuji slaps his cheek without so much as flinching.
"Don't worry about it," Megumi says, a little too quickly. Shit, he'd forgotten about Sukuna. "I said I got this."
"Yeah, but ..." He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, makes a sound like 'gah!' "You already gave me, um, your shoulder to cry on, so I don't want to. Uh. Keep taking things from you ..."
His hands are right there on the table, just a few inches away. Megumi makes a show of reaching out for the menu to pull it closer, but accidentally-on-purpose brushes his knuckle with his finger. A spark of warmth leaps in his blood. God, his stomach shouldn't jump like this. "You're not taking things from me," he says, and is pleased that his voice is not reflecting the state of his insides. "I'm happy to do it."
God, if Nobara could hear him now, she'd live it up till he died. Megumi is grateful she and Gojou sensei aren't here to witness his theatrics.
Yuuji puffs his cheeks, clearly oblivious to the finger brushing. Megumi can't decide if this is a good or bad thing. "Well—"
"Itadori," he says sternly. "I'm getting you the fucking katsu burger."
"Okay," he mumbles, like a child being told off.
Well, they place their orders, and the burgers are good, and they dig in content silence. Yuuji digs in with so much gusto—the way he does anything and everything, really—and Megumi is glad he has a burger to hide behind, because he can't help but smile a little. Words like precious are starting to flit through his mind. Gross.
Don't I get a bite? Sukuna interrupts in repeated intervals. Megumi can practically hear his pout. Seriously, I heal your heart and this is the thanks I get?
Yuuji frowns. "Doesn't everything I eat go to you anyway? Since, you know, you're inside me?"
You're not pregnant with me, kiddo. That's not how this works.
"Oh!" Yuuji's face lights up, like he's come to an epiphany. He waves with his half eaten burger, the pork dangerously close to slipping out. Megumi keeps his hands poised, ready to catch it. "But don't you feed on, I dunno, the souls of the damned?"
Well. Sukuna sounds like he's on the last thin ice of his patience. I can't really do that with our current arrangement, can I?
Megumi snorts into his drink. "Let him starve, Itadori."
You'd just love that, lover boy.
Megumi rolls his eyes, ignoring the flush that creeps over his cheeks. He's thankful Yuuji's as thick as a doorknob; either he hasn't heard or he doesn't care. "Fushiguro," he says, leaning over across the table. Megumi stills. Something brushes against the corner of his mouth, and he realizes it's a fry--Yuuji's swiping the ketchup off his mouth with his fry. But of course he would. "You sure are a messy eater," he says, leaning back and smiling, plopping it into his mouth, like he hasn't just rearranged his insides.
Megumi takes a long, long sip of his drink, pointedly ignoring the demonic laughter flitting in his ears.
Afterwards, Yuuji leans back in his chair with a contented sigh, stretching his arms up high over his head. "That was amazing." Except when he says it, it sounds like amaaaazing.
Megumi (thoroughly) wipes his mouth with a napkin. He kind of sort of had his eye on the katsu burger too, but he wasn't about to order the same thing as Yuuji, but he doesn't really know why, either. So he let him have it, and got a beef burger for himself. "It was decent."
"We should totally bring Kugisaki and Gojou sensei next time."
"We absolutely will not," he says, wondering if Yuuji will ever be able to grasp what a terrible idea that would be.
On the walk back to the school, Megumi shuffles around in his pocket. His fingers curl around the wrapper and he fishes it out.
"Oooh," Yuuji exclaims. A chocolate bar. It's the kind that breaks cleanly in half. "I didn't know you had a sweet tooth."
"I have my secrets." Wordlessly, Megumi flips it over and breaks it so that there's clearly a bigger piece and a smaller piece, and he hands Yuuji the bigger half.
"No," he insists, "I—"
"Just take it," Megumi says.
It is rather a lovely night, the kind that would do well to be filled with conversation and banter, if he knew how to do either one of them. Megumi shoves his hands in his pockets and notes even the way Yuuji holds himself is so telling of his charisma. Everything about his body language is open and welcoming, from his arms at his sides to his easy gait. The way he hums a little tune in his throat without any care in the world.
He realizes how painfully little he knows about this boy before he started his life as a jujutsu sorcerer. What was he like before all this, before Sukuna? What did he do with his friends after school? His favorite songs and movies? Does he have favorite color?
When did he start to want to know more?
"Itadori," he says, the same time Yuuji says, "Fushiguro."
They both pause, and the silence takes on a different shade, just for a moment. Megumi's cheeks tingle. "Go ahead."
"Nah, you first."
"No, really ..."
"Okay." He takes a deep breath. "I just wanted to say that I ... Seriously ... Uh, thanks for tonight."
Megumi waits, but there is no more. In a rare moment of daring, he lightly knocks his shoulder against his. "No problem," he says, but it feels too casual for what he really wants to say, for what he really feels. And he's not sure what either of those things are.
"Not just for the food," he says, "but also for ... the ..." He scrubs a hand over his face. "You know."
The tiniest of smiles quirks at the corner of his lips. "Right."
"I just—gah," he exclaims, running his hands through his hair. "Now I feel like I owe you, and I hate that feeling, because I can never properly do it back, and ..."
"You don't owe me anything, Yu—Itadori," he says, heart skipping a beat. He'd just skipped over a dangerous precipice. "Like I said. I'm happy to do it."
"Really?" He turns to look at him, and his hair is sticking up now in little tufts. He smiles, the one where his eyes close and they crinkle at the corners and his teeth gleam. "You're such a nice guy, Fushiguro."
His throat burns and tightens with some unnamed feeling.
"Don't say that in front of Kugisaki," he says at last, falling into step beside him. A smile plays at his lips. "I have a reputation to uphold."
"Itadori," he says, when they've stopped in front of their rooms. He almost, for one moment, reaches for his arm, even though he knows his voice alone would suffice. He hastily places his hands back in his pocket.
Yuuji turns to look at him--and not over his shoulder, like someone in a hurry, but with his full body, giving him his full attention. In the moonlight streaming in from the windows, his eyes are tinged with silver, and the shadows accentuate the scar below his eye. His finger twitches inside his pocket, to do what, he doesn't know. Probably something embarrassing, like reaching out and stroking it. Megumi takes a sharp breath.
"I—Your—" He shifts his weight on his feet, swallowing. He's been practising this on the walk back. "Your grandfather," he says at last, letting the words float through the air in the spaces between them. "I know it hurts. And the hurt might never go away. Or ... maybe that's how it feels right now, like you'll carry it forever. But. He's with you, all the time, and I know it's not the same, but he's here," he says, and taps his chest. "So he's not gone. Not really. And he would ... he would want to see you happy. So."
Yuuji smiles. This one full-on punches him in the throat, because he didn't know a smile could look so soft. His eyes brim with silver, but his voice is steady when he speaks. "I know," he says, and gazes down for a moment, his eyes soft and far away. He's never looked so peaceful as he does in this moment. It makes his breath catch. "He'd never let me hear the end of it if he knew I was blubbering like a baby over him ..." He laughs a little and looks up, meeting Megumi's eyes. "Thanks, Fushiguro," he says, and the sincerity in those two words strikes something so deep in his core.
Once the door closes behind him, the air whooshes from his lungs. He braces his hand against the door—Yuuji's door—and closes his eyes.
He lets himself smile. A real, full smile.
The door opens. Shit. He's not fast enough to pretend he wasn't having a full fledged romance novel moment. Yuuji steps forward just as Megumi leans back, and for a moment time freezes, and all he sees are the warm brown of eyes, wide and open and like they will swallow him whole, and he's never realized just how big they are, and how close he is, and—
Megumi almost stumbles back, heart pounding way harder than he would like it to.
"Fushiguro!" he says, obviously not deterred in the slightest. "What're you still doing out here?"
He takes a deep breath. He almost imagines he hears that disjointed, demonic voice laughing in his ear. Lovestruck Fushiguro Megumi, he hears him taunt. "I was going to tie my laces," he says, thankful now that it's dark because he can't hide the way his face tingles even if he tries. "Erm. Did you need something?"
He laughs, rubbing the back of his head. "I was just gonna come wish you goodnight. Since I. You know. Forgot to."
Well. Megumi tries to take a calming breath. How is someone this angelic hosting the fucking King of Demons?
Yuuji frowns. He takes a step closer, and then another one, and then suddenly he's in front of him, and he reaches out and holds his hands in his, and shit, Megumi's brain short circuits. "Fushiguro," he murmurs, and he realizes what a treat it is to hear this low cadence of his voice, directed just for him. "You don't look too good. Was it the burger?"
His eyes play tug of war, alternating between his eyes and his mouth and occasionally his scar because he knows there's one other person here who is probably getting off on his anguish.
"D'you wanna come to my room for a while?"
Room? Megumi snatches his hands away before he does something stupid like accept his offer. He's not sure he'd be able to come back from it. Well, of course he'd come back from his room, but not from the ... other feelings ... that would incite in him. That's what he meant. Obviously.
"I could make you some green t—"
"It's fine," he says, with a little more force than he means to. Silence rings in the air between them. "I'm—I'll be fine, I promise. I'm just tired."
"Really?" Yuuji doesn't sound like he's convinced, but that still doesn't stop him from reaching out. Megumi wants to turn and run. Especially when his fingers brush his brow, and he shifts away some of the matted hair stuck there. Great, so he's that worked up. A flush creeps up from the back of his neck. "If you say so," he says, and steps away, once more into his doorway. He smiles and raises his hand in a wave. "'Night, Fushiguro!"
"Goodnight," he mumbles, looking away.
This time he drops to his knees, safe in the privacy of his own room. He buries his head in his knees for one long moment. He might throw up. Or cry. He doesn't know. Maybe both at the same time. His hands move of their own accord.
Moments later, a white demon dog wags its tail at him, the red mark on its brow stark against the snow white color of its fur. Megumi throws his arms around it, burying himself in the indescribable softness. Its breaths are hot and wet against his neck. Megumi closes his eyes.
"I don't know what's happening to me," he whispers, so softly, scared that if he hears himself too clearly, it will be all too real. His demon dog slobbers him with kisses, tongue clumsy and wet over his neck, and then his cheek, his face. Megumi's lips curl into a smile, which stretches into a laugh. He scratches behind its ears.
"You're right," he says, much later, leaning against the wall. Now that he's managed to somewhat calm down--and that the sensation of Yuuji's hands over his is wearing off--he's starting to find the whole ordeal rather embarrassing. Megumi's not one to lose his cool over, well ... whatever this is. "I'm overreacting."
Another small bark. Megumi frowns.
"No," he says. "No, I don't think ... You really think so?" It wags its tail, baring its teeth. "Well, I can't just tell him something like that, you know."
They go back and forth like this for a few minutes. His demon dog barks (softly), whimpers, and huffs a lot.
Megumi folds his arms. "Well, now you've lost me."
They continue with this little back and forth banter, until he falls asleep, curled up on the floor, too tired to drag himself up to wash and change.
He wakes up to several notifications on his phone.
The photo! Fushiguro sits up like a puppet pulled on its strings. What a wonderful way to start his morning, with a racing heart and sweaty palms. His face heats. How could he have forgotten about the selfie Yuuji'd taken as they were waiting for their food? He doesn't care, he tells himself, that everyone else is going to see it, and maybe even the second and third and fourth years, too. It's fine. Hopefully it isn't too mortifying. He taps at the notification, waits for the photo to load.
There is is, the washed out lights of the diner, Yuuji's grin, his own small frown. And underneath, the caption—
fushiguro!!! 🐶🐶🖤🤍🍔
Megumi lets the phone drop and covers his face with his hands.