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Yuuji finds Megumi in a corner of the forest.
(“He’s visiting White Jade Hound,” Nobara says, when Yuuji comes looking.
“What do you mean, ‘visit?’” Yuuji cocks his head in confusion, not unlike the dog in question. “Shikigami can just be summoned, right?”
“Are you an idiot?” she snaps. “Not everyone comes back from the dead like you, Itadori.”
Yuuji flinches. Immediately, Nobara adopts a contrite expression, her scowl easing slightly.
To Yuuji’s credit, he had genuinely forgotten — he’d been a little preoccupied during his time as a sort-of living ghost, after all — but the image soon pieces itself together. Matted fur, stark against the detention center’s dark wall. Red blood, dripping from the animal’s head. White Jade, motionless. Killed.
Nobara sighs, running a hand through her hair. “He’s in the forest,” she offers, more quietly.
None of this is her fault. She shouldn’t have to look apologetic. “I really am sorry, Kugisaki,” Yuuji mumbles.
“Yeah. Yeah,” she shrugs. She raises her foot behind her, adjusting the fit of her sneaker with one finger. “Just don’t bother Fushiguro too much, you hear?”)
Megumi has his back turned to Yuuji when he arrives, hands clasped in prayer. Hunched like this, with his head bowed, Megumi looks so—tired. Bone-weary.
Yuuji finds himself struck with an urge so powerful, it makes him dizzy. An urge to hold. An urge to protect. An urge to keep Megumi safe, for as long as he can. For as long as he is allowed to.
He clenches his fists. Who caused Megumi this pain, this grief, in the first place? Yuuji is the least deserving of these urges. He should flee right now, hightail it back to the dorms and pretend he’s just dandy.
(Except he really isn’t. He can’t forget the stricken way Megumi looked at him, before he died and after he came back from the dead. His feet propel him forward.
He’s left Megumi alone for too long already. He can’t leave him, again.)
“This is where he would bury curse leftovers, right?” Yuuji begins. The leaves crunch underfoot as he approaches. Like the summertime, autumn in Tokyo seems to be a loud affair, even deep in the mountains. “I remember from that one time we went on a run.”
Megumi doesn’t startle at Yuuji’s sudden appearance, but he doesn’t look back, either. “He always forgot that exorcised curses disintegrate when left alone,” he replies, hands falling to his sides.
Yuuji laughs. “And then he’d look up at you all sad-like. He probably thought you took his food away. Or ate it,” Yuuji teases. He stops once he reaches Megumi’s side, just close enough to see the tiny curl of his mouth.
“He was a good boy,” Yuuji coos. “Goodest boy.”
Megumi snorts at Yuuji’s ever-childlike affect. “You sound like a kid.”
“Doesn’t make me any less right,” Yuuji pouts. “He was the goodest boy.”
“He was,” Megumi relents, and finally smiles. It’s a small one, a soft one, filled with affection for the first shikigami he’d ever summoned, and Yuuji’s heart aches a little as he stares. “He liked you a lot, you know.”
Yuuji preens, puffing his chest out and knocking his shoulder against Megumi’s. “Because I gave him the best hugs.”
“Did you, now,” Megumi plays along.
“Uh huh. Want one?”
“I have another Divine Dog. Save it for him,” Megumi snarks. He cranes his head to look at Yuuji, and Yuuji returns his gaze easily, still smiling, unfazed by the rejection. Megumi’s eyes slide away after a beat. “I prayed here for you, too, actually,” he admits.
“Huh. Did you, now,” Yuuji mimics, but where Megumi’s voice had been flat, Yuuji’s is careful, tentative. “What kind of food did you leave for me?”
He softens the casual question with touch, hooking his chin over Megumi’s shoulder and sticking close like glue. Megumi, strangely enough, lets him, only adjusting his stance so that his elbow won’t accidentally jab Yuuji in the stomach. The tips of his ears burn red.
“I didn’t leave you any,” Megumi deadpans, in a biting tone that Yuuji doesn’t believe. “I only left some for White Jade.”
“That’s so mean! White Jade would share with me,” Yuuji whines. He tilts his head to the side, cheek squishing against the fabric of Megumi’s uniform as he ponders a sudden thought. “I guess I wouldn’t mind eating dog food if White Jade offered. Or curses.”
That earns him a chuckle from Megumi. Yuuji feels more than hears Megumi’s small exhale, draped over him as he is. “You are ridiculous, Itadori Yuuji.”
(That evening, Megumi blurts, “meatballs,” over dinner in Yuuji’s room.
“Huh?” Yuuji blinks. They’re eating convenience store bentos today — the ones with salmon were half-off.
“Whenever I prayed for you,” Megumi mumbles, eyes averted. “I left you meatballs. The… the ones you taught me how to make.”
Yuuji’s chopsticks clatter to the floor. In the same moment, Yuuji reaches for him.)
“Hey. Itadori,” Megumi murmurs. Yuuji peeks up at him, pulling back so his eyes don’t cross. Megumi’s gaze is molten. “Welcome back.”
Yuuji blinks, then breaks out into a wide grin. In a sudden burst of affection, he wraps his arms around Megumi’s midsection, ensnaring him in a tight hug. Megumi squawks in surprise, grumbles at being jostled, then leans into Yuuji, anyway.
“Fushiguro,” Yuuji beams. His reconstructed heart beats a staccato rhythm in his chest and against Megumi’s back. “I’m home.”