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Summer swelter rises in steam from the hot blacktop after the Goodwill Event. Fushiguro hesitates before crossing the street, sure that if he does the tar will melt under his weight and he’ll be stuck to the blacktop for good.
(Gojo and him sat on a bench, eating icecream from an Italian shop—Gojo had finished his, actually, and Megumi had more than half left so Gojo kept pestering him for a bite, "Just one lick, Megumi, pleeeease. They gave me so much less than you"—and then Gojo had laughed, suddenly, and Megumi had flinched.
"I’m bored. Are you bored, Megumi? Let’s play a game."
"I’m not bored.” Megumi’s legs didn’t reach the ground when he sat on park benches. “And only boring people get bored."
"Hah? How can you say that I’m boring? Who told you that?"
"They said it in that manga you like."
"You shouldn’t believe everything manga says. Come on, Megumi. Let’s play—Actually, it’s more like training. To get stronger?"
Megumi looked up at him. He knew this was suspicious but at the same time, he honestly had nothing to lose, other than his icecream. He nodded.
"Excellent, excellent!" Gojo clapped his hands. "Okay, see, there’s that nice shade under the large tree there?"
The same large elm that Gojo had once dared Tsukimi and himself to climb up extended its branches over the sidewalk, blocking the hot sun. Most pedestrians went out of their way to walk underneath it, bask in the cool patch before continuing on their way. Megumi nodded again.
"Okay. So. Project your shadows over there and make it so that you create just a step’s height of a dent, yeah? So that when people—" at this point Gojo kept interrupting himself with his own chuckles, "—when people—" he even held onto his stomach, "—walk underneath the tree, they’ll stumble," his whole body was shaking with laughter. "And fall! Come on, Megumi, please! Don’t look at me like that! Don’t leave, you’ll get lost! Come back!")
"Fushiguro!" Itadori dragged the last syllable while he waved his hand in front of Megumi’s face. "Yo! You okay, buddy?"
Megumi blinked the memory away. He nodded.
"Come on! Let’s go!" he looped his arm around Megumi’s and tugged on it. They crossed the street and the sole of their shoes did not stick to the blacktop.
Megumi thought that perhaps Itadori would also laugh at a prank like that. Or perhaps not. Perhaps he’d imagine an old lady faltering in her step, breaking a leg, unable to work and forced to sell her market stall, her home foreclosed, her last days spent living on the streets, freezing to death, and he’d start crying.
"What else did you do?" Megumi plays with one of his fries, dragging it around the tray.
"I trained with Gojo-sensei!" Itadori says, mouth full of fries, cheeks puffed out like a hamster. "Well, watched movies mostly."
"I remember that. Did he comment on all the wrong places with the stupidest of details, too?"
"Hm? No, I watched them on my own. He was never with me."
"Oh." Probably because Megumi was a child when Gojo trained him like that, through movie appreciation, he had watched every single one of those with him. Probably because he’s already watched those movies so many times he didn’t want to watch them again. Fullness from eating today feels a little more like relief, a little more like weights being taken off his chest. Those days always come back with the bittersweet feeling of the last days of summer break, when he’ll no more spend all day with Tsumiki and Gojo, no more feet dipping in seafoam and toes digging into sand, fused with the warm, refreshing feeling of coming home.
"We also did some sparring, that was cool! He’s so strong!"
Fushiguro nods. "The strongest," he deadpans, sipping on his Diet Coke.
"Do you ever spar with him? Guess you probably do," Itadori looks at Fushiguro, then at his fries, then at Fushiguro again, and it’s not even a millisecond after Fushiguro barely starts to nod that he grabs a handful of fries off Fushiguro’s tray and sticks them in his mouth. "Shinshe you shpent all thoshe monthsh—"
"Don’t speak with your mouth full."
Itadori covers his mouth with his hand. "Shorry!"
"I don’t really."
"What? How come?"
Megumi shrugs. "He’s too annoying."
Itadori laughs.
Sometimes, Megumi feels Itadori doesn’t truly see Gojo for all that he is. He can’t help the hollow in his chest at the thought of Itadori, who functions on a similar wavelength as Gojo and spends hours training with him, and still he doesn’t see how annoying the man is. That’s annoying too, he frowns down at his now empty tray.
*
“Sensei!” Yuuji waves, his arm stretched to its full length, swaying back and forth.
“Yuuji!” Gojo waves back in the same motion.
In his mind, Gojo sees this as a fade to watercolor ending in old school anime. In his mind, Yuuji does too.
“What are you up to?”
“Just came back from a day mission with Nanamin,” Yuuji fans himself with his t-shirt, holding it from its front. He pauses. Gojo recognizes Yuuji’s frown as one of focus, a swimmer before diving in, with less stoicism and more teenaged panic. He smiles at Yuuji.
“Something you want to ask?”
“I asked Nanamin if he could train with me and he said yes.”
“Oh.”
“So—”
“So you’re standing me up. I’m not good enough for you now that Nanami gives you his attention. Fine. Fine. I get it. You used me and now you discard me, yesterday’s croissants, no longer fresh, no longer vibrant, replaced by a younger man,” Gojo buries his face in his forearm.
Yuuji now panics for real, none of that teenaged mini panic from before, but full blown terror.
“Sensei, no! I’m sorry! It’s not like that, really!” Yuuji waves his hands around as if that were going to help, or as if he were about to dance. “I just, it’s not that, I just think that Nanamin—”
“Is better than me? Keep pouring salt on my wound, Yuuji, keep twisting the knife, why don’t you?”
“Sensei, I’m really sorry. Why don’t you ask Fushiguro to train with you, I’m sure he’d love that, we were talking about that some days ago, I’m really—”
“You were?” Gojo looks up at Yuuji, blinking fast, fake tears and buried face forgotten. If not for the blindfold, Yuuji would see the sparkle in his eyes. “Did Megumi really say that? Megumi wants to train with me?”
“Um, well, not real—”
“Thank you so much, Yuuji! All is forgiven. Go train with Nanami. In fact, go wild. I’m off!”
If he were a better man—like Nanami, indeed—he’d feel sorry for Yuuji, sweet, naive, gullible Yuuji who genuinely feels pain, genuinely feels bad for him, genuinely believes Gojo’s sad at the thought of being replaced. But he isn’t. And if not for his touching performance he never would’ve heard about this most exhilarating of news, that Megumi wants him, Gojo Satoru, to train with.
So if he finds Megumi in his bedroom reading one of his books—a book of essays of all things! By a monk! Gojo wants to snore just to spite Megumi!—and not at all in the mood for an impromptu training session with the Greatest Teacher to Ever Live, he doesn’t mind. He’s already far too happy to be concerned with trivial details. He drops on Megumi’s bed, lays his head on Megumi’s thigh, and sighs, deep and drawn out.
“Yuuji abandoned me for Nanami, his new favorite teacher. No one wants to train with me anymore, Megumi. What should I do?”
“There’ll be new students coming in next year,” Megumi says and turns the page. His reply is the only sign that he even knew Gojo was in the room.
“How cruel. I can’t wait a whole year.”
“Okkotsu should be back in a couple of months,” Megumi goes to the back of the book for a footnote, then returns. This is a fabrication, he tells himself, designed specifically for you.
“But right now, you’re only reading this book,” Gojo whines.
“Do you train Itadori so often that being replaced would free up this much time?”
Gojo pauses for a second, the little hamster wheel in his brain, powered by one of Megumi’s bunnies that he stole, turning.
He nods. “Yeah,” he says, trying to convey the tone of one who looks back on their life and wishes for better, simpler days.
Megumi sighs. This one’s not wistful, like Gojo’s was, nor lonely. It’s frustrated, a dark shade of irritation. He turns the page, taps his fingers against the cover of the book, and smacks his lips. He knows how to read between the pages, over the lines.
“Let’s go,” he says, putting his book face down, open at the page he last read, and moves his leg without care for Gojo’s head leaning on it.
Gojo watches Megumi’s back, framed by the loose cream colored long sleeves shirt that belonged to Gojo until last winter when it went out of style, and he smiles a small smile.
Thank you and I love you don’t cut it, are not enough, mere simple words, so he just catches up to Megumi, wraps his arm around Megumi’s shoulders, and ruffles his hair.
“Megumi, if you wanted to train with me so badly you could’ve just asked!”
“You’re literally the most annoying being on the planet.”
“Being! Not even a person! But you don’t know every being on the planet, do you Megumi?”
“Ugh.”
*
Light in the training room comes in downward geometry, from the overstory windows down onto the training floor, sunlight slopes with golden dust and shades of honey.
The room is cool, much cooler than the outside, it has to be.
Gojo shivers and rubs his arms theatrically.
“So cold! Megumi, let’s just go to an onsen!”
“You’re the one who wanted to train in the first place.”
“I do. I want you to grow stronger. But I also want to be comfortable. I’m torn.”
“You want me to grow stronger?”
(“You see, Shoko,” Satoru said after Yuuji had come back to life. “Even if he probably struck some dangerous deal with Sukuna, I’m happy to have him back. I need him, and Yuuta, and Hakari, if I seriously want to change this shithole.” His head rested in the fold of his arm, propped entirely on the table.
From behind the bottom of her glass, Satoru looked funny. Shoko smiled. “What about him?”
“What about him?”
“Isn’t he, according to you, the only one who can become even stronger than you?”
“What’s your point?” Satoru tilted his head. He knew Shoko hated this particular habit of his.
“Nothing. So, your army of Yuuji, Yuuta, and Hakari—”
“Toge, Nobara, and Maki, too.”
“A ha. Everyone but him.”
“Again,” a tilt of his head. “Your point?”)
Gojo nods. “How do you want to play this?”
“Sparring is fine.”
“I won’t go easy on you, Megumi.”
“You never do.”
Laughter climbs up Gojo’s chest and leaves a trail of pain.
“Nevermind. I changed my mind. Let’s get icecream!”
“Sensei.”
“Fine,” Gojo pouts. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Megumi doesn’t wait. He charges at Gojo with a cursed-energy-infused fist, puts his all into it, and is still unable to reach him.
(Megumi woke covered in cold sweat, his throat dry and a tad swollen. He hated that dream, Tsumiki and Gojo running ahead of him at the beach, and his stupid, short, four year old legs—which was dumb because he was older the first time they went to the beach, and at four the person who left him was an entirely different one—incapable of reaching them, sinking in the soft warm sand, deeper and deeper, swallowed by his own shadows but not in any way comforting, and cast into darkness alone, not even his dogs with him.)
Megumi tries again, this time putting more into it. Gojo keeps avoiding him, at times even by a hair’s breadth, always out of reach. He wants to yell at Gojo to stay put, for a second, so he can hit him as hard as possible.
Gojo hits. It’s practically an open palm slap.
The blow sends Megumi flying, once he lands he rolls on the floor and is barely able to stop the momentum by using his arms for further purchase. He spits out the blood that sprung when he bit his lip and wipes his mouth with the back of his sleeve.
A grin tugs at Gojo’s lips.
“Go ahead, Megumi. Get angry! Do your worst!”
“You mean my best?”
“I mean do the worst thing you can think of to me!”
Megumi’s hound emerges from the shadow he casts behind Gojo’s back and thrusts its claw towards a spot between Gojo’s shoulder blades. It’s met with impenetrable resistance. The claw can’t move an inch forward.
“I can’t touch you?”
“You can. They can’t.”
The hound dissolves into darkness.
“Not if I can’t reach you.”
“Keep trying, Megumi.” As he finishes sounding out Megumi’s name— he always wraps it in a smile—Gojo hits Megumi, again, sends him flying again.
Megumi pauses, legs aching, stomach flat on the floor. He can see days old grime on the tatami mats.
“Boring! Get back up, Megumi. Hit me!”
Megumi coughs before holding his body up with his hands, struggling to get back up. His elbows give and he falls back onto the floor.
Inside his chest, Gojo’s heart is wrenched, twisted like a dishrag, all the blood rinsed out. One knot ties itself tightly and Gojo takes a tentative step forward.
“Me—”
Megumi stands and Gojo’s back to a smile, light on his feet once more.
“That’s it. That’s it, Megumi!”
Megumi looks straight at Gojo, eyes shaded by the position of his head and the angle—he’s placed himself just so under one of the slats of light—and turns slightly to spit blood.
“Just like Rocky,” Gojo says. He’s so excited he feels tingling all over, his blood must be simmering. The further Megumi gets, the farther he’ll go. One day he’ll be so far ahead, it’ll be Gojo the one struggling to catch up. And when that happens—
He grabs Megumi’s forearm as Megumi attempts to connect a punch, and the movement spins them together. Gojo goes as far as putting his hand on the back of Megumi’s waist in mock dance, pulling Megumi’s body into his. What if you keep him like this, bound and tethered? This way it’ll never happen.
Megumi goes for a sweeping kick, to knock Gojo off his feet, but he’s not fast enough. Gojo lets go of him and jumps back with ease.
“Are you really not going easy on me, sensei?”
(Megumi waited for the water to drip down through the filter and into his mug, standing barefoot by the counter. He heard Maki and Panda walking down the hallway, their voices growing louder with their steps.
“—do that?”
“Like he always does! That idiot!”
“I can just hear him,” Panda started. “‘If I don’t push you to push yourself—”
“You’ll never get anywhere,’” Maki said the last part in unison with Panda. “So full of himself! Meanwhile Toge’s bleeding and can barely move and the blindfold’s yelling at him to get up—Hey, Megumi.”
“Zenin-senpai, Panda-senpai,” Megumi nodded their way.
“As you said, like he always does.”
“One day, I’ll really punch his smug face in,” Maki’s voice grew lower, until Megumi could no longer hear them.
Like he always does, Megumi watched bubbling clouds of light brown foam swirl inside his mug as it filled up with deep black coffee. He thought about Gojo sitting next to him on a street, telling him not to push himself, to rest up and heal.
He traced the rim of his mug with his fingertip then took it back to his room.)
“Would I lie to you?”
“Yes.”
“Megumi! I would never!”
“Itadori being dead—”
“Doesn’t count.”
“You made us light incense in his memory!”
“I wanted you, both you and Nobara, to see how badly it’d hurt if you weren’t strong enough—”
“How convenient.” Megumi relaxes his stance. They’re about two tatami mats away from each other, face to face. “If that’s true then take me seriously.”
“I am. I always do.”
“Why can I touch you?”
“In case you wanna hug me, Megumi, we’ve been through this!”
“I’m not weak.”
“I’ve never once thought you weak. Not even when you barely reached my knees.”
“Then!?” His careful and collected tone thrown to the wind, Megumi raises his voice, his arms move backwards to help his chest push his voice out higher. It takes some for him to, but sometimes he boils over.
“There’s things I can’t explain with words. That you have to live through to learn.” Gojo remembers dying. That was his greatest teacher, his killer. He didn’t hold any regrets then, he was sure. He thought he’d made his peace. But now he’s grateful. That Toji’s wasn’t the last face he ever saw. That he was able to look upon Megumi’s face. That he’s able to see it everyday. “Those things I can’t teach you.”
(It was summer then, too, as they stood on the school field. Satoru no longer felt his skin burn up under the sun. Like his brain, his body was always fresh now.
“Did you say you’re permanently running a reversal technique?” Shoko asked. “So you learned how to do it?”
Gojo nodded.
“Can you—”
“Only on myself.”
“You should learn,” Suguru said. He was already so skinny then, had lost so much weight. “It could come in handy.”
“Why would I want to? There’s no need anyway. Shoko’s here.”
“Somehow, I don’t see Satoru wanting to use a reversal technique on anyone other than himself,” Shoko shrugged, her palms pointed upwards.
Suguru crossed his arms and nodded slightly.
“I hope for your sakes that wasn’t some sort of dig at me,” Satoru said. He didn’t know how to begin learning, in the first place.
His two friends shook their heads.)
“How will I learn them, if that’s the case?”
Gojo lowered his head, took his chin in his hand. Pretending to consider—the body language of pondering a thought—became shorthand for actually considering. Performance, action, and reaction indistinguishable at this point, after so many years, so many layers.
“Haha! Amazing!” Gojo laughs after he jumps back. Any second longer and Megumi would’ve hit him, square in the face. “That was great, Megumi. Go for it with all you’ve got.”
Megumi keeps going, advancing fists first, swinging and bringing forth more and more cursed energy.
Gojo smiles, his blood simmering again, at least he no longer needs to consider what Megumi asked him, he can enjoy their game, Megumi chasing and him staying just slightly out of reach. If he falters in his step, once or twice, with the pained pang that Megumi has to, needs to grow stronger, for both of them and Gojo should be doing more to that end, it’s countered with the walking on air lightness of Megumi giving it his all to reach Gojo. That he still hasn’t left Gojo behind.
He hits Megumi’s chest with his open palm and it’s not the sound he hears but Megumi’s face, the expression etched onto his features, of sheer shock, of unbridled unease, that ties another knot around Gojo’s heart and squeezes, slips the noose around his neck and tightens.
Megumi groans and flies back, tries landing and falls with a loud thud.
“Megumi!” Gojo teleports, fast enough to keep the back of Megumi’s head from hitting the floor. “Megumi,” he says, brushing Megumi’s hair off his forehead. Megumi’s eyes are tightly shut and he groans.
*
“He’s fine. It’s just superficial bleeding and a couple bruises,” Shoko takes a drag off an invisible cigarette and closes the door behind her. She takes the seat next to Satoru.
“Why don’t you just smoke actual cigarettes? Can’t you run a reversal technique to keep your lungs pristine?”
“Too much work,” Shoko sets her head on the desk of her office, just on the other side of where the infirmary rooms are. “You looked so desperate and stupid, carrying him in your arms,” she smiles her mockery. “He wasn’t even hurt.”
“He sprained his ankle! And it was my fault!”
Shoko frowns, closes her eyes, her hair falling to cover her face. “He twisted it and is now totally fine. He said he just landed wrong. You’re way too loud.” She turns on the fan on her desk, points it straight towards her face. “He said to tell you to let him rest. You can leave, he’s fine.”
“No way,” Gojo laughs, standing. “I’m going in.”
“Alright. I did tell you, though. I did my part.”
Megumi’s sitting up on one of the beds, looking out the window. The branches of a large elm cut the flood of sunlight coming in, patches of it swim over Megumi’s skin, his hair.
Gojo smiles.
“So happy to see you well, Megumi!”
“Ugh,” Megumi turns to watch him and curls up his lip. “I’m fine. You didn’t need to make such a big deal out of it. You can go.”
“Of course not.” Gojo sits at the foot of the bed. “Those bruises make you look very handsome, you know? Add a lot of character to your face. I think they look like the ones from 2016, wait.” Gojo fishes his phone out of his pocket, pulls up his camera roll and starts scrolling. “Ah! Almost. This one from February 2017!” He shows Megumi his phone screen but Megumi’s just watching his face, not glancing at the phone.
“You keep those? You memorize them?”
“I also keep the ones I take when we go to amusement parks, or out to eat. All of them. Sometimes I forget to take pictures, though.”
Turning to look out the window again, Megumi sighs. Down below, Maki, Panda, and Toge are running laps while Kusakabe naps in the shade, his shirt buttoned down below his chest. Nobara, holding a parasol, cheers them on. Megumi sees steam rising from the gravel paths and he doesn’t envy the second years. There’s a soft breeze, though, he can see it in the gently swaying leaves, and the way the fabric on Nobara’s parasol ripples. Fall is coming.
“Megumi,” Gojo starts. It’s too tentative, too open. He tries again, more enthusiasm, more carelessness in it. “Megumi! I—”
“It’s fine,” Megumi keeps his gaze outside, away from this room.
“Hm? What is?”
“You were gonna say it was stupid of you to worry so much. I get it. I worry too.” He doesn’t look at Gojo.
“I—I wasn’t going to, Megumi. And anyway, what do you have to worry about? I’m the strongest.”
“Yeah.” Out in the courtyard, Nabara jumps up and down, throws her arms around Maki’s neck and her parasol falls to the ground, bouncing once. Megumi looks at Gojo. “I know.”
Thank you and I love you and never leave me don’t cut it, are not enough, mere simple words, so they smile softly at each other.
“Rest up, Megumi,” Gojo ruffles Megumi’s hair and gets up, off the bed. “I’ll come take you back to your dorm later.”
“Please don’t. You’ll just bridal style carry me again.”
“What? Why not? I thought you liked that!”
Megumi smiles then frowns. “Let me sleep, sensei.”
Gojo smiles and walks out. Once at the door he turns to watch Megumi who has disappeared under the sheets.
“Sweet dreams, Megumi.”