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Megumi sees the way he looks at her. Watches honey eyes stare after slim shoulders and then dip down to a curved waist, feels his own throat tighten, and stomach drop each time. He can’t help but see the affection that Itadori places on Nobara, can’t look away from the brief touches, and embarrassed flushes.
He knows he shouldn't feel this way about his best friends, knows the burning jealousy shouldn't be there, but he can't help it. Nobara is so lucky, so so lucky, and she doesn't even know it. To be able to be loved by Itadori Yuuji how Megumi wishes he could be. To have honey eyes stare after her as he craves. It hurts like nothing else and he's not sure how much longer he can watch.
The first hug he catches makes him turn on his heel from the common room before they notice him. He goes right to his room and then to his bed, pulling the blanket over himself, and wishing his heart didn't have to feel this way. Wishing he’d never laid eyes on Itadori Yuuji. Wishes he could ignore them, but instead, he sits back like a silent guardian. He knows how rare it is for love to grow in Jujutsu, how unsafe it is, and he’s glad anytime he can keep one of them safe for the other. It makes his heart ache, but they are the only real friends he has ever had. They care about him so he does his best.
Megumi does pull back from them though. He stops attending dinners as often, wanting to give them time to enjoy each other, and declines more than not to go out with them. Yuuji’s disappointment only lasts a moment before Nobara will sweep in and tell him that they need to get going. They make these plans and always remember him just before they go, it’s a clear message to him that it’s only a polite invitation.
Nobara becomes gentler with time. He sees her actually speak to some kids during a mission with real concern and worry for them when they look bruised and a little scraped up. If he is proud it is nothing compared to the way Yuuji is staring at her. It’s like he’s planning the rest of their lives together and Megumi has to look away. That look is not meant for him.
He throws himself into training, more readily working on his Chimera Shadow Garden until it’s complete. Megumi likes spending time there alone, laying in the shadows, and staring into the fluid darkness around him. His shikigami surrounding him. If he screams and cries, sobs at his stupid heart for loving a boy who would never love him back, only the shadows could tell and he is their master so they will always remain silent. He doesn’t make his hurt known because he knows how to hide anything and everything. If Gojo stares after him a few times he just glares back at the man.
Gojo likes to think he’s actually a guardian to Megumi, but no guardian sends a child to their death all the time out of love. The man ever only loved one person and they’re dead. Suguru took the real Satoru with him and now this hollow man is left in his wake. Megumi uses it as a reminder that love is dangerous for them all, that he should throw it away and forget it. His foolish heart seems to pound harder for Yuuji at just the thought of forgetting how warm he makes him feel, cared for, and like...like someone. Yuuji makes him feel like he’s seen, or he had.
Now he stares after his two friends, watches them duck their heads together, pushed into each other’s sides, and talking to only each other. He closes his eyes and does his best to engrain in his heart that there is no room for him there. Megumi lets his heart give up and it hurts. He feels like vomiting to be honest, has to turn around and walk briskly to the bathroom because he does end up heaving, but as weeks start passing by the numbness he now feels is welcome.
Megumi’s new apathy keeps him unaware of eyes on his back, concerned when he’s painfully quiet while cooking, unaware of the way the two look worried when he can’t see because the distance has become so vast they don’t know how to traverse it. He’s just there now and his two friends are so confused about what happened. Hadn’t they all been getting close? Weren’t they all friends? Yuuji worries whenever green eyes look at him and he can’t see anything in them. He is so used to seeing emerald’s light up when they speak, but weeks have gone past with that dull gaze looking at him. Megumi’s already limited vocal responses become nearly nonexistent now, and he leaves them as soon as he can.
Nobara and Yuuji watch the boy train harder than either of them. Watches as he grows more muscled and refined. Witness the pay off as they easily defeat much stronger curses. When Chimera Shadow Garden bursts forth when Mahito attacks them and the curse is filled with pure darkness they can’t stop staring. Megumi stands there, looking down at the curse with cold eyes, and snuffs the life from it.
It’s the first spark of anything in green eyes and it worries him even more. Where had the boy who saved him gone? The other teen was so stiff around them. Maybe they had been holding him back? Yuuji doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what to do and his heart is aching. Sukuna’s cackling in his head worries him more than anything when they leave the domain. There are weak curses everywhere and Fushiguro’s just expended a lot of energy to bring the special grade down. With a scoff, Nobara raises her hammer.
“Come on, Megumi-chan,” He hears Sukuna say from his cheek, “Let’s not pretend you’re tired from just that.” Green eyes look to him and there is fire in them again. Emotion.
Determination.
They fight for what feels like hours as curse after curse comes at them. It must have been Mahito’s backup plan to weaken them enough that he’d have to let Sukuna out, but it’s almost like the other boy in their group is finally letting loose. Exorcising curse after curse before they can even make any real dents on their own.
Nobara looks taken aback when the black-haired boy is able to stick his hand into a shadow on the ground and pull a blade from it. Yuuji moves closer to her, seeing her shaking shoulders and knows she’s tiring. They fight back to back, a unit but still Fushiguro is the one doing most of the work here, and easily. When the last curse has the blade in Megumi’s hand thrown into it’s body and explodes into nothingness Yuuji sighs in relief.
“Enchain.” They hear and it’s a sudden shift from being controller to passenger. He shouts, but Sukuna is walking right to Megumi, who stares at the king with those dull eyes. “Look at you. So much power and you’re not even losing any energy, hmm?”
“What do you want, Sukuna?” The teen asks, unbuttoning his ruined school jacket, and throwing it to the ground. It’s constricting, Yuuji knows, and Megumi’s trying to give himself a better fighting chance.
“Pull a body out of the shadows for me.” The teen shouts from inside their mind and looks at the boy before them. “Or I kill them both.” Megumi looks at the curse and then laughs, really laughs with his head thrown back. The sound is so tired and yet, also bored. Nobara, he can see, steps forward looking worried, her eyes trained on their friend.
Emerald eyes look back to the King of Curses, a challenge in them. “Don’t be pathetic. Entertain me, Ryomen Sukuna.” There’s a sudden, unwavering darkness of shadow around them and he can feel the awe in the curse as the shadow is called from the living world and not a domain.
“You are something when you’ve been broken, huh, sweetheart?” Sukuna says with a nasty grin and a chuckle. “When I rip your heart from your chest after you’ve given me what I want I’ll eat it slow, so it can feel loved for a pitiful moment.”
Green eyes roll and then look dully at the curse. “How boring.” The shadows around them fall to the floor and the boy turns around, bending and grabbing his jacket. Sukuna seems slightly jostled as he fades back, his minute over, and Itadori takes control back.
“Fushiguro?” Nobara asks and those dull eyes assess them coldly.
“I believe our best bet is for me to be as far from Sukuna as possible. Obviously, my power is what he needs to come back. If Yuuji stops eating the fingers then Sukuna will just die with him.” The teen remarks and opens his phone, calling their ride probably.
His throat tightens. Megumi was going to leave them. Leave like they meant nothing to him, his stomach drops. ‘Oi, brat!’ Sukuna says with clear amusement in his voice. ‘Don’t be upset about something you broke. He was definitely over the moon for you, but you know it can be really confusing when you’re constantly touching someone else.’
Megumi...Megumi thought that he and Nobara... He looks to the girl next to him, the girl who had been trying to get him to confess for months, who had been providing him with the first real female friendship of his life. A friendship that he now can easily see how it could be seen as more.
Itadori’s love language is physical touch and…and he never touched Fushiguro because it made him nervous and jittery. Excited.
Nobara stalks over to the teen and grabs the phone from him, tears in her eyes. “Do we mean nothing to you?”
“You mean everything.” The sincerity startles them both and he gently takes the phone back, a spark of life in green eyes again. “A car is coming for you both. I have to see Gojo in the hospital. He’ll have a better idea of the proper steps.” Megumi looks at them both, fond and silent, before nodding his head and smiling the smallest smile. “You’ll be okay.”
It’s a goodbye.
It’s goodbye and Yuuji’s heart is pounding as he watches the boy he’s been in love with turn and walk into the shadows, disappearing. He falls to his knees, hand clutching his chest, shoulders shaking with breaths he can’t fully take.
No. No. They were supposed to talk about how Yuuji loved him. How he thought Megumi was beautiful and strong, kinder than anyone else had ever been to him before. They were supposed to kiss, and he was going to surprise the other boy by telling him he wanted to be with him forever. The ground beneath him seems to be swallowing him up, his stomach flipping, and throat constricting.
‘What’s the saying? You never know what you had until it’s gone.’ Sukuna seems to sing smugly.
“Yuuji?” Nobara says, kneeling next to him and placing her hand on his back.
“I-I broke his h-heart. He thought we-” He can’t finish the statement, it’s a panic attack. That’s what this is called. He has to breathe, take in his surroundings. He knows this, but instead he’s kneeling on the ground with his forehead pressed to the floor. Struggling against a reality he hadn’t imagined. A reality without Megumi. A life of standing on his own without a strong, slim hand holding his through it all. He hates it. He refuses that reality!
“Well, shit.” Nobara’s face fills with realization. “He’s leaving because he can’t look at us anymore.” She says with sad eyes. “Yuuji, we have to get to the hospital. You have to tell him.”
Yuuji knows he has to get to the other boy. He has to. There is no other option for him.
With Nobara’s help, he stands and he gets in the car with her. “Please, as quickly as possible we need to get to Gojo’s hospital.” His friend says and the car lurches forward, but he feels an ache in his bones and a tenseness in his heart. He won’t make it in time. He’s too worn out from fighting to run all the way there, but he would if he could.
When they arrive he is rushing out of the vehicle, running up the flight of stairs, and slamming his teacher’s door open. The man sits in bed, hands holding a phone, and thumb running over the picture on the screen. “Where did he go?” He asks, panting.
“I don’t know. He just came to say goodbye.” Blue eyes stare at nothing, the man’s only real connection now gone to shadow.
“I have to find Fushiguro, Gojo.” The man raises his hand, phone extended to him, and he walks forward to grab it.
It’s not his sensei’s.
“Anything we could track him with he has left behind. He’s mastered his shadow technique, Itadori, he can be wherever he wants as long as shadow is there. We will never see him again.” The pale hand extended to him is shaking and goes back to the man’s lap. He’s still recovering from his time stuck in the box, getting his mental and physical health back up.
“I’ll find him.” The picture on the screen makes his eyes sting with tears he won’t shed. It’s Gojo, Nobara, and Yuuji smiling large. Fushiguro had taken the picture when they had gone out to dinner and since then it’d been his lock screen. When he’d asked his friend why he made it his lock screen the other had looked at him shyly before straightening and looking at him very seriously.
“Family pictures are important.” The words were soft and had shocked him. Tears fill his eyes and they do spill down his cheeks. Fushiguro is telling them that he’s leaving them behind by giving this to Gojo. He’s cutting ties.
“I promise, Gojo, I’ll bring him back home.” Blue eyes that see everything seem to look at him with pity and yet he sees the hope there too.
“You’re the only one who could. But I thought that about someone I loved too and I failed. I'm the strongest and I couldn't hold onto him. What makes you different Yuuji?" Gojo's voice is low, tired. The man, who was forced to grow up to fast, exhausted from the life he has to endure.
He puts the phone in his pocket, determined to give it back to its owner. He’ll search every crevice of the Earth, every damp basement, every crypt, every alley just to find his Megumi again. When he succeeds, and he will, there will be no room between them for doubt on how Itadori Yuuji feels for Fushiguro Megumi.
"Because I love him and he loves me too. He needs to be chased, so I'll chase him. Forever, if I have to." He loves Megumi. So Yuuji isn’t going to give up, he won’t say goodbye as his sensei has. They will say hello again and then they’d one day wake up in a bed together to say good morning, and then one day when they were old and had lived long lives then and only then could Megumi say goodbye.
“You’re going to help me, Sukuna.”
“For once, brat, I will.” With a grin, he bows to his sensei and heads out. Determination fills him and he knows he will reunite his family again, and this time Megumi will stay. Yuuji will make sure that this time there will be no misinterpretation. His heart belongs to a boy with wild black hair and emerald eyes, a boy that loves animals, and is quiet but so warm and strong.
He walks through the doors of the hospital and back outside, the sun is just setting. Shadows are going to take over the whole city. With a grin, he cracks his knuckles. Nobara sits against the car, waving him over, and he nods.
“We’re playing Hide and Seek.” Nobara’s brow scrunches before her eyes widen and then she smiles. “I’m it.”
“Well, you better get going then.” Her voice is soft and warm, but he can see that she too has hope in her eyes. He’ll carry that hope. He won’t lose his person like Gojo did. They’ll make it.
“Brat, let’s go.” Sukuna’s voice growls in his head. “I can smell him on the wind.”
“Ready or not, here I come.” He says with a grin and Nobara laughs just a little before he disappears in a flash, off to bring the heart of their family back home.