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As the bedroom door clicks shut behind him, Megumi slides down the length of it. He sinks to the floor, his long legs splayed wide as he cranks his heels against the hardwood, nudging his singed shoes off one by one. He shoves them aside with a black sock clad foot. Tilting his head back, he absently rubs at the rising bruise on his swollen cheek. It twinges in time with his throbbing temple. The fan above whirls in melodic and timed clicks, wafting cold air across his sweat-soaked forehead. Some kind of grime, chunks of flesh or bloodied bits of internal organs—he can’t decide, really—cake at his hairline, and a thick glop of goo slides slick down into the corner of his eye. He roughly blinks it away, ripping his dark uniform top over his head in irritation. He wipes the mess away with it, his biceps groaning from the sudden effort. Everything hurts, and he’s fucking exhausted. He flings the blood and sweat crusted top across the room when he’s done, glaring as it falls into a heap by the foot of his bed.
He has never been this tired; so tired the thought of moving from his lonely post against the door and climbing into his unmade bed is akin to crossing the most crawling desolate and dry desert. He’d almost rather sleep where he is, already dreading the painful pull in his calves when he makes to stand. He exhales, eyes landing on his pillow, fluffed just right, the indent his head had left earlier that morning still noticeable. He draws his knees into his chest, joints creaking. Fifteen years old, and he is already decrepit, just barely standing on his last legs. Of course, he and the others had trained hard that week, and today as well, his fingers aching from the memory of it. Even his shikigami had whined as they were conjured, his black Divine Dog looking up at him with heavy and forlorn yellow eyes before he’d bounded across the training field, then faded into shadow as he made a loop to return, Megumi taking pity on him. He’d sunk down into the grass then, his sore limbs spread, palms pressing into the earth, his entire body spent. Unmoving, he’d watched Kugisaki and Itadori whack at each other until dusk.
Lately, it seemed there was a curse a day. Some new nightmare, some new demon. The world was changing around him, the danger that had previously only lurked in dark corners and alleys spreading to the parks and shopping centers, the ice cream parlors and the arcades, places he’d once thought only the sun could touch. Joy seemed to be sucked from the very air itself, leaving it stagnant and inhuman. He and his friends were the last line of defense, and sometimes he thought they were pretty shit at it, what with Itadori constantly eating things he shouldn’t and Kugisaki’s head rotating in a full circle whenever Maki was so much as mentioned, but they were at that red line, regardless.
With a grunt, Megumi pulls himself upright, standing on quaking knees. He’d been right, his legs stung like all hell. But he manages to change into sweats without toppling over and considers that a monumental victory. The night before, he’d fallen face first into bed with his uniform and shoes still on, waking in the early hours with the stale and gritty taste of blood and sweat in his mouth. He makes for the bed, hand trailing along the hard edge of the dresser for support, intent on stuffing his face into the pillow and going dead to the world. He was even considering ignoring the bell for breakfast in the morning for another precious half hour of sleep. He didn’t need sustenance, he needed fucking sleep—eight hours of uninterrupted and dreamless sleep.
Suddenly, the thin wall separating his and Itadori’s rooms shakes as his neighbor violently slams the sliding glass door shut. The disruption is followed by rustling and a heavy string of colorful expletives. Megumi pauses, hand barely gripping the corner of his comforter. He considers, curiosity creeping through him, and there was a strange tenderness too, one that pressed him to offer comfort and support. Tonight’s fight had been particularly rough. For all of them, he thinks, but Itadori especially.
The curse had been different, somehow. Brutal as always, but with this lingering sadness. Nice girls in brightly lit mid-town apartments were no longer safe. It began with a four-plex engulfed in flames, all the inhabitants evacuated save for what had once been a beautiful woman with amber eyes and hair black as night. A gentle and sweet soul, he’d managed to glean from examining the many smiling and soot-streaked photographs hanging from what had been left of her apartment walls. She’d been model tall, teetering on one broken red stiletto, the heel snapped and dragging along behind her. Tufts of that ebony hair, hair that he imagined had once been silk smooth, peaked out from her bloated and worm-like head, eight cat orange eyes zoned in on the three sorcerers that had come to exercise her. They’d gulped simultaneously as the worm reared its ugly head and unleashed a shattering roar before advancing with cursed speed.
After an extensive scuffle, Megumi had been tossed, his back smacking against the far crumbling wall, and Kugisaki was cradling her bruised arm. Barely containing his fury, Itadori had jumped, all athlete, and with a glowing fist, punched a mad hole through the curse’s head, her eyes popping wide, blood spattering across the crooked picture frames. Kugisaki had stooped to help Megumi to his feet while Itadori had picked up a loose photograph that had fallen in the curse’s rampage and tipped it towards a dying flame. Even Kugisaki had been silent, exchanging a worried glance with Megumi as Itadori dropped the smoldering polaroid atop the worm woman’s corpse, the remains of her clothing igniting instantly. They’d left the building to burn, ducking out of a metal side-gate as firefighters raced down the cordoned off street, water hoses in hand. They would find no body, only the remains of what had once been a peaceful life.
Itadori hadn’t said a word the entire ride home, his expression unusually stormy, his brows pinched tightly together. Megumi had wanted to say something, anything, to pull him from the fog, but Kugisaki had shaken her head at him, curling her hand around one of his knees, the other falling on Itadori’s. They’d sat like that until they were back on the grounds, the only sound the tick of the cab’s pay meter.
Frowning, Megumi glances down at his bed, so inviting, waiting to be burrowed into, and then towards the back door. Itadori’s crestfallen face enters his mind, and really, the decision had been made the moment his friend had slammed around and unleashed a string of foul words. He hedges around the bed and presses close to the glass, peering out. He immediately spies him folded up on the top step in front of his dorm. He slides the door open before he can think on it too much and steps out onto the porch. A cool breeze kicks up, chilling him as it brushes across his bare chest, raising goosebumps. The boy on the steps doesn’t look up at his approach, preoccupied. Lack of situational awareness—a terrible quality in a sorcerer. Itadori had been so unlike himself lately; shutting away in his room, silent as a mouse, the lights dimmed, and now this, not even noticing as someone practically hovers over his shoulder. Megumi draws closer, concerned.
If the world itself was changing, maybe his friend was changing along with it.
Itadori is hunched over, forearms braced against his bent and scraped knees. He was entirely too large for the short stair. He’s muttering incoherently, half whisper, half growl, a first-aid kit popped open beside him, wound tape and bandages spilled about around him.
“Shut up,” the pink-haired boy angrily hisses, his hands balling into tight fists.
Megumi purposefully steps on a loose board, the loud creak ringing through the whipping air and announcing his presence.
Itadori visibly jumps, neck cracking around to face him, his eyes widening nervously. “H-hey, Fushiguro,” he greets, faux cheerful. He forcibly quirks his mouth into something like a smile, but Megumi can only see a grimace. In the fair moonlight, he doesn’t miss how his chin wobbles, how he swallows down the lump in his throat, how his (impressive) chest heaves—with pain from their earlier brawl, with the exertion of keeping his every emotion clutched close.
“Hey,” Megumi answers, flat. “Who were you talking to?” He asks, though he already knows.
“Oh.” Itadori waves a hand in dismissal, then airily says, “Nobody. Just myself.”
“Hmm,” Megumi responds, not buying it.
Itadori winces at that, looking ashamed. He turns back to the fold of trees, flexing his fingers, his head drooping. Megumi, hands stuffed into the pockets of his sweats, thinks he looks sort of pathetic like that. Wounded, physically and emotionally, and doubled over as if there was something inside that threatened to spill out and stain all before him. A moonbeam draws across him, dark grey filling in his every line, the places Megumi is sure his own hands would fit—the curves of his shoulder blades, the dips in his lower back. The shadows melt away and it’s daylight that clings to Itadori then, and it’s that spark of purity that had coursed through him and lit his every nerve on fire when their shoulders had brushed the day they’d met. The day the bright haired fool had swallowed a rotting finger and fucked everything.
He hadn’t wanted to be a hero, he’d only wanted to help, help him, and so Megumi is resigned to his fate for the evening in that very moment, sleep suddenly the furthest thing from his mind.
Megumi crosses the space between them and gingerly sits beside Itadori, watches as the boy miserably tucks his injured hand into his chest, eyes averted and staring off somewhere into the dark, where even the moon was afraid to venture. His good hand twitches towards the first-aid kit, but Megumi beats him to the punch, swiping the case away.
“Let me help you,” Megumi says. More of a command than a suggestion, leaving no room for protest.
After a moment, Itadori nods and shifts his body, facing Megumi. They sit cross-legged, knee to knee, and Megumi doesn’t really have the wherewithal to think of their proximity; how Itadori radiates heat, how tightly his skin wraps his muscles, the ripcord strength in his large hands, now laying limp in Megumi’s own. Okay, maybe he does have the wherewithal. He swallows, examining the boy’s busted knuckles, the jagged rips revealing shades of bone underneath. He flips his hand over, his brows immediately lifting as he gives Itadori a quizzical look. He’s clumsily taped the devilish, cursed mouth on his palm shut. Itadori is sheepish, hand suddenly quivering as he contemplates snatching it back and tucking it into his chest where no one could see or judge. Megumi’s hold on him solidifies, and he tears the crumpled bandage away with his free hand, replacing it with new, tighter work, the mouth practically glued shut.
“He won’t bother us now,” Megumi says. At least out loud.
Itadori looks at him then, so grateful Megumi feels like he’s just been hit by a train, something warm swelling inside of him, threatening to spill from his ears and ooze out onto the porch, probably contagious. He seems to be catching a lot of whatever Itadori has lately. Those stupid almond eyes and that stupid lazy smile. And speaking of, Itadori’s smile now is sort of dazed, but full and true. Megumi can’t stare at it too long, thoughts of closing the space between them already invading and trampling over his good sense. His eyes drop to their joined hands, his long fingers wrapped around Itadori’s wrist, Itadori’s strong fingers curled up, his pinkie so near to Megumi’s that the slim space feels charged somehow, filled with invisible sparks that flit back and forth, willing a touch, as if their joined hands aren’t enough, as if they both want more, as if they’re both terrified to want more.
Silence falls, and Megumi starts to think he’s held onto him for too long, dangerously long. His grip loosens, and then—
“When he’s only in my head, I can ignore him. I can pretend he’s just an intrusive thought, and not really my own. But when he’s in my ear, he’s real, and then I don’t know what’s me and what’s curse. Where the dark begins and ends. If there’s room for me in my own body anymore at all.” Megumi lifts his eyes in time to catch another chin wobble. “I think he’ll drive me insane if I let him.”
“So don’t let him,” Megumi says, as if it’s that simple, as if he understands even a fraction of the internal struggles his friend is facing. But Itadori gapes at him, as if he’s never thought of it like that. “This body is yours,” Megumi presses, squeezing his hands. “Not his. And even if he makes you do terrible things, and have terrible feelings, I know you. I know your character, and I know your mind.”
This boy, this boy turned man overnight, would let nothing run him over, let nothing rob him of his kindness, his hope, his determination. Even if he were dying inside, he would let nothing show. He doesn’t seem to grasp how strong, how courageous he is, how Megumi wishes he could be half the man he is. Yet, his confession makes more sense than Megumi would like, his memory now matching Itadori’s rushed words with his recent bouts of anger, his self-isolation, the hours he spends in the gym, hacking at dummies.
How could he stay himself, possessed by such a demon?
Itadori is wordless, mind seemingly tumbling over Megumi’s declaration, so he digs into the first-aid kit and rips open an antiseptic wipe, returning to his hand and cleaning the blood from his knuckles. He takes great care, holding him steady as Itadori hisses in pain, sucking in a ragged breath, the lines in his abdomen contracting as he clenches tight.
“Sorry,” Megumi mutters, concentrating, working to keep his expression neutral as he pretends not to notice as Itadori’s eyes flit over him. His left knee presses closer into Megumi’s as he tapes the split skin over one knuckle back together, smoothing the white cloth tape down with a gentle thumb.
He moves to Itadori’s face next, wiping a smudge of dried blood from his jaw, his thumb under Itadori’s chin, directing his face into the moonlight. As he works, he feels he has permission to freely study the boy, sitting patiently as Megumi… dotes on him. He supposes that’s the word, his palm curving around the side of his neck, resting there as he cleans blood from his face, humming an apology as Itadori winces at the clean sting. Carefully, afraid to be caught ogling, he catalogues the deep purple bags under his eyes, the hollowness in his dimpled cheeks. The light of the moon veils him still, drawing him so pale Megumi is afraid he might already be a ghost, and he’d somehow missed his passing, missed how he’d withered away to nothing when no one was looking. Megumi swallows at the sudden rough lump in his throat, dropping his hand from Itadori’s face, letting it fall limp in his lap.
“What is it?” Itadori asks, concern washing over him, turning him human once more, his features coming to life. His hand comes up to rest on Megumi’s shoulder, gentle and coaxing.
In the spirit of honesty, their friendship and partnership, and how Itadori has let him touch him tonight, so trusting, he answers, “I hate what’s been done to you.”
I hate what will be done.
Itadori scowls at him, as if he’d spoken aloud, the expression so foreign against his usually sunny disposition. “I can’t think about that right now.” His hand clamps tighter on Megumi’s shoulder, almost painfully so. Suddenly, he is pulled forward, his forehead meeting Itadori’s. His eyes widen, surprised at the… intimate contact, as if they hadn’t been practically holding hands the last half hour. But Itadori is unbothered, his eyes fixed shut, his breathing even, features relaxed, as if he finds this comforting. Megumi finds this as well. They sit like that for an immeasurable amount of time, pressed together under the moonlight, and Megumi imagines they are normal, that all the bullshit can’t touch them. They are just two teens sneaking out to fool around in the night, not a care in the world, their fates sorely their own.
Somewhere in the trees, an owl hoots, and only then is Megumi reminded of how exhausted he is, how he could fall asleep right here, damn whoever found them together in the morning. His eyes open, Itadori’s nose brushing his as they unfold from each other, joints cracking loudly, Itadori laughing at Megumi’s pained look as he rubs his creaking knee. The peaceful spell has been broken, but Megumi intends to cast it again (and again and again). His grip on Itadori’s wrist doesn’t falter as he stands, bringing the other up with him.
“Do you—” Megumi falters then, afraid to overstep. He nods towards his room in lieu of saying the words that are now lodged in his throat. Do you want to stay? Itadori is unperturbed, simply flicking his wrist, urging Megumi along, his lips twitching up at the corners.
When they fall into bed, there is no awkward scramble of limbs as they rush to avoid contact, no hesitation as their heads meet on the pillow, Itadori’s breath cool as it fans across Megumi’s cheek. There is only the steady thump of Megumi’s heart and the slow blinks of Itadori’s eyes as he drifts off to sleep curled on his side, taped up hand fisted loosely in the sheets.
Megumi watches his almond eyes shut for the last time this night, listens as his breathing evens. His mind is running at warp speed, wondering at the ease with which Itadori had climbed into bed with him, wondering if they will do it again, wondering if it means what he hopes—
An angled eye cracks open on Itadori’s cheek and stares deep into Megumi’s. Frozen, anger mounting at his audacity in interrupting this moment, he holds the curse’s dark gaze until the eye slowly draws closed again. Though his lips are taped, Megumi hears the message loud and clear: I am watching. I know.
Even if he watches, even if he knows, Megumi doesn’t give a shit. Itadori would break, again and again, crushed under the weight of ever-impending doom, all of it now inevitable, and Megumi would be there to pick up the scattered pieces, again and again, as many times as it took, and tape him back together with gentle hands, that inevitable too. He will not turn his back. He is not afraid of kings or curses or king curses. What he had done tonight, he would continue to do. What he feels, the shine that threatens to burst from his chest in a thousand rays when Itadori extends his hand to him in the field after he’s been knocked off his feet, the rush of heat on his skin that threatens to catch fire when Itadori drops by his dorm with an armful of movies and Megumi’s favorite snacks, the sense of finally belonging to something when Itadori sits beside him, their shoulders knocking together, the bloody remains of a curse coating their sorcerer uniforms… Well, it would take far more than the chilling, watchful eye of a monster to turn him away now.
Resolute, Megumi twists onto his side, tucking his hand under the pillow, the light weight of Itadori’s cheek sinking into his upturned palm. He counts the shades of pink in his hair and lets his dozing snore lull him into contented sleep.
The next morning, they lazily stir to the sound of Kugisaki furiously banging on Itadori’s door. Their ankles are hooked together, Itadori’s palm searing where it rests on Megumi’s bare chest.
“Hellooo,” she calls. “Get up, loser! It’s breakfast time.”
Shooting upwards, Itadori untangles himself from Megumi, the bedding snaking around his ankles as he attempts to hop free. Megumi slowly rises into a sitting position, stretching his arms out like a cat, watching in amusement.
“Um,” Itadori starts, scratching at his sleep-mussed hair, finally free of the sheet’s clutches. “Should we—” He gestures between the two of them, his expression adorably frantic.
Megumi’s brow quirks. “There’s nothing to talk about,” he says, steady, though his heart is rushing, forwards, backwards, rushing everywhere. His pulse races quick at the thought of participating in a conversation regarding what had transpired the night before, however innocent it had been. He isn’t quite ready to divulge those pesky personal feelings Gojo delighted in bringing up at the most inopportune moments.
Rapid relief spreads across Itadori’s angled face, his mouth twitching into an easy smile, the happy-go-lucky jokester Megumi likes best returning. “Okay.” He runs a bandaged hand across his chest, considering, then, “Thank you, Fushiguro. For… for being there.”
He is so earnest, so genuine, that Megumi’s mouth goes dry, a light flush dusting the tips of his ears, thankfully covered by his dark hair. He opens his mouth to say… to say…
Another disturbingly loud knock jostles them both, Megumi almost falling out of bed, Itadori jumping so high his hair meets the ceiling.
“She’s going to break your door down,” Megumi finally says, urging him away. Kugisaki would never let either of them live it down if she caught them in such a compromising position—not that he was too concerned with that now, not after the ease with which Itadori had fallen asleep with his thigh wrapping Megumi’s, his hand sleepily creeping across the bed, searching for another point of contact. Now that he was thinking about it, the possibilities of their practically conjoined rooms are endless.
“Right,” Itadori mutters, sort of skittish, as if he were just now realizing they weren’t supposed to be waking up together, in the same bed. He steps backwards out the door, and as the glass slides shut, Megumi catches those almond eyes upon him once more, white teeth nervously nibbling at an impossibly full bottom lip. He has the strangest feeling that Itadori is just now seeing him for the very first time. Then, he is gone, the only evidence he’d been there at all the indent on the pillow and the uneven thump in Megumi’s chest.
“Jeez, what took you so long?” Kugisaki grumbles as Megumi hears Itadori’s door open through the thin wall.
“I, uh, I was—” Itadori grapples for an excuse.
“Whatever. I don’t care. Just hurry up and get dressed,” Kugisaki orders, eyes probably rolling up to the ceiling. “I want to kick both of your asses on the field today.” She moves to Megumi’s door next, but he is already there, popping it open as he pulls a hoodie on over his head.
“You could wake the dead, you know,” he pans, glaring at her raised hand, still poised to knock.
“It’s a gift,” Kugisaki simpers, enjoying his feigned cross annoyance, totally clueless as to what was really happening, to what and who he was really thinking about.
Over Kugisaki’s polka dot pajama clad shoulder, he meets Itadori’s honey almond eyes, noting the faint blush that rushes to color his cheeks, the awkward way he rubs a hand across the back of his head, his wide-eyed gaze falling to the ground. The epitome of clichéd gay panic.
Megumi can’t help his smirk, his mouth curving in satisfaction. He can work with that.