Work Text:
There is no dramatic awakening or traumatic birth. There is no screaming or burst of energy. In between one breath and the next, he becomes Megumi. He is sitting at a low table and a pen with too small hands. The pen is worn down with use and the table is second-hand. He looks up to see a girl sitting across from him. He knows without knowing how that is his sister. Tsumiki looks up from her textbook and smiles at him. He looks back down and continues his work.
His memory comes back gradually. He learns he is 6 when he gets ready for bed. He learns he is in first grade when he tries and fails to fall asleep. He learns that he likes non-fiction books and ginger, that he has a good memory, that he doesn’t remember the last time he laughed out loud. He learns as he walks around the house that they are low on money. He learns that he loves the man he calls father even though he hates him.
When the sun starts to come up the horizon he hasn't slept a wink.
He goes to school and drifts through class. He doesn’t bother with finding out why or how he got here. There is no point in dwelling on the past. No point in trying to reverse what already happened.
He drifts through life like a ghost. Perhaps he is dead and this is purgatory.
-
His life is abruptly and loudly interrupted two months after he wakes up.
Gojo is loud, arrogant, childish, and unfairly beautiful. Gojo tells him that his father sold him to the Zenin clan. Gojo tells him that he killed his father. He, who is now Megumi, says nothing and stands there.
Gojo takes him to the Zenin clan’s estate. It’s large and extravagant. It’s also the first time he’s been inside a traditional Japanese house. Gojo leaves him outside in one of the many gardens. He crouches by the koi pond, watching fish swim idly by. He wonders how much his father sold him for. He wonders why he still loves him.
He is approached by two girls, twins. They introduce themselves as Mai and Maki. He introduces himself as Fushiguro Megumi. They sit and watch koi with him.
Gojo comes back and he smiles but his eyes are furious. Megumi never goes back.
Gojo becomes a semi-permanent residence at his and Tsumiki’s dingy apartment. Gojo and his designer clothes and casual wealth stand out starkly but he never says anything about the second-hand clothes, ratty backpacks, or well worn pens and books.
He visits a total of eight times and all of a sudden they’re moving into a bigger apartment. They get new clothes, a new table, new beds, and a fully stocked fridge. Tsumiki tries to refuse, but they know that there is nowhere for them to go. The little money that Tsumiki’s mother left them had run dry.
He knows this is because Gojo feels bad for making them orphans.
He doesn’t tell Tsumiki.
-
Gojo starts to teach him how to use cursed energy. He learns that the monsters he sees are called curses. He learns that for all Gojo is the way he is, he is a good teacher when he tries.
Gojo becomes Gojo-sensei.
-
He turns 12 and starts junior high. Gojo-sensei becomes a teacher at Tokyo Jujutsu High School, Jujutsu Tech for short.
He makes two friends.
A first year student that Gojo-sensei teaches and her boyfriend. Her name is Tokuma Yasumu and her boyfriend, Honda Fujimaro. They invite him to places and make an effort to include him. He thinks that he third wheels more often than not but they never make him feel excluded. It’s nice.
Two months pass, then Tokuma Yasumu dies.
It was a curse, Gojo-sensei says, it took her by surprise. He doesn’t know what to do. Honda Fujimaro doesn’t either. Honda moves away. Megumi learns that being a jujutsu sorcerer is a lonely thing.
-
Tsumiki goes to sleep one day and doesn't wake up.
-
He graduates from junior high and is enrolled in Jujutsu Tech.
-
He is assigned a mission to retrieve a special grade cursed object. One of Ryomen Sukuna’s fingers.
-
His life is abruptly and loudly interrupted for the second time.
-
Gojo-sensei asks him if he wants Itadori Yuuji to live. He knows even Gojo Satoru’s influence will only keep Sukuna’s vessel alive for so long. He wonders what is kinder, to let the boy die now or later.
-
He says yes.