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You are horrifically out of place in his dorm room. It’s minimalist enough as it is, and you’re hesitant to move for fear of disrupting the gentle balance of a home nothing at all like yours. Megumi seems fastidious enough—but that in and of itself is another painful reminder. You don’t actually know your son very well at all.
Well, you know one of your sons quite well. Morinaga is the spitting image of you, just like how Megumi is practically a carbon copy of Toji.
Your daughter, Nobue, looks a lot like her father. Maybe that’s why you neglect her so much.
Whatever your relationship with his younger half-siblings, Megumi appears woefully ignorant of all things related to his blood. It’s likely the work of that white-haired brat. And Ougi’s daughter has no obligation to tell him the truth either, not when she has her eyes set on his birthright. So really, you’re all that Megumi has left.
Or so you try to tell yourself.
He hands you a bottle of water and scratches the back of his head. He never makes eye contact, and you’re almost thankful for it. You want your son to look at you, but you also don’t want to meet the gaze of a man long dead. The unruliness of Megumi’s hair seems to be all that he has inherited from you, and that makes your heart ache just a bit.
A friend of his just died recently, you recall. Sukuna’s vessel. The logical part of you believes it’s for the best, a threat ended and now far away from your son. The part of you that yearns for your child’s affection demands that you comfort him somehow. But what could you do? he had pointedly avoided touching your hand, and the only reason you were sitting on his bed to begin with was that he hadn’t any other chairs to offer. You pat a spot on the mattress beside you, and Megumi reluctantly lowers himself onto it.
What do you even say? ‘Hello, son, nice to finally see you after fifteen years.’ That will be sure to go over well.
You inhale deeply, an action that causes Megumi’s chin to dip closer to his chest. You don’t know what to do with your hands, and you constantly shift them in your lap, clasping and unclasping fingers in different positions. Eventually, you settle on holding onto your elbows.
“You look well,” you tell him. There are heavy bags under his eyes and every breath he takes is a hollow rattle in his ribcage.
His friend just died. Nice going. Mother of the year, you are.
“I’m okay, I guess.”
And then the silence persists.
Should you have come at all? There’s no way he actually wants to see you. Inserting yourself in his life at this point is 100% a selfish choice on your part. You want your son. You haven’t seen him since he was four months old, and so you need to know him, no matter how many hoops you must jump through.
In your defense, Toji took him without your permission when he left, and you hadn’t wanted to disrupt Megumi’s already precarious home life when he was little by suddenly dragging him into the clan that ruined his father’s life. But you almost died this past winter—of illness, of all things! An anticlimactic end for a sorcerer—so you’re sure the powers that be can forgive you for being a little selfish.
(As if you haven’t been operating on self-interest for literally your entire life.)
It’s hard to reconcile this young man, perfectly self-sufficient and capable, with the tiny little baby you held in your arms over a decade ago. You still remember the first time he had ever sneezed, his little pink face scrunching up and his little kushu!
“Ya okay, little man?” Toji had said, his voice quivering with laughter. Your heart had grown ten sizes that day. It stings to know how many firsts Toji stole from you. Steps, words. His first fucking birthday. You might’ve even ended up Megumi’s favorite parent, but because of Toji, you’re nothing but a stranger to him now.
The quiet is unbearable. Your forced cheery tone is perhaps even more so. “I’m so happy you decided to see me. I’ve wanted to meet you for such a long time.”
“It’s nothing,” Megumi replies, bereft of any sort of reassurance. You haven’t a doubt in your mind that you truly are nothing to him. The boy’s brow furrows as he worries at his lower lip, clearly deciding on whether to voice a thought. Megumi meets your eyes for the first time, and a jolt runs through you at the sight of familiar jade. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course,” you say, perhaps a bit too quickly. “Anything at all.”
His eyes narrow at your words. A skeptic, just like his father. A cynic too, then. His sightline drifts down to his hands, fingers steepled in his lap. He sits with his knees far apart—like Toji used to. It truly hurts just looking at him, but you can’t turn away. You won’t. You’ll memorize every painful detail, down to the last atom.
Megumi wets his lower lip with his tongue. “Why did you come now? After all this time… did you not look for me?”
Of course, it’s the natural question to ask. Part of the reason you hadn’t tried to snatch him away when you did find him was because you knew what it was like to have your childhood chewed up and spit out by adults more concerned with each other than you. Both you and Toji loved Megumi—you know that from the bottom of your heart—but the two of you were also too vindictive not to get him caught in the crossfire.
What would it be like for a first grader to be ripped from his father, raised by two complete strangers he’d never met?
Saiichi was furious when you said you’d respect Toji’s wishes. It was really the only time you’d ever fought, which was saying something for six whole years of marriage. But that row alone had convinced you that he would do more harm than good as Megumi’s stepfather.
“I did,” you tell him, reaching out to take his hands before halting at his flinch. You return your hands to your lap and squeeze them between your knees. He still watches them warily, as if they’re vipers ready to lash out at him. Oh, how you wish you could touch his face. “By the time I found you, your father had already remarried. I had heard that you had a stepmother and a stepsister. I thought you might be unhappy if I took you away from them.”
“So why now, then? Why not when Tsumiki’s mom disappeared, or when my sister fell into a coma?” There’s an edge to his voice, his words like papercuts on your skin. “You could’ve picked either of those times to waltz into my life but you didn’t.”
Your jaw goes tight, teeth grinding together. That little brat was always going to be a thorn in your side, wasn’t she? You could ignore her mother. You understood how easy it was to fall for Zen’in Toji and how empty the world seemed without him, but had it not been for Tsumiki, perhaps you might have gotten Megumi back.
You recall circular black lenses and the flippant, nasally drone of “Mm, I don’t think he’d like you. Too evil stepmom-esque—more than his actual stepmom, how ‘bout that?”
All because you hadn’t wanted to take care of a bitch who wasn’t yours. (Officially, at least.)
“I was afraid,” you whisper, letting your eyes drop. Megumi’s fingers twitch, and then he curls them into fists. He places them on top of his knees, crinkling the fabric of his pants. “That you would hate me. That you would never consider me your mother. And I was afraid of what this family would do to you. That’s why your father took you in the first place, you know.”
“No, I don’t.” He gives a short exhale, annoyed and bitter. “I don’t even remember him.”
It’s a tragedy—that Megumi lost him, that you did, and that your first thought is: Does that mean I win?
Parenting isn’t a competition, and it is a damn shame that Megumi had no recollection of the man you made him with. Toji was a good father, in the months that you had seen the two of them together.
Such a large and hulking man, you had never seen him so delicate and gentle as he was with his newborn son. He would insist you continue sleeping, that because you had carried for nine months, Toji should be the one dealing with the baby when he woke crying at ungodly hours. He talked to Megumi a lot, sometimes parroting baby noises and sometimes monologuing a censored version of his day at work.
He always had Megumi in his lap, and you recall times during meals when you had laughed at the baby’s wide eyes as they followed his father’s utensils in the belief they were to feed him. Toji built the crib and mobiles himself. The dumpy high chair was his own when he was a baby. He worked less and spent more time at home with you. It earned him ridicule, as it was typical of Zen’in men to leave child-rearing to their women and servants, but Toji had only you and none of the latter. It may never have even occurred to his clansmen that he once more surpassed them in something other than sorcery, but you had appreciated it. At the time, that seemed like enough.
It appeared to most outsiders that Toji loved Megumi more than you did, at any rate. The walls of the Zen’in complex are thin, and you are certain that most—if not all—of its inhabitants had heard you shriek that the baby was a disappointment two mere months after his birth. Toji’s wide-eyed look of betrayal, horror, and rage would stay with you forever.
That was when everything was well and truly over, you think, but the reanimated corpse of your family had shambled along for another couple of months before Toji disappeared out of your life forever.
The last time you had seen your husband, he had just put your son to bed and climbed into your own, the broad expanse of his back facing you as he slept. The last time you saw your son, you’d wrapped him up tightly in a blanket the same shade as his eyes, and his lower lip had wobbled when you reached to stroke a chubby cheek. There was a time when he would light up when you were near. He may not have understood the words, but perceptive little Megumi knew what you had said. He despised you. Toji came along and shushed him, and you curled up under your covers in frustration and sorrow.
It’s hard to think of him as the same man who walked out on his second wife and children, let alone someone who married a woman who would abandon her children as well. You tried to resent Toji for leaving you—but you knew that you were a horrible wife and an even worse mother to his child. If your positions had been reversed, you’d have run off in the dark of night too. He hadn’t even been subtle about his intentions, in hindsight. But it hurts now, knowing that he hadn’t lived long past his departure, and that your beloved son had grown up under the watch of a school rather than his only remaining parent.
“He sold me,” Megumi continues, each word a stab into your heart. “Clearly he wasn’t trying very hard to keep me away.”
“No,” you admit, lifting your head. “It must’ve been around the time you developed your cursed technique. I don’t imagine he would have done so otherwise. He thought you’d be happy here, as the heir.”
“Did he now.”
He freezes when you place a hand on his shoulder, though he doesn’t fight back when you wrap your arms around him and press his face into the crook of your neck. He’s tense, shoulders raised, and he doesn’t return the embrace—but he doesn’t wholly reject you. You take that as a minor victory. His long lashes brush against your skin with each startled blink. “What are you doing?”
“I’m hugging my son,” you say, using your other hand to stroke his back. You feel tears spring to your eyes, and you let them fall freely for the first time in decades. They spill down your cheeks and onto his shirt, seemingly endless. “I’m apologizing—for both myself and for your father. You deserved better from the both of us, and I’m so sorry. I’m sorry that he left, that I never came for you, and that you have spent your entire life in the middle of a power struggle you never asked for.
“This family is a festering pit, and it has destroyed everything it touches. Your father saw that, and while he had hope that they would treat you well, he was right to have doubts. He saved you from us—from me.” You chuckle bitterly. It’s much wetter and tearier than you intended, losing its edge. “You would have been miserable with us. He made the right choice.”
Megumi’s Adam’s apple bobs against you as he swallows. “If that’s what you think, then why are you here?”
You can barely see him when you pull back, wiping your cheeks with your sleeves. The heavy silks were not made for this. He sits further from you, clearly wary that you might touch him without permission again. If anyone had asked, you’d say it was worth it. The last time you held him, he was barely 60 centimeters. He’s bigger than you, now.
“Sorry,” you repeat, leaning back. He relaxes at the motion, if just minutely. You sniff and wipe the pad of a finger under your eyes as you smile and lift a shoulder in a shrug. “I suppose it’s because I’m selfish. I didn’t want to die without ever seeing my baby boy again.” You only just remember to ask, “May I?”
His eyes are trained on your left hand as you lift it and extend it toward him. He frowns, ponders it, and then leans his cheek into your palm. He finds the affection uncomfortable, you can tell by the furrow of his brows, but he allows it. “So soft,” you chuckle as you rub your thumb over his skin. “Just like when you were little.”
He huffs quietly, and you choose to assume that it’s a laugh. Megumi shifts and scoots back towards you, meeting your gaze. His lips part, and he takes a second to gather his words. “I don’t know if I’m ready for… all of this,” he says finally, fingers once more curled into loose fists. “But I’m… I’m glad you’re here—” He pauses, seeming to think better of it, before throwing prudence to the wind. “—Mom.”
You feel as though your heart is about to burst out of your chest. You don’t deserve this, and that makes you treasure it all the more.
“I can’t wait to get to know you.” When you open your arms to him once more, he moves into them of his own accord. It’s still awkward, and it’s clear he isn’t used to giving hugs, but you relish the warmth of his hand on the back of your neck as well. “I missed you, Megumi.”
You feel his jaw tense against you—a misstep, it seems. No matter. He’s here, and he’s in your arms. He shifts, angling so that he can rest his face in the junction between your neck and your shoulder. As you feel the light puffs of his breath against your flesh, you stroke his hair. Never in the past fifteen years did you think you’d ever be able to see, let alone hold, him again.
Between your husband and the boy’s teacher, the two strongest people in the world, there was a lot standing in the way of your reunion with your son. Perhaps the greatest obstacle of all was yourself, the omnipresent guilt for ever letting anything as meaningless as cursed energy turn you against your own child. You’ll never tell him what you said; you could never bear to see his father’s face twisted with hurt yet again.
Shortly after you gave birth to your second child, you imagined Morinaga was Toji’s. He bore little enough resemblance to Saiichi that it was possible he had been a… parting gift.
You concocted a second life left only in your mind, of you having run away with Toji—away from the Zen’ins, from sorcery, from the entire world, to some house in the suburbs where all that mattered was your little family. Toji forgave you and you still loved each other. You hadn’t made the mistake of staying behind.
The four of you would live happily. You’d help Megumi and Morinaga (Toji would never have named him that) control their cursed techniques. They’d grow up never hearing of the Zen’in family. Your perfect revenge against your adoptive parents would still be complete—you’d have proven your worth, even if it didn’t align with their definition of the word. You didn’t need any underhanded machinations, you just needed your family. You would be happy with the man you love and your two children.
Getting pregnant with Nobue killed off what remained of that fantasy, and you had resigned yourself to your misery. But now, Toji’s son is here, and he isn’t pushing you away. He’s holding you. And he’s real.
You would never throw away this second chance. You’d kill yourself trying to hold onto it forever.