Chapter Text
It didn’t come as a surprise to Nobara to see Megumi sitting in the hall outside Yuuji’s door.
The first time she caught him she asked what he was doing. Megumi just shrugged and said he couldn’t sleep. Nobara shrugged back and returned to her room. In the morning, she found him still outside of Yuuji’s door staring blankly at it, and knew that he didn’t sleep a wink. Naturally, she joined him out in the hall that night. When Megumi asked what she was doing, Nobara just shrugged and said she couldn’t sleep.
This is the fifth night.
They don’t do anything. They don’t talk. Nobara doesn’t ask and Megumi doesn’t tell. Not about what happened, not why they can’t sleep, and not about why they’re doing this instead of trying to get some rest. The classes go on after all and the missions still keep on coming and they still have to train for the Kyoto Goodwill Event on top of it all. Staying up and sitting on the cold floors of the dorm halls all night instead of sleeping in their beds is a surefire way to get themselves killed on missions—or during training with Maki-senpai—when they’re too exhausted to function.
Sure, it’s unhealthy both in the physical and psychological sense, but, well. What are they supposed to do? Actually talk about what happened and their feelings? Yeah, right. Nobara and Megumi would sooner face another special-grade curse.
Thus, the routine continues.
Except this time, Megumi finally cracks.
“He reached into Yuuji’s chest and pulled out his heart like it was nothing.” His voice is barely above a whisper but it rings loud in the silence of the night and the empty corridors save for the two of them. “Itadori’s heart was still beating when he threw it on the ground.”
Nobara has always had a very vivid imagination and the image Megumi just painted materializes in her mind’s eye in full color. She sits with the scene playing in her head and says nothing.
“I could see through the hole in his chest. Blood gushed out of it like a fucking waterfall.”
Megumi’s tone is flat and that somehow makes this retelling all the worse than if he was hysterical, but Nobara supposes he’s passed that stage and has now gone numb. Her room is parallel to the boys’ on the other side of the common room, but she sometimes hear him shout in the middle of the night. Nightmares about the whole thing probably.
“Sukuna…he—he did that so he could gain control of the body, but Itadori...he—” He swallows with great difficulty and the sound of it feels like it echoes around them with how silent everything is. Nobara has half a mind to tell him to stop, but the twisted side of her wants to hear that Yuuji's dumb ass didn’t go down without a fight. “Itadori fought to gain control so Sukuna won’t kill me.”
There is silence as they both just let the words sink in for a moment. Nobara thinks of something appropriate to say, but in the end, all she could muster is, “Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“Just had to be the hero, huh?”
Nobara won’t admit it under torture, but she’s really fucking glad for Yuuji’s stupid hero complex and resolutely doesn’t think about what it would be like being the only occupant of the first-floor dorms.
“Then he told me to live a long life.”
“Wow.” She couldn’t help but let out a disbelieving huff. “That’s fucked up.”
“Isn’t it?”
“Who the hell did he think he was?” She couldn’t help the slight incredulity seeping into her tone from the sheer absurdity of Megumi’s recount of the events. “An anime protagonist?”
Something about Nobara’s comment and how casual the conversation has veered into seems to tickle Megumi. He lets out a snort and in the next second, they’re both laughing, loud guffaws and cackles echoing in the silent halls, not entirely out of humor and sounding a little hysterical and insane, but whatever. Aren’t all Jujutsu Sorcerers supposed to be crazy anyway? If they can’t laugh and bond over the loss of a teammate they might as well quit now.
Nobara sighs when her laughter finally dies down and wipes a tear from the corner of her eyes. “Sounds to me like Itadori cursed you.”
“Yeah?” Megumi wheezes out, straightening himself. “Did you know that was the second time Itadori saved my life?”
“Well, now you owe it to him to live long I suppose.”
“How troublesome.”
Nobara stares ahead at the closed door in front of them—Yuuji’s door. It opened and closed the morning they left for Eishu and it hadn’t opened since. A month has passed since that mission and his room remains untouched. The windows and the sliding door leading to the back are closed shut so It probably smells like mildew, stale and pungent. They were supposed to do laundry that week, but now that Yuuji’s dead, his hamper of dirty clothes is just sitting inside and adding to the smell. Dust had probably collected on the furniture, too, and Nobara wouldn’t be surprised if mold had formed on his bathroom tiles. She hopes Yuuji didn’t leave any snacks lying around and if he did (he probably did), bugs had probably eaten them and any perishables would have rotted by now. Overall, Yuuji’s room would smell rancid as all fuck the moment someone opens the door.
Not like someone will any time soon. Not unless they find a new student (a thought that is so wrong on so many levels Nobara doesn’t even want to consider it), or the school orders it to be cleared out, or if the smell gets so bad in which case it’ll be down between her and Megumi to see who cracks first and busts it open. Either way, Nobara is determined not to be the one who opens that damn door. Her money’s on Megumi anyway since he’s closer. The stink will get to him first.
“Hey.” Nobara nudges Megumi’s barefoot with her socked one. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help. You shouldn’t have—” She clenches her jaw, annoyed at herself for being weak and useless at the time they needed her. Megumi had to save her and then went back to the facility for Itadori. When she was being driven in the BMW on the way back to the school practically unscathed, meanwhile her teammates were fighting for their lives. “You shouldn’t have had to fight Sukuna alone. And you shouldn’t have had to see Itadori—Tch.”
“It’s fine.”
“Shut up. You know it’s not. We’re a team, dammit.” Gojo all but shoved that fact down their throats. “I should’ve been there fighting along with you.”
“Fuck that.” Megumi scowls at her. “I'm glad you weren’t there.”
“What?” Nobara turns to him with an answering scowl. “You think I would have just gotten on your way?”
“You—No! I didn’t mean—” There’s a fire in Megumi’s eyes that Nobara hasn’t seen since the incident. His face is scrunched up in indignation, brows meeting in the middle, and his mouth opens and closes as he attempts to verbalize what he really means. “Itadori was already—! I didn’t want you to also—”
Megumi’s emotional constipation wins out in the end and he finally shuts his mouth with an audible clack of his teeth. Nobara rolls her eyes and takes pity on him.
“Tch. Whatever. I get it. But I still should’ve been there.” Then, with all the conviction she feels deep in her bones, “Next time shit like that happens, bet your ass I’ll be there.”
“What?” Megumi throws her a wry smirk. “You gonna make me watch you die next?”
Nobara smirks back. “What makes you so sure I won’t be the one watching you die, huh?”
“Touché.”
“Man,” Nobara sighs, a smile on her lips in spite of herself, head thumping on the wall behind her. “Are we fucked up or what?”
“Gojo-sensei always says you’d have to be a certain level of crazy to be a Jujutsu sorcerer.”
“We got that one down pat, alright.” Their willing enrollment to Jujutsu Tech notwithstanding, the fact they’re even having this conversation about their dead teammate and the very real possibility of watching each other die in the future so casually should be proof enough. “And a team that gets traumatized together stays together, I guess.”
Megumi just hums and Nobara takes that as his tacit agreement that they’ll be sticking with each other from now on. Nothing bonds people more than shared trauma after all.
“Wow,” Yuuji breathes out. “This is…”
“Yeah,” is all Megumi could say. Not that he had much to say anyway. What the fuck do you even say to the person you made a grave for because you thought they died when you actually saw them die right before your eyes only for them to come back to life? “Yeah,” Megumi repeats because that’s what.
“Well, in my—our defense,” Nobara remedies even though it was really her who made the tombstone in the first place, engraving and flowers and all. “We thought you were dead—which you were, by the way, so. Yeah.”
Megumi had found out by accident. He saw her walking to the dorms with a slab of stone under one arm and a bouquet of flowers—orange lilies—on the other.
At first, he thought either: 1) Nobara finally decided to do something about her very obvious massive crush on Maki-senpai, or 2) she just bought them for the hell of it, or 3) she was delivering them for someone else. He ruled out the first one when he saw the direction she was going, and the second one because only Yuuji ever bought flowers to put in the dorms ‘for a pop of color’ he had said, a habit he developed when he used to visit his grandfather at the hospital.
Megumi’s third guess was right. He just wasn’t prepared for what and who she was delivering it for.
Nobara didn’t startle when Megumi appeared beside her. She just remained squatting in front of the tombstone—Itadori’s tombstone—which she dug up soil and set up herself right outside in the dorm's garden behind their rooms while Megumi watched her numbly at the sidelines.
Itadori Yuuji, it read, Grandson, Friend, Jujutsu Sorcerer.
“They wouldn’t erect one in the school’s graveyard,” Nobara had muttered as she arranged the bouquet in front of the slab.
Megumi knew why. This grave, still on school grounds, and the engraving was Nobara’s way of rebelling and flipping the metaphorical middle finger to the higher-ups. He remembers thinking Gojo-sensei would be so proud when he gets back and sees this.
“So much for a guy you’ve only known for two weeks, huh?” Megumi squatted down beside her, their shoulders touching. He read Yuuji’s birth date and noted that he’s older than him by a couple of months.
“Tch. Shut up.” She nudged his shoulder.
“How d’you know his birthday?”
“Please. It’s so obvious the guy’s a Pisces.”
“Stole his file in the record’s office, huh?”
“It’s not fair.” Nobara chewed on her bottom lip. “He was one of us.”
“Nothing in our world is, Kugisaki,” Megumi replied, a lesson he’s learned early in life. He thought about Tsumiki, lying comatose in a hospital bed because of a still unidentified curse, of her smiling and talking about Megumi’s brand of fairness, and suddenly felt ridiculous.
“Did you know he had an execution order?”
“Gojo-sensei promised he wouldn’t let it happen.”
The words sounded stupid coming out of Megumi’s mouth and an irrational anger threatens to choke him. Anger at the higher-ups for what is now an obvious set-up. Anger at Gojo for not keeping his promise, for being late to arrive at the scene. Anger at himself for believing in him and for being too weak and unable to save his friend or at least delay the inevitable himself.
“So much for that.”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t know what Itadori’s favorite flowers were,” Nobara had said after a while. “So, I just brought the one that reminds me of him.”
“Tiger lilies.”
“What?”
“Tiger lilies. He told me in passing he liked them,” Megumi remarked, staring at the bouquet of orange lilies wrapped in paper and cellophane tied with a yellow ribbon. “You’re not far off, I guess.”
“Good to know.”
Which brings them to now.
Yuuji squats in front of his tombstone and his hand reaches out to trace the engraving. Will it be morbid of him to say that he’s really touched his friends made a memorial for him?
“This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me,” he says anyway because, well, he really is touched.
“Fucking hell, Itadori. Are you serious?”
“The bar is so low, it’s in hell.”
“What? It’s nice!” They put him in the garden right between their dorms. What, so they can visit easily and remember him every time they come out here? Fuck. “And you even put my favorite flowers!”
Around his grave, there are old dried-up petals that shows Nobara and Megumi have been replacing them. The bouquet of tiger lilies hasn't wilted yet which means it’s relatively fresh, give or take a day or two. Yuuji is so fucking touched he could actually cry.
“Fushiguro was the one who remembered!” Nobara, face slightly dusted pink, is quick to say, her tone accusing.
“Well, you’re the one who made the tombstone!” Megumi shoots back, face slowly reddening and mirroring Nobara's.
“Oh my god! Shut up!”
“You guys!” The argument is preempted when Yuuji suddenly turns to pull them both in a crushing hug. “Thanks.”
“Tch. Whatever,” Megumi says, trying to play it cool, but slowly wrapping the arm not squashed between him and Nobara around Yuuji as he rests his cheek on his shoulder.
“Just don’t make us go through that again!” Nobara scolds, pinching Yuuji’s ear before hugging back.
“Like I said! Blame Gojo-sensei! He was the one with the idea to keep me on the down low!”
For future reference, Yuuji will not be trusting Gojo-sensei too much when it comes to, uhh, life and death reveal matters.
Yuuji lets his friends go and they stare at his grave consideringly.
“What are we gonna do with this now, now that you’re, uh, undead?”
“...we could make tombstones for you both and put them all out on Halloween? Would make for great decor. Team graves.”
“Huh. Morbid.”
“But not a bad idea.”