Work Text:
"The money you gave me is gone"
"Why do you even gamble when you're clearly so bad at it?"
"Why do you spend so much time with your little friends?"
"That's not even remotely comparable. I don't lose money when I'm with them."
"Didn't that Itadori kid make you go to the theater to watch the same movie with him three times? And all of its cheap cash grab sequels? That sure must've cost you a lot."
"Yeah, okay. A lot. Of my own money."
"There's no difference, really."
"Of course there is."
Toji grabs a spoon he must've used to scoop whatever slimy meal he just had. He wipes it clean on his pants and shows it to Megumi, making Megumi's reflection appear distorted on the back of it.
"You see?"
"What's your fucking point."
"It's me you're seeing there. So, there's no your money."
Megumi hates this type of bullshit, specially from someone who barely even knows him, a damn freeloader who just happens to share a last name and some blood with him. Though, he knows it isn't true. That Toji, disgusting habits and everything, is a lot like Megumi. In the way he moves, albeit Megumi usually hides it under a thousand layers of manners and trying not to become like Gojo-sensei and his lack of common sense.
"But, still. Why? Is it that fun?"
"It helps to pass the time." Toji scratches his chin, thinking more deeply about it than Megumi initially gave him credit for. "Or maybe I'm just hoping that someday something good will happen, and I'll get lucky."
"Seems to me more like you know you won't."
"And I torture myself for what? Is that your angle? Do you think I'm that much of an M?
Megumi ignores the implications.
"Has anything good ever happened, then?"
Megumi wouldn't ask this to just anyone and it's not like he's trying to be mean. It's just the way Toji worded things.
"Only once."
"When was it?"
"You wouldn't wanna know." You wouldn't believe it, he means.
ʕ·ᴥ·ʔ
Toji's right in a way, Megumi reflects. Maybe he wouldn't believe it. Megumi believes in what he can see and experience firsthand. So he has been perpetually uninterested in a nameless father who left him to rot and could find some sort of comfort in a crazy man who took in under his wing instead. A metaphorical one, but warm nonetheless, real. When Toji's always been anything but.
Toji keeps up with his freeloading and Megumi's friends have asked him multiple times why he puts up with it.
It's not like Megumi has a proper answer, limiting his replies to a shrug and hoping they'll distract themselves with something silly and drop the subject.
The more Toji stays, the more convinced Megumi is that he was right all those years. That caring and wondering about his motivations, about how it could've been is dumb. He has a taste of exactly how it would've gone, and, between abandonment and neglect, Megumi doesn't really think there's any point in chosing the worst.
ʕ·ᴥ·ʔ
Toji buys him things sometimes. With Megumi's own money and things he hasn't asked for and doesn't need.
They're strange. Like a cat leaving dead animals for its human to find, not aware of how creepy it is. Of course, Toji doesn't bring him dead animals.
He leaves greasy cheap food on the table before Megumi gets home and Toji's already off to god knows where. He lets Megumi have cigarettes he doesn't smoke, the collection of untouched ones growing inside his bedside table's drawer.
But, more creepily, Toji does offer to kill some sort of animals for him. If Megumi complains about work and school, Toji will promptly offer a swift break of their neck. There's always a smile there, but cruel enough that Megumi doesn't think he's joking.
ʕ·ᴥ·ʔ
They're in the bathroom one day and it's the most ridiculous thing Megumi's ever seen.
"It only works on you, I told you" Toji sighs and Megumi doesn't smile because that would be unbecoming. But he wants to.
He simply offered to style Toji's hair, since this sad excuse for a father of his can't seem to do anything other than barely wash it.
It's a mistake.
"Well, maybe because I'm way better looking"
"Yeah, probably" Toji agrees and it isn't what megumi was expecting, so he just watches their reflection in the small bathroom mirror. Toji looking uncanny with Megumi's hairstyle, already trying to put it down again with water from the tap.
ʕ·ᴥ·ʔ
"Any luck today?" Megumi asks, though the bitter look on his father's face says it all, wrong boat or wrong horse or whatever it is now.
The TV gets turned off and Megumi gets close to him, Toji's shoulders all tense in defeat, stubbornly refusing to be done and depressed.
Before he knows it, Megumi's hand is already patting the muscles, soothing Toji with the motions.
Toji turns to look at him, a strange glint in his eye, before going for a peck at Megumi's lips.
And Megumi, usually indifferent and logical as he may be, simply stays still. More than that, he preses back, peck turning into a proper kiss, though a very brief one.
Toji tastes of smoke and Megumi wonders if he'd be able to taste this again were he to actually put one of those cigarettes in his mouth.
"Ah...This is the second time I get lucky...Ever."
Megumi keeps breathing his scent. Their noses, almost identical in their shape and curves, touch each other and it makes Toji actually move and nuzzle against him.
Megumi didn't want to believe. But he carries it in his name, obvious enough not to be simply a cheap lie.
Blessing
And it's the first time ever Megumi actually feels like one.