Work Text:
Megumi was beginning to wish that he had made a different group of friends instead of the one he was currently hanging out with, as if he had ever been given a choice in the first place. Don’t get him wrong — Yuuji and Nobara were, in a way, great people, even if it took him a bit of strength to actually say that out loud. It was just that… being dragged out of his room to go somewhere to do something crazy by both his friends, almost every week, wasn’t the ideal thing to do.
These ‘drag outs’ were intense and they all required too much energy for Megumi’s liking. One night, he’ll be dragged out to go to a karaoke room with Yuuji and Nobara belting out song after song while Megumi sat in the corner with a drink in his hand, wishing that their singing could just kill him right then and there. (If their singing was good or bad, Megumi would never tell. He’d rather fight a Special Grade curse than say.) Every once in a while, Yuuji will, somehow, make both Megumi and Nobara go to the theaters with him to watch one of the Human Earthworm movies, which was just plain boring, and Nobara made sure to talk their ears off about it.
Other nights they’ll kidnap Megumi into one of their rooms to just laze around and talk and complain with snacks and drinks they’d hoarded up, which was something he could tolerate pretty well. Their talks mostly consisted of Nobara ranting about how many numbers she’d gotten from guys who weren’t even her type, Yuuji asking the most random, weirdest questions ever that Megumi was sure made their brains smooth over every time, talks about how weird and strange their sensei, Gojo, was, latest trends, latest missions, you name it.
Sometimes it’ll be Nobara forcing them out to go shopping with her, going into new cafes and restaurants she’d found online and wanted to try out. Other times it’ll be Yuuji wanting to go out and play arcade games, watch really questionable movies in the theaters, and eat mouth-watering foods and drink delicious drinks. Usually, though, they were all dragged out for a mission, and post-mission activities would be everything and anything Nobara and Yuuji dragged Megumi into if they had any remaining energy for it.
Right now, though, it was just Yuuji and Megumi. Nobara had gone off to take care of a Grade 2 curse with their senior, Maki, and wouldn’t be back for a while. Yuuji made sure to voice his relief, dramatically crying about his ‘freedom’ from her, which earned him a punch to the head before Nobara had left with a scowl.
“Is there anything to even do?” Yuuji complains, sprawled out on the floor. Currently, they were in Megumi’s room, since the other boy’s room was filled with tons of shopping bags and won prizes from the claw machines, thanks to the many outings he’d gone on involving being Nobara’s personal shopping bag carrier. “It’s so boring, there’s nothing to doooo…”
Megumi sighs, flipping the page in his book. “There’s books to read,” he offers, although he knows Yuuji won’t read a single one unless it really interests him. “And you can always play one of the multitude of games you have on your phone.”
The other boy lets out another long sigh. “Yeahh, but I’ve already speedrun everything, there’s nothing new to do on any of them,” he says, turning his head toward where Megumi sat on the floor. “There’s nothing to dooo…”
Megumi shrugs in response, not looking up from his book. “That’s not my problem to take care of.”
Yuuji pouts. “Can I look around your room, then?” he asks, springing up into a sitting position.
That gets his attention. He looks up and raises an eyebrow at him. “For what reason?”
“Oh, I dunno, Megumi,” says Yuuji, giving him a look. “Maybe ‘cause I’m really bored right now? Besides, I haven’t poked around your room yet! I’ve already poked around in Nobara’s and all she has is clothes and beauty products and who knows what other boring stuff she has.”
A huff of amusement escapes Megumi’s lips. “There won’t be anything fun in my room, either, you know,” he says. “I’m sure you already know that.”
Yuuji just shrugs in response. “Well, you never know.”
Megumi doesn’t say anything to that, just shrugging back at him before returning to his book. Taking that as a sign to go ahead, Yuuji gets up and begins to look around his room in every nook and cranny he can find. Megumi doesn’t have to look up to know that Yuuji’s face is practically screaming, His room is even more boring than Nobara’s! Which… was true, because Megumi’s room was quite empty compared to Nobara’s, or even Yuuji’s room.
Eventually, though, it seems like Yuuji’s found something that caught his eye, because Megumi hears a gasp of surprise. He looks up from his book again to see what exactly Yuuji’s found. Last time he checked, there wasn’t anything ‘interesting’ in his collection of personal belongings. The only thing that probably fell under that category was a photo album containing very little photos of him and his sister, Tsumiki, but Yuuji already knew of her.
He hears a zipper and two clasps come undone, and that’s when the chaotic excitement erupts from Yuuji.
“You can play the flute!?” Yuuji all but shrieks out, his head snapping towards Megumi so fast it was almost concerning. He runs over to where Megumi sat, a long, slim, opened black case in his hands. His eyes were so wide Megumi swore that they could pop out at any minute, and he really didn’t want to see that.
He carefully takes the case from Yuuji’s hands and looks into it. Three silver pieces sat in the case shining up at Megumi, wedged in velvet fabric, with fingerprints evident on the metal as if they hadn't been cleaned in a while. Ah, he thinks, taking the longest piece from the case, he’s found my flute. Thank god Nobara wasn’t here, otherwise she would’ve lost her mind as well, and begin ranting endlessly about how ‘mysterious’ Megumi was with how many things he kept a secret from them.
It wasn’t like he was intentionally gatekeeping these things about himself from his friends. It was just that there had never been a time or place to say anything. When was he supposed to mention that he could play the flute, or that he beat up a bunch of kids when he was in middle school just to stop them from being jerks? When they were up against a Special Grade curse? As if, he’d rather be focusing on keeping them all alive than spilling his entire life story to them. Besides, he preferred to keep things to himself, anyway. It wasn’t going to kill them if they didn’t know.
“Sort of,” Megumi finally replies, picking up all three flute pieces into his hands. He begins piecing them together, slotting each joint into the other, adjusting them around as if he’s practiced this many times until he was satisfied. The cool, metal keys were familiar to the touch as he subconsciously fingered through a few scales. “I.. haven’t played,” he says slowly, hesitant to admit that he could, in fact, play, “in a long while, so I’m a little rusty.”
Perhaps he shouldn’t have let Yuuji poke around his room. If he had found the poorly filled photo album, that might have been more bearable to deal with than telling him that, yes, he used to play the flute when he was younger. But then again, that would mean he’d have to hear Yuuji gush about his photos from when he was a little kid, and… yeah, Megumi thinks that’s worse than letting the other boy know he used to be a musician.
Yuuji immediately sits himself down onto the wooden floor and looks up at Megumi with pleading eyes. “Can you play something for me?” he asks excitedly, hands put together in a prayer. “It doesn’t have to be complicated, or anything, but it’d be so cool!”
The teen clears his throat, cheeks flushing a light shade of pink from embarrassment. He looks away from those captivating brown eyes and stares at the head joint of the flute. “I don’t know,” he says cautiously, adjusting the head joint’s position again. “I haven’t played the flute ever since I began excorcising curses. I don’t exactly have any songs memorized, either..”
“Pshh,” Yuuji says, shooing at him with his hand as if to dismiss his worries. “That’s fine with me! You don’t have to have anything memorized, we can just pull up music from our phones.” He pulls out his phone from his pocket and shakes it around a bit with a grin, before turning it on and opening up the search engine. “What songs d’you know? I’ll pull it up for you while you warm up.”
Megumi blinks. Ah… it seems he’d failed to consider the internet. There was a high chance that there was sheet music uploaded online, even if it wasn’t the full score. With a sigh, he leans back against the wall. “I don’t know…” says Megumi, sounding uncertain. He sees Yuuji look up from his phone with a worried glint in his eyes, and he knows that Yuuji’s picked up on his uncertainty. He pretends not to see, instead fiddling around with the joints of the flute again.
“You don’t have to if you don’t wanna,” Yuuji offers. He turns his phone off and places it down on the floor, looking at Megumi with his full, rapt attention. “I don’t want to pressure you, y’know. So whatever you wanna do, that’s okay with me. Really.” He smiles at Megumi as reassurance.
He feels oddly warm inside when Yuuji smiles, so he looks away, cheeks colored pink again.
Aw, c’mon, Megumi, he hears Tsumiki’s kind voice echo in the back of his head as a distant memory comes crawling through the cracks of his mind. Will you please play me something? It’ll make your onēchan very happy to hear you play with your wonderful skills.
He glances at Yuuji’s face again. He’s looking at Megumi with hope and concern dancing in his eyes, head tilted to the side as he carefully and quietly observes the other for an answer. An inaudible sigh escapes Megumi as he looks down at the flute once more. For Tsumiki, he thinks. And for Itadori.
“Pick a song, then,” Megumi mumbles quietly, pressing down on all of the keys on his flute, “and let me warm up first.”
Yuuji grins so wide Megumi wonders if it hurts. The boy quickly nods in excitement, turning his phone back on and going straight to work. Megumi can’t help but sigh again (and if it sounded fond, he would never admit it) as he brings the flute up to his lips and blows a low B flat note.
The note is… somewhat clear when he plays it. It was obviously too flat, something that no musician would ever want, so he adjusted the head joint around and fixed his embouchure until the notes he played sounded somewhat more in tune than before. If Yuuji’s staring in wonder and awe, Megumi pretends not to notice as he goes through a series of scales that’s practically ingrained into his memory due to how easy it was. B flat, C Major, F Major…
It takes Yuuji a while to find a music sheet for an acceptable song while Megumi gets lost in warming up with simple scales and intervals. What Yuuji does find is mostly pop, upbeat, and fast tempoed, something Megumi wasn’t entirely too familiar or confident with, and the score he finds is only a preview of one page. The boy complains about how he has to pay just to get music, and Megumi shakes his head with the faintest smile and explains that it’s how composers make money for a living.
One of the songs Yuuji shows Megumi is a song Gips by Sheena Ringo, but after listening to half of the song, Megumi shakes his head. “I won’t be able to replicate that,” he tells a confused Yuuji. “It’s… a pop song, isn’t it?” When Yuuji nods in confirmation, Megumi continues, “The flute wasn’t designed to carry such melodies. It was more so for ensembles, or solos. Of course,” he adds quickly, seeing how Yuuji wilts at the information, “that doesn’t mean you can’t play pop songs, but it just isn’t that effective.”
“So you’re limited in terms of what you can play?” asks Yuuji from where he now lay sprawled on the floor, phone high up in the air as he slaves away from looking for a decent song.
Megumi hums, putting the flute down onto his lap. “Essentially, yes.”
Yuuji huffs. “Well, that’s no fun…”
Eventually, after a long time scouring the internet with many failed attempts, they find a song that Megumi thinks he can play, even if it's a rather ‘old’ one (Yuuji’s words, not his), and has a soft melody. Yuuji screenshots the pages for Yuki no Hana by Mika Nakashima and quickly crops them neatly, much to Megumi’s appreciation. It doesn’t take long before the phone is propped onto a stack of books, and Yuuji’s sat to his right side with a sparkle in his eyes.
Megumi swallows, staring at the phone screen. Would he really be able to play this? He wasn’t even sure if he could still sight read music since it’s been so long since he’s even looked at a page filled with music notes, much less played anything. He’s only brought the case out from time to time to remind himself of Tsumiki, but even then, he’s never opened it.
“Are you okay?” Yuuji’s voice cuts through his thoughts. Megumi blinks, turning his head towards the other boy. He’s looking at Megumi with worry, brows knitted together with pursed, chapped lips. “You don’t have to do this, y’know,” says Yuuji, giving him another reassuring smile. “You can back out, I’ll listen another time, when you’re more prepared.” He gives a sheepish laugh, scratching the back of his head. “I mean, I kinda sprung this on you out of the blue, just ‘cause I was bored…”
Megumi shakes his head, turning back to Yuuji’s phone screen that’s begun to dim from the inactivity. He touches the screen to awaken the phone, and takes a deep breath. “It’s fine,” he tells Yuuji. His voice is neutral and calm when he speaks, not betraying a single ounce of worry. “You might want to move to my left, though. I might hit you and blast your ears off if you stay on the right.”
“Huh— oh!” A lightbulb seems to go off in his head as Yuuji wastes no time scrambling to the other side, perching himself so close to Megumi that their knees practically knock into each other if they move so much a centimeter. “Better?” the boy grins at him.
“Yeah,” Megumi breathes, tapping on the phone again. He’s played in concerts before, and performed specially for his sister, so this shouldn’t be too different, right? His fingers tighten around the flute, pressing harshly on the metal keys.
Yuuji seems to notice his worry again, and leans forward to grin upward at Megumi. “If you’re ready to chicken out, just say so,” Yuuji teases, though the look in his eyes is sincere. If you’re not ready to play for me, just say so.
Megumi chuckles. “As if,” he tells him, and Yuuji only grins wider at the rebuttal, sitting back up properly again.
He takes a deep breath in then out. Alright, thinks Megumi as he focuses his attention back to the matter at hand: the dimming phone in front of him, and the cold metal flute in his grip. It’s just Itadori, he tries to reassure himself, the anxiety inside of him slowly gnawing away at him. Think of it as playing for Tsumiki.
The white lie doesn’t help ease his anxiety. He chews on his bottom lip before taking a deep breath in. He’s fought countless curses before, been in numerous near-death battles — playing the flute in front of Yuuji Itadori, of all people he could’ve been playing in front of, didn’t hold a candle to those horrific experiences. Tsumiki would be laughing at me by now, Megumi thinks, though deep down in his heart he knows it’s not true.
The teen reaches out to Yuuji’s phone, turning the screen back on once more. He’s stalled long enough for the phone to have completely turned off from the inactivity. Megumi brings the flute up to his lips, adjusts himself to be in a proper position, squints at the first few notes, and takes a deep breath in before beginning to blow through the instrument, and plays the damn song.
It starts off a little airy, the tone being absolutely terrible. Megumi winces at the quality and falters, face heating up with embarrassment. This shouldn’t be how I sound, he thinks. Upon a rest in one of the measures, he takes a chance and glances to the left at Yuuji, and nearly stops playing altogether at just how… content, the other boy seems to be.
Yuuji, despite Megumi playing with uncertainty and with a lack of confidence, the overall sound quality being the state of a beginner flutist’s, looked content to just sit there and listen to him play. There was no sight of judgment on his face, no hint of disappointment or any wrinkles due to cringing. Yuuji was smiling, light brown eyes soft and glowing, and he was, to the best of his non-musical ability, nodding along to the downbeats, slightly swaying from side by side in enjoyment.
Oh, Megumi thinks, his mind blanking for a split second as he tries to process this. His father, when he’d still been around when he was a little kid, had never really given him that look of approval or joy from what he could remember, no evident tone of affection in his voice when he instructed Megumi to continue to try harder. When he’d played for his sister, Tsumiki, she would clearly enjoy his performances with sincerity, a bright smile on her face as she swayed to the song, but even she had moments when her smile faltered from a wrong note, face scrunching up slightly when Megumi blew a note weirdly, and as supportive as she was for an older sister, she had still been young, and unable to contain those small reactions in front of him.
So to see Yuuji just sitting there, enjoying whatever Megumi was playing for him, no matter how bad it sounded, no matter how little confidence he had at the moment…
Well, he thinks, a ghost of a smile briefly tugging at his lips as he quickly averts his gaze back to the sheet music, Itadori must really be tone-deaf.
The next notes come out more clearer, the soft melody sounding more confident rather than airy and weak as he continued to play. His eyes skim the next measure, sight reading to the best of his ability, and before long, Megumi is absorbed in the music, playing without a single thought about how he should be playing and without a single worry about what Yuuji was thinking of him right now. Everything came to him naturally now, just as how it used to when he had played for Tsumiki in the past.
And then, just as fast as the moment came, Megumi reaches the last measure and he ends the piece with a final note, the sound drifting away until there is nothing but silence. He sits there, still, and stares at the screen of Yuuji’s phone. It takes him a moment before he pulls the metal instrument away from his lips. There’s another beat of silence before he hears a mesmerized, “Wow,” and then there’s the sound of clapping from his left, making Megumi’s face flush a shade of pink as he returns back to his senses.
“Holy shit, Megumi!” Yuuji exclaims, brown eyes shining with fascination as he grins widely at him.
Megumi’s brain screeches back to a halt. Had Yuuji really just called him—?
“You were fantastic, I didn’t know you could play so… so fucking good,” the other breathes out. It was clear that he had enjoyed — no, more than enjoyed — hearing Megumi play. “Like, I knew you were good, obviously,” continues Yuuji, not paying attention as to how Megumi had turned an embarrassingly dark shade of pink, “‘cause it’s you, duh, but like, that was the best thing I’ve ever heard! Instrumentals usually bore me out but—”
“Yeah, I got it,” Megumi interrupts in a mutter, clearing his throat weakly. He keeps his gaze averted from Yuuji, bringing the collar of his uniform up to his nose, slouching inwards on himself as if he was trying to hide. “You don’t need to continue.”
Yuuji blinks, leaning forwards to try and look at Megumi’s face. The latter just turns away from him even more, the grip around his flute tight and making his knuckles turn white. “Are you embarrassed?” Yuuji asks, scooting himself closer to Megumi.
“No.” Yes, I am, this is absolutely embarrassing.
“You are!” the boy gasps, eyes widening. “I didn’t know you could get embarrassed—”
Megumi clears his throat again and cuts Yuuji off with a grumble. “Anyone is perfectly capable of getting embarrassed,” he says, hiding himself further into his jacket. “So get out of my face, Itadori.”
Of course, Yuuji being Yuuji, doesn’t budge one bit from Megumi’s grumbling. Instead, he continues to grin widely at him, a glint in his eyes that tells the shikigami user he’s in for lots of teasing. “You’re one of the best flute players I know,” says Yuuji, voice much too sincere for someone who’s trying to tease his friend to death. “Your performance was incredible, one of the best things I’ve ever heard, and I hope I get to hear you play again sometime, Megumi, ‘cause I really don’t wanna miss out on it.”
Oh. Megumi blinks again, the collar of his jacket slowly drooping down back into its normal place as he stares at Yuuji with wide eyes. The other boy just smiles at him, his own eyes full with sincerity and warmth, and Megumi can’t help but look away as he feels his face heat up again, embarrassment crashing over him in waves.
“Don’t tell Nobara about this,” is all he grumbles to Yuuji, taking the phone off of the makeshift stand created by books. He presses on the search bar, handing the phone back to him without making eye contact. Yuuji blinks at him in confusion. Megumi brings the flute back up to his lips. “Or I will never do this again. You hear me, Itadori?”
It wasn’t a no, Yuuji seems to realize as he takes his phone back, and his smile slowly returns on his face, just as bright as before. “Yeah,” he breathes. “Yeah, I got it, Fushiguro.”
“Good,” Megumi replies, trying his best to appear nonchalant as he presses his fingers down on the keys of his flute again. He nudges Yuuji with his elbow. “Hurry up before Nobara comes back.”
Yuuji grins, scooting himself closer to Megumi. “On it!”
Later, when Nobara would return from her mission and head into Megumi’s room after reading their texts in the group chat, she would find them sitting side by side against a wall together, head resting on one another’s as they dozed in the sunlight that shone from the windows. A slim, black case that was clasped closed would rest next to a stack of books with Yuuji’s phone resting on top, the contents unknown to the entire world but to two people.
As photos from all angles of the pair would be snapped on Nobara’s phone, she would see silver engraving on the case in unfamiliar handwriting, scratchy as if it had been carved in on impulse and not done professionally. On the case, it would read, ‘Become a star and continue shining. —Fushiguro’, and when Megumi and Yuuji would wake up minutes later and be questioned by Nobara about the writing, Megumi would shrug, and say that it had always been there since he’d gotten it from his mother.
But for now, the world stayed still, and the music continued on.