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Take care of him for me, hmm?
The request is delivered barely four hours before his senpai’s flight. Megumi will remember the exact minute his heart opens itself to the earnestness there.
Megumi has never known Yuuta Okkotsu to be unfair.
He thinks his senpai might be one of the greatest people in the world.
Remembers watching him train and thinking that if Megumi had a fraction of his his form, his grace, his intensity, he’d be on his way to perhaps being proud of himself.
He hadn’t realised that Yuuta, at his core, was cruel. Allowing him to grow into his own cruelty.
Allowing him to covet things that aren’t his. Allowing him to become desperate for an ache he has no right to feel.
He had never thought Yuuta could be unfair.
But then Yuuta grasps Megumi’s hands, utters those words and they change the trajectory of his life.
Inumaki-senpai likes to plant. If the season allows, Megumi will find him crouched by his garden in the courtyard. If his heart allows, Megumi will watch him for a lot longer than he has any right to.
The breeze plays at his hair. Filters through the strands lovingly. Megumi wonders if the universe knows how soft it is to touch, how it spills through his fingers like spun silk.
(He wonders if Yuuta knows that, and hates himself just a little more).
In a little while, when he has stared his criminal fill, Megumi will crouch beside his senpai and offer him tea. The brand that Yuuta had told him to always keep stock of in the shared kitchenette. He will feel Inumaki smile at him as though he’s a blooming bud, and he will swallow the words that threaten to punch from his throat.
If the season allows, Megumi will let his heart leap over itself, in the quiet space between them. Reading into things that barely exist and wishing for the breeze to shift in a different direction. Towards him.
Megumi treats his senpai’s request as though it is life or death. For all that it seems trivial, Yuuta had delivered it with a hand clasped in his own, and dark eyes incessantly watery.
Sincerity had dripped from every fibre of Yuuta’s being and Megumi had once loved that in him. Had once respected that in him.
Inumaki senpai forgets to eat often. Megumi thinks it has something to do with the way he grew up. If it hadn’t been for his own sister, Megumi probably would have forgotten to eat too.
But Inumaki forgets often. And Megumi remembers the way that Yuuta used to layer food over his bowl of rice, chatting away so vibrantly that Inumaki seemed to have no choice but to keep eating. Never once questioning why his salmon was never-ending, or why there was broccoli in his chopsticks despite not serving himself any.
Megumi is not vibrant. He doesn’t chat. He does not shine like Yuuta. But he perseveres.
In the first few weeks after Yuuta had left, Inumaki didn’t even lift his chopsticks. Maki had told him not to worry, that he’d snap out of it soon.
But Megumi had gone to sleep with that sincere beg in the forefront of his mind, that beg -
And so, he starts by bringing breakfast to Inumaki’s room. Then, as the seasons shift they eat outside, on the deck overlooking the garden. Inumaki eats more when he’s crouched before the growing harvest.
(Megumi doesn’t try to confirm the suspicion that he and Yuuta had crouched here together before Megumi had tried to fit himself in a space too big for him).
Eventually, he can report back. A simple update, that he swears gives Yuuta enough relief to feel continents over.
He’s eating good again.
It had never been his intention. But he is not so young that he can’t recognise it for what it is.
Inumaki-senpai is growing his hair out and Megumi can’t stop looking at him.
And he is beautiful. In an abstract, untouchable way. He is breathtaking.
His heart clenches around nothing, a phantom pain he has no words for echoing throughout his body.
When he is with Inumaki-senpai, when he is allowed to be with Inumaki-senpai, he doesn’t feel so ashamed of himself.
And he wonders if Yuuta had felt the same. If, every time he’d brought him water, medicine, a mushroom balanced on his chopsticks or, a slice of carefully peeled tangerine - Had the empty space in his heart grown shoots and reached out disgracefully too?
Until they could brush against Inumaki’s fingers and wonder how much stronger he’d need to be to pull him deep in his chest and keep him there forever.
He watches Inumaki brush his fingers along the empty space of Yuuta’s bed, left behind, always left behind, and wonders what it would take to shift the tide of his adoration to someone tangible. Someone who didn’t leave. Someone who takes care of him, too.
Inumaki-senpai doesn’t smile much.
Neither does Megumi.
It is enough, he tells himself, to be held in the moment in time when Inumaki-senpai fixes his gaze on him. Suspending him outside of reality.
Inumaki-senpai doesn’t smile much. Unless Yuuta is around. Unless Yuuta is mentioned. Unless he is staring at a message from a million miles away and forgetting the people around him.
For the first time in his life, on an unassuming Wednesday dinner, Megumi feels himself begin to think that Yuuta had been cruel.
He begins to think that Yuuta had been cruel and unfair and inconsiderate.
And his respect turns into something barbed and viscous - something unsustainable.
He’s back on missions.
Megumi’s updates don’t stop. He knows now, what it means to cherish someone so absurdly that faced with the prospect of their pain there is nothing he wouldn’t ask of anyone to keep them safe. To take of them.
As ever, the relief from the other end of the line is palpable and Megumi hates him. Hates his quiet intake of breath. Hates the smile that filters through his voice. Hates that no matter what he does, Yuuta will always be waiting for Inumaki.
And no matter who is in front of him, Inumaki will always be waiting for Yuuta.
Even though he has been left behind.
It comes to a vicious head when he is panicked, too injured to think with clarity, heart beating too fast to exude the quiet consideration he had resigned himself to.
Inumaki-senpai is in his arms, and the tendrils of his heart wrap around his crumpled form, his fingers shaking as he tips the medicine to those trembling lips. Shaking thumbs wiping at the blood that had trickled from each corner.
Inumaki-senpai had taken the blow meant for him, and with the divine dogs tearing into the spirit behind him Megumi feels his heart break out of the hastily constructed cage he had forced it into.
“Senpai,” he whispers, eyes wide. He had promised, promised to take care of him. And that promise had turned into the need to protect, the need to cherish, to worship, to hold, to feed, to wake and walk with, to gravitate towards the rays of the sun he emits and change the direction of his growth until it focused on Inumaki.
Until there was nothing in his gaze, nothing in his heart, no words from his lips but the desperate call of Inumaki’s name.
“Inumaki-”
“Yuuta,” his senpai groans. Heavy eyes closing, lashes fluttering like feathers in the wind.
Inumaki says Yuuta’s name. Yuuta who is not here. And did not take care of him. Yuuta who had left him behind.
The pain feels fresh for all that its been lurking. It hurts so badly Megumi can’t breathe.
His heart is cut, stabbed within and without, crumpled before his very eyes.
And-
“Yuuta,” Toge cries. For a boy who is a million miles away and will not heed his plea.
It’s not his name that is called.
It will never be his name that is called.
It goes on and on and on.
Megumi had learnt how to live with a love that was shaped by reluctant hope.
And it goes on and on and on again.
Megumi learns how to live with a love that slices at him with every step he takes towards Toge. A love that dooms him.
He’s not sleeping.
Megumi finds he doesn’t care anymore. Doesn’t care if his words make Yuuta sigh with relief, or if they cut him, or if they confuse him.
In the mornings, he finds Toge by the garden. His hair illuminated by the very first rays of the morning sun, his eyes sadder than they should be, and his mouth forming around the only word he will ever say.
He falls deeper for all that he is not allowed to and-
He finds he hates his senpai more than anything in the world.
He’s not making it as subtle as he should really. It's difficult. Almost as though in the sharp hurt of realising that Inumaki will never be his, the careful boundaries he had set filter away to nothingness.
It’s no longer enough, to be held by those pretty eyes, fleeting and meaningless. It’s not enough to not be wanted.
Megumi grows selfish and takes and takes and takes, He holds Inumaki’s hand when he has no reason to. Feeds him from his own chopsticks. Drinks out of the bottle his lips had touched. And he aches.
It’s not enough.
He doesn’t know how much time he has left of these stolen moments. Isn’t sure if his heart will survive the assault of desperation he pumps it full of. Doesn’t know when Toge will watch him with that quiet sad gaze and let him down with nothing more than a look and squeeze of his hand.
Doesn’t know when the senpai he hates will crush the quiet strained comfort between them with his relentless vibrancy.
Inumaki falls asleep in the afternoons now. He stays up at night, talking to Yuuta - Megumi listens to the words never meant for him, crouched outside his door and clenching at the fabric of his sweater as though that will ease the ache that festers inside him.
They are soaking the last of the noon sun, the shadows of the leaves playing a gentle pattern upon Toge’s lovely, lovely face. He leans back on his hands and stares down and his fingers twitch with the urge to touch hair as soft as spun silk.
Inumaki’s phone rings - there is only one person on Toge’s favourites list. One person allowed to cut through the melancholic harmony of his day with their presence. One person allowed to disrupt his healing and tilt his world upside down again. One person who had broken Toge and asked Megumi, so cruelly, to take care of the pieces he had left behind.
Megumi is answering the call before he can take a breath in. He keeps his gaze on Toge’s quiet slumber, and the rush of blood to his head tastes of righteous anger.
“Toge!” Yuuta’s voice is happy. Carefree. Megumi had once respected his ability to shine so brightly despite the pain that he carried in his heart, the ring around his neck. He’d once looked up to him.
“He’s sleeping.” His voice is firmer than he intends it to be, but Megumi no longer cares.
“Oh.. Hi, Megumi.” A smile in his damned voice. Like he has any right. As though- As though Megumi isn’t considered close to a threat.
And maybe he isn’t. Maybe he never will be. It makes him burn stubbornly under the light of Yuuta’s radiance.
Inumaki-senpai withdraws from him.
And Megumi withdraws from everyone.
His updates stop. Yuuta still texts him and there is a sad desperation in the ways he reaches out.
Toge doesn’t need him to take care of him. Yuuta should’ve known.
He is stopped on his way to a solo mission. Megumi had swapped his uniform for a simply white shirt and slacks, an unassuming get-up that should be enough to grant him access to the school grounds that Gojo sends him.
Solo missions are the only ones he can go on now. The only ones he can stomach.
Inumaki has barely grown in the last year since Yuuta left and in contrast, Megumi feels old and fragile with how much he’s been forced to bear.
Can we talk? Inumaki signs and Megumi wants to shake his head.
He has a cursed object to find, somewhere to be, anywhere that isn’t here, staring down at the object of his heart's unrelenting desire.
He breathes out-
If he wanted to, Toge could say his name. Megumi is strong enough now, strong enough to weather the storm that’ll erupt within him. If he wanted to, Toge could ask Megumi to hold him and he would wrap his arms around the smaller frame. If he wanted to Toge could forget Yuuta and Megumi would do everything in his power to make him smile every day for the rest of his life.
But Toge does not say his name. Toge will never say his name.
Toge does not want him.
Megumi shakes his head sharply and leaves the dorms with his heart breaking in his throat, its jagged edges scratching any words he could say before they form.
He knows it’s cruel. He turns his back on Toge, can’t listen to those words if he can’t see them. Once more he reasons, Toge’s lips could form around his name the way they form tirelessly around Yuuta’s. If only he wanted.
But he does not.
And Megumi doesn’t ask.
Megumi meets someone that outshines the sun. It terrifies him.
Itadori Yuuji is generous with his smiles, generous with his affection, generous with his desire to befriend and he has taken to trying to befriend Megumi.
His heart is broken and yet full of Inumaki.
He tries his hardest to ignore Yuuji but Yuuji will not be ignored.
It’s different. So different. Megumi doesn’t have to will himself to keep looking at Yuuji, doesn’t have to move himself in the direction of his sun. Yuuji shines on him regardless. Always and without question.
It is terrifying, and the shells of the cage in his chest shudder in their apprehension.
Sometimes he feels as though his heart will never heal.
There is no escaping the remnants of its break. Inumaki knows, which means that Yuuta must know. But beyond that, he is safe enough to try and nurse it back into something resembling functional.
His hate won’t let up.
But Yuuji has space enough in his never-ending generosity for Megumi to hate, and heal, and grow all the same.
Megumi had thought he was doing better. His gaze doesn’t linger on Inumaki in the sun anymore. He can, with some distance, appreciate the beauty of the sight without feeling like the ache will crawl through his chest and out his throat.
He thinks maybe, he’s going to be okay.
And then Yuuta comes home.
He hears Inumaki before he sees him and the thought is so startling that he doesn’t make the connection until it's far too late.
Yuuta’s voice comes not from the speaker of a phone, clutched tightly.
It comes muffled, pressed against skin.
“Toge,” Yuuta is whispering, “I’m sorry. I’m here, I’m here-”
And Inumaki murmurs yet more words never meant for him to hear, his voice lovely. Soft.
“Yuuta,” he says, “Missed you. I missed you.”
Megumi turns a corner and sees Yuuta with his arms wrapped tightly around Inumaki, shoulders broader than they had ever been, taller than he had ever been. His face is pressed tightly against the space where Inumaki’s neck meets his shoulder. And he is clutching.
They are entwined with one another.
Each other's worlds. Orbiting around each other.
The space Yuuta left behind welcomes him, and moulds around his changed form. Inumaki clings to him and sobs in his chest, and says his name, over and over and over. Tirelessly. He calls for Yuuta and Yuuta answers and Megumi feels as though he’s going to be sick.
The clarity is unrelenting.
Toge would never have called for him.
Even if Yuuta never existed. He would have died alone in this life and awaited the next, arms empty until they could hold Yuuta again.
He’s going to be sick.
“Megumi,” his most hated senpai breathes, glancing up at the open doorway to him. Inumaki’s hair, as soft as spun silk, tickles his jaw. His eyes are awash with unshed tears, and he is so firm, so solid, that he can hold Toge as he sobs and weather the storm that Megumi was prepared to break apart for.
Megumi escapes before the other half of that whole turns to face him. Intruder that he is. Criminal that he is. His heart screaming in its ache, in its petulant stubborn ache that he knows now he had never had any right to indulge in.
He feels sick and floaty. Cold and hot. Full of hate and respect and awe all at once and it hurts. It hurts.
It hurts.
It hurts.
Yuuta finds him by the garden that Megumi has so often found Inumaki crouched beside. His tears don’t go to waste here and he watches them drip to the buds of tulips yet to bloom.
He feels his senpai’s presence like a rain cloud. Like a weight across his chest, along his shoulders. A boot on trodden snow. In contrast, the garden welcomes Yuuta. The plants rustle in the breeze, and they turn towards him.
The more he stands there, silent, the angrier Megumi gets. He talks with everyone it seems, but Megumi. But the one he had ruined. The one he had doomed.
His stomach twists in knots and Yuuta stays silent.
It gets too much to bear quickly. It was all too much to bear. He hates Yuuta, hates his despicable heart, hates that he had set his sight on something he was never allowed to touch.
“You told me to take care of him,” the words are ripped from his throat, his voice hoarser, darker than he’d been expecting it to be.
He hates Yuuta after all.
He stands suddenly, against the overbearing weight of his senpai’s shadow. “You told me to take care of him!”
Despite the fact he doesn’t make sense, Yuuta understands. It is there in the quiet grace of his posture, the pitying sad way his head tilts downwards. His dark eyes filled with regret. He knows, of course, he knows. But it's too late. Guilt does not dampen Yuuta’s radiance.
He should’ve known before. Should’ve never asked this of Megumi, should’ve been more responsible. Instead, he had thrust Megumi in the line of fire, and now he dares to try and put out the flames, try to salvage the burns.
“Megumi-”
“No,” he spits, a vicious hiss that culminates with his hands in his senpai’s shirt, yanking that immovable solid person as though he was nothing more than a blade of grass in the window. His heart breaks and breaks, and it's all Yuuta’s fault.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have placed this on you. I’m sorry. I understand. I understand it all.”
Perhaps the worst part is knowing that Yuuta’s right. No one else in the world could understand what he had felt for Inumaki, no one but the only person who continues to adore him. Yuuta has loved and lost, his devotion runs deep and unrelenting. He understands. It feels like salt in the festering wound.
Megumi searches that kind face for something to latch on. A dent in the brick wall to claw his fingers into. A weakness to scratch at. Anything to vent this pain, this unrelenting pain.
“You should never have left,” he whispers finally, letting go of Yuuta when the foundations refuse to shake. He is so strong. No wonder, Megumi thinks, no wonder.
What a mess.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
In the face of Yuuta’s steadfastness, it’s impossible for Megumi to keep up his delusion. Somewhere in the back of his mind guilt takes control of the steering wheel. He’d been happy, absurdly happy, when Yuuta had left, when his crush had been left to its own devices to bloom under Inumaki’s soft welcome attention.
These are Yuuta’s buds. These are Yuuta’s blooms. Inumaki is Yuuta’s one and only love. This is their story and Megumi had intruded for far too long. His tears fall. Rolling down condemned cheeks.
He breathes out shakily, stares at the orange glow of the setting sun and cannot escape the truth.
The truth that he should’ve reminded himself every night rings loud and mercilessly.
“He was never meant for me anyway.”