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Tsumiki’s dead and he’s on the floor.
If he still had the will to look he would see the shrine around him. If he still had the will to look, he would’ve noticed the butcher’s knife before it pierces his jugular.
When he wakes up, he’s lying in a puddle of his blood all over the floor. But he’s awake, somehow, and Yuuji is standing in front of him.
“Fushiguro?” Yuuji’s voice is all too gentle, considering what he must actually be fighting through outside of…wherever they are. Megumi wonders for a second if he’s dreaming.
He tries to push himself up to look at Yuuji but he’s dizzy and shaking and he keeps slipping in his own blood. A sob tears itself out of him as he falls to his elbows.
Like crossing a boundary, Yuuji takes a step into the puddle with him. He kneels down and wordlessly pulls Megumi up by the arms so that he can sit up.
He’s not ready to look at Yuuji. He does anyway. His expression is serious, pained. Megumi’s blood is getting on his clothes, and his hair is pushed back. Like Sukuna’s, but that isn’t what unnerves Megumi, it’s his eyes.
He remembers what Yuuji’s eyes looked like when they met. They were clear, unwavering. He had been able to tell instantly that he was a kind person. It was the same look that Tsumiki used to have.
But now there’s a turbulence etched deep within them. Yuuji’s looking at him with such concern and desperation, and he wants to look away.
Before he gets the chance, Yuuji whispers his name. “Megumi,” this time. He brings his hand, the one without the pinky, to Megumi’s cheek, above where his neck was cut. Without realizing, he had been holding his cheek to his shoulder, protecting the gash. Or hiding it. “Let me see.”
He says it in that voice, the one Megumi can’t say no to, so he turns his head the other way, squeezing his eyes shut as he exposes the wound to Yuuji.
Yuuji’s hand drifts slowly from his cheek to his jaw to his neck. Megumi shudders as he traces the outside of the gash with gentle fingers, inhaling sharply as he peers inside at the mess of broken veins before just as gently placing his palm over it. Megumi opens his eyes at that, looking back into Yuuji’s. “Megumi,” he repeats. “Let’s go back.”
Megumi opens his mouth to dissent but finds that he can’t, not while looking Yuuji in the eye. Instead, he gestures at all the blood around them. “I don’t think I have any left,” he chokes out.
Yuuji smiles somehow, miniscule and soft. “How are you talking to me, then?”
He shrugs lamely.
Yuuji’s gaze drops a bit. “I’m not going to stop until you come back.”
Megumi knows that. He also knows that it’s his own fault for asking to be saved, that this is just Yuuji playing out a role that Megumi’s doomed him to play. Still, he asks, “Why?”
Yuuji gives Megumi’s forearm a squeeze. “Because it’s you. And I care about you.”
That wasn’t really what he was expecting. “Is that really enough of a reason?”
Yuuji considers that. “I’m still making sense of that, I think. But I know I’m not gonna let you die like this.” Then, he takes his hand off of Megumi’s neck and stands up, holding a palm out to help him up.
He looks at the hand for a moment, unconvinced. His mind goes back to the blood, which Yuuji is now covered with.
The thought crosses his mind that the only way to save Yuuji now is to let himself be saved. It’s cruel, he thinks, and he’d still like to die, and he still doesn’t care how. But Tsumiki is dead, and Gojo too, and there’s still something left.
He takes that something's hand and allows himself to be pulled up.