Chapter Text
“Aw, come on, it’ll be fun!”
Fun.
Megumi grits his teeth and hikes his robes up to climb the stairs faster, silently cursing his so-called friends.
There is nothing fun about sneaking through the corridors in the dead of night, especially not when they run the risk of detention between the various ghosts (the absolute worst snitches on the entire planet) and some of the borderline nocturnal professors.
It’s not fun, and Megumi hates his friends, but he still follows the world’s biggest idiots up another set of stupid stairs. He wishes he could have changed into his pajamas like Nobara and Yuuji, but he was already up late studying when they burst into the library and demanded to go on an adventure.
Sometimes it feels like he’s the only student at the school who actually cares about studying.
Candlelit shadows crawl up the walls, inhaling and exhaling softly as his silencing charm turns his footsteps into whispers. Nobara and Yuuji are decently far ahead, yapping about Quidditch or chocolate frog cards or something stupid like that.
He hurries his footsteps to get closer, because the silencing charm only stretches so far, and he doesn’t want to pay for his friends’ stupid mistakes. He has no doubt that Yuuji will sound like a stampeding elephant if the charm even so much as wavers, and he doesn’t want to think about the subsequent echoing clacks of Nobara’s (quite frankly, ridiculous) heels.
“Where are we going?” Megumi finally asks, voice in a low whisper as he keeps an eye out for any wandering spirits.
“Sixth floor,” Nobara answers, slowing to a confident stride as something wicked glimmers in her honeyed eyes, “East wing.”
Megumi immediately turns around.
He makes it about four steps before a strong hand is fisting itself in his robes, and he’s helpless to Yuuji’s physical strength, going limp in his grip like a petulant kitten.
“It’s off-limits,” he hisses, eyes wild and frantic.
There’s no way Yuuji and Nobara can understand. They only know the ins and outs of Hogwarts as well as any other fifth years.
They haven’t spent their entire lives in the castle, they never held the Sorting Hat in their hands at the age of six and demanded they be sorted into a house early, only to be met with resounding laughter bouncing in their skull.
Megumi knows the castle like he knows the back of his hand. Every single secret passage, every underground tunnel, every answer to the statues’ riddles and every way to make the particularly nefarious doors listen to his demands.
He knows everything about the castle, and he has never been to the eastern wing of the sixth floor. He’s pretty sure the staircases will refuse to move there out of principle, and he remembers his godfather’s voice, stern and serious for the first time in his life, telling him not to go there under any circumstance.
Nobara and Yuuji falter, and he realizes that they were banking on him knowing how to get there for this little adventure.
It’s not something he’s unused to—he’s gotten them out of trouble more than a handful of times by slipping into an unassuming passageway in the nick of time—but, for once, he’s just as clueless as they are.
“But,” Yuuji flounders, words failing him, “You’ve lived here your whole life!”
Megumi’s feet move him to nowhere in particular. Yes, he’s lived here his entire life. He doesn’t remember a life outside these castle walls, only for brief outings with his godfather until he... well, that's unimportant.
He’s lived here his whole life, playing a constant tug-of-war between love and hate for the village of people that raised him. He is a mosaic, his personality pieced together from thousands of anecdotes and experiences, all compressed into what Yuuji calls a “dark and brooding stick”.
Megumi spent most of his life with very little rules inside the castle. The staff were amused when they found him exploring a secret passageway, and the students always cooed delightfully whenever they spotted him roaming around, only chastising him when he got into real danger. He knows countless names and faces, people in his life for minutes or years that have long since moved on, while he stays rooted in place.
He remembers being six years old, walking side by side with an arrogant seventh year wizard, and he remembers nothing before that.
The truth sounds funny in his gut. His friends don’t know about his godfather—they don’t know anything, really, only that Megumi has spent his childhood in the castle that still feels new to them, and that the professors know him well.
“The staircase won’t go there,” Megumi says, standing on stone as he gestures towards the labyrinth of shifting staircases.
To their left, a staircase shifts and hums, welcoming them to the western wing of the sixth floor, home to a few classrooms (he’s fairly certain Nanami and Haibara’s offices are both on that wing, as well) and a boy’s bathroom.
There is no staircase to the right. If Megumi cranes his head, he can see the beginnings of a hallway, one that looks exactly like all the others. Unassuming and innocent, he’s never put much thought into it. All he knows is that it’s off-limits to the students, and it’s subsequently been off-limits to him ever since he can remember.
“You’ve never cared when we’ve broken rules before,” Nobara remarks, narrowing her eyes at her friend’s hypocrisy.
How can he explain that his godfather barely gave him any rules?
How does he explain that the “look at me, Megumi” was the most terrified he’s ever seen Gojo in his life, something vulnerable in his glittering eyes that has long since been covered by a blindfold? How is he supposed to explain the nature of this situation without telling Yuuji his favorite professor is his best friend’s godfather?
He loves Gojo. He loves how he took his hand and fed him an endless supply of wonder and magic, how he never once complained about his dour attitude, even when they went from spending every day together to every year to never.
He hates Gojo. He hates how he told him he’d tell him about his father, dangling knowledge that he will never take because he’s too scared to know. He hates how Gojo never asked for anything, how he never yelled at him or told him he loved him or even that he cared.
Mostly, though, he hates Gojo for leaving him the moment he graduated. He hates him for showing up four years later as his professor, with a huge smile on his face and a promise to stay in Megumi's life from now on.
He loves Gojo, he hates Gojo, and he really doesn’t want to go against his one concrete rule.
This is different, Megumi wants to reply, but he can’t, so he doesn’t.
Instead, he just frowns like he always does, standing at the edge of the stone and looking at the east wing of the sixth floor.
He’d be lying if he said he’s never been curious about it, but flashes of wide, terrified blue always stopped him before he could get much further than surface-level curiosity.
Why does it matter right now, something ugly hisses in his head, the same little voice that turned family into friends into strangers, he’ll never know.
Gojo is practically a stranger, especially now—he’s more like a benefactor than any real family member, just another shred of stained glass that painted his childhood. He abandoned Megumi, just like his own father, and then pranced back into his life like it didn't even matter. He’s ignored plenty of Haibara’s joking scolds and Nanami’s cold warnings, so why should this be any different?
A hand on his shoulder snaps Megumi from his thoughts. Yuuji’s eyes, brown and soft like a little puppy, are focused on his own, searching for something he will never find.
“Are you okay?” he asks, worrying his lip between his teeth. “If it’s that important to you, we don’t have to do this—really, I just wanted something fun to do—”
“I’m fine,” Megumi replies, the thank you going unsaid. “Just a quick look, though. I don’t want to wake up any monsters or evil ghosts.”
Yuuji laughs, looping one arm around through Megumi’s and another through Nobara’s. His wand, dark and sturdy, rests in his left hand, and he’s got his trademark I’m going to do something very stupid look in his eyes.
“Ascendio!”
Yuuji’s body lifts from the ground, but he’s being weighed down by his two classmates, only reaching about a third of the way.
Megumi clicks his tongue. How stupid would he have to be to try that? A spell, especially such a young wizard casting it in a silent area, that only lifts the caster, and he thinks he can lift three people with it?
Megumi opens his mouth to call Yuuji the world’s biggest idiot, but before he can, he feels his body get thrown—thrown—by nothing but pure physical strength. He rockets through the air for a second before crashing onto the floor in a tangled heap of robes and greasy hair, heart stampeding wildly from adrenaline.
I hate Itadori Yuuij, he decides for the twentieth time this school year, and Nobara lands much more gracefully than him, skidding on her feet and only stumbling a little. He would have been more elegant about it if he knew he’d be tossed like a baseball, but he keeps his mouth shut.
Yuuji lands on the floor and stows his wand with a proud smile, puffing out his chest like he didn’t just risk the lives of two of his friends. Megumi wisely decides not to voice this aloud, because he doesn’t want to deal with Yuuji’s sad eyes.
“You alright, Fushiguro?” he asks, holding out his hand.
Megumi doesn’t take it, but he does nod stiffly, picking himself up and dusting off his robes. Something about the hallway feels restless, even with its off-putting normalcy. It feels like the walls are holding their breath, and it smells… old.
Their feet leave prints in the dust, and Megumi makes a mental note to cover their tracks before they leave. The air is stagnant, charged with unseen electricity, and Megumi grits his teeth as Nobara and Yuuji dart around every corner like this is some sort of joke.
Whatever lies through one of these doors, it can’t be anything good—not if it’s enough to scare the strongest wizard of all time.
Still, Megumi gets that gross, gooey feeling he always feels whenever he hangs out with Nobara and Yuuji, a warmth in his gut that calms the rocky seas of his life.
Most of the doors hold abandoned classrooms, with the most exciting things being a discarded quill and a spilled bottle of ink. With every room explored, Nobara and Yuuji become less and less excited, and Megumi feels more and more relieved.
The last door, curiously enough, looks too innocuous. Its wood is perfectly polished, lacking any signs of age that the others have. Not a speck of dust lies on its smooth surface, and Yuuji pushes on it expectantly only for the door to remain stubbornly shut.
Nobara pulls out her wand and lightly taps it against the door. “Alohomora,” she whispers.
Megumi doubts that something so secret would be so easy to unlock, but just as he voices his opinion, a disembodied hand reaches out the door and slaps Nobara right in the face, so fast that her hair whips around.
Nobara stumbles backwards with a yelp, holding a hand to her cheek. Yuuji winces sympathetically, offering a hand out for comfort, but Megumi continues staring at the disembodied hand.
Even after the slap, the hand still remains, and he leans closer to get a good look at it. The skin is pale, almost porcelain, and the fingers are long—suspiciously so. Dread pools in Megumi’s stomach as the hand makes a “calling” sign, pinkie and thumb sticking out like it’s on the phone.
Holy shit—
“It’s G—it’s Professor Gojo,” Megumi says, eyes wide. “It’s trying to summon him.”
“Shit,” Nobara hisses.
Yuuji and Nobara immediately break out into a sprint, and Megumi goes to join them, fueled by more terror than both of them combined, but before he can follow, something damp and cold wraps around his wrist and yanks.
Megumi doesn’t even have time to shout before he’s pulled through the door, stumbling backwards over his own robes and collapsing onto the floor in a pile of cloth and hair.
He’s only disoriented for a moment before scrambling up, looking around frantically for what the hell could have pulled him in.
Was it the hand? If so, it feels almost counterintuitive. Why would Gojo have a snitching hand keep intruders out if he’s just going to pull them back in?
Alarm bells ring in Megumi’s head when he glances around and sees that the door is covered head to toe in all kinds of locks. Deadbolts, chains, big and small, iron and steel. He doesn’t doubt that they must be crawling with hexes and charms to keep someone out, presumably made by Gojo himself to keep away from prying eyes.
What the hell is so important to Gojo, the man who cares about nothing and everything all at once, that he’s locked it in a vault tighter than a Ministry worker’s asshole?
Megumi glances around the room to get his bearings. It’s smaller than the average classroom, maybe about two hundred square feet in total, and a single window is the only source of light, casting gentle moonbeams onto the dust-free room.
A bookshelf sits in the corner, full of both textbooks and fictional books. Megumi notes with amusement that three of the six rows are just books on Care of Magical Creatures. A few of them look hand-bound, which catches his eye. Maybe, if he gets trapped here forever, he’ll at least be able to keep himself entertained.
A large bed is nestled right in front of the window, covered in pillows and fluffy blankets. It looks less like a bed and more like a nest of some sort, and he runs his hand absentmindedly over the pillows.
There’s a bulletin board on another wall, filled with pictures both magical and Muggle. Megumi recognizes most of the wizards and witches in the photographs—Ieiri with shorter hair and a kind smile, Gojo sticking out his tongue in most of them, glimpses of Haibara and Nanami here and there—but there is one person in particular that sticks out.
Megumi squints. He doesn’t look as familiar as the others, with black hair tied into a bun and weird bangs, but he appears in almost every single picture. He’s always right next to Gojo, whether smiling or sticking his tongue out or wiping food off his face in the Great Hall Food Massacre of ’06.
A name doesn’t appear on the tip of his tongue, but an inkling of familiarity still lingers somewhere in his mind.
Megumi wanders over to the bookshelf, feeling like he’s perhaps stuck his nose somewhere it doesn’t belong. He thinks about a hand placing his own on the feathery pelt of a hippogriff, a light and airy voice telling him not to be afraid.
Somewhere in his mind, in the fuzzy early days of his childhood, he remembers sitting in the grass while slender fingers turn the pages of a picture book, pointing out the dugbogs and dragons and clabberts and basilisks. His head throbs painfully.
“Satoru?”
Megumi startles, pressing his back against the shelf and looking around the room with wild eyes. Toge’s the one with the invisibility cloak, not him—there’s no way he’ll be able to hide! Quickly, he does the only thing he can think of, and dives under the bed with all the grace of a baby elephant.
“Satoru,” the voice repeats, a teasing purr snaking its way through the musical quality of the mysterious, disembodied voice.
“Sa—” the voice pauses.
The room’s temperature drops a few degrees, and when Megumi exhales, he sees his breath puff out in the air. There’s a spirit in here, one that knows Gojo and is friendly enough with him to use his given name.
Megumi fingers his wand in his pocket. He can probably blast a hole in the window and escape that way, but there’s no way Gojo won’t figure out it was him. He chews his lip in concentration, eyes scanning the floor for something, anything, when a glint of something shiny catches his eye.
Lying not too far from him is a wand, long and carved with swirling engravings, almost black in its darkness. Megumi frowns—who would just leave their wand lying on the ground? It’s not Gojo’s, he knows this much, but still.
Is it the spirit’s wand? If so, how come the spirit hasn’t shown itself and started yammering about like all the other annoying ghosts do?
“Not Satoru,” the voice hums thoughtfully, and Megumi is almost certain that it’s coming from the wand. “My apologies—I’ve been trapped here for a while now, and I got a bit too hopeful.”
Megumi swallows. His heart thuds rapidly in his chest, but Gojo hasn’t shown up yet, so maybe there’s a chance that he can get away without being noticed.
“Are you…” He clears his throat, hoarse from disuse, and tries again. “Are you a spirit?”
“Unfortunately.”
The puzzle pieces click together, shuffling and slotting into each other as Megumi starts to piece this scenario together bit by bit. “You’re the one from the pictures,” he guesses. “How did you get stuck inside a wand?”
The voice scoffs, and the wand rolls itself across the floor until it sits right in front of Megumi’s fingers invitingly.
“I don’t know,” it admits, sounding unsure of itself. “I’ve long since made peace with my death—maybe the wand is keeping me from passing on?”
“You don’t sound very sure.”
“I’m not,” it replies easily, undeterred by the snark in Megumi’s tone. “But I doubt there’s any harm in trying to free me.”
Megumi scowls. He’s heard horror stories from people trying to use the wands of others. Best case scenario, nothing will happen. Worst case scenario? He’ll end up as a spirit right next to this guy, and he won’t be so nice about it.
Still, he feels a little guilty at the thought of leaving this spirit trapped inside a wand forever, so he whispers a quiet apology to his own wand before wrapping his fingers around the one on the floor, bracing himself for some sort of reaction.
Nothing happens.
When nothing continues to happen, Megumi cautiously pokes an eye open, and he finds that nothing in the vicinity has been exploded, or thrown around, or even moved a little. He heaves out a sigh of relief and rests his forehead on the floor, exhausted from his own paranoia.
“Why are you under the bed?”
Laying down next to him, in the exact same position, is the boy from the pictures, smiling politely with crinkled eyes.
Megumi yelps loudly and jolts, ramming his head into the bedframe with a painful thunk and rolling out from his spot, standing up and clutching his head painfully.
The voice, who is now no longer a voice but a translucent person, floats up from under the bed with that same smile never leaving him.
“Sorry,” it says, not sounding sorry at all.
“I don’t think you passed on,” Megumi replies, stating the obvious as he takes in the features of this mystery person—mystery man, he supposes. Seems rude to say “it” now.
Long black hair floats around his head like he’s underwater. Moonlight reflects off his robes in lazy, watery patterns, hypnotically swirling and pulsing across his body, his hair, his eyes. The current is calm, like the relaxed sway of a boat bobbing on a lake.
“I didn’t,” the spirit agrees pleasantly. “But it’s still better than not being able to see anything or move. Thank you, by the way. I know it must have been scary.”
“You’re welcome.” Megumi brushes off the praise with a wave of his hand.
Now that the spirit of whoever that guy was is free, Megumi goes back to the matter at hand—his escape plan. He guesses Nobara and Yuuji must have either escaped back to their dorms or got caught by Gojo, but either way, it looks like they didn’t snitch, so he’s in the clear for now.
“For now” being the key words, of course, because if he doesn’t find a way out of here soon, he’ll either get caught by Gojo or be forced to admit defeat. Neither of those options are particularly pleasant, so he goes to examine the window.
Megumi grits his teeth, surveying the grounds below. It’s still dark out, thank god, but he’s no Yuuji—he won’t throw himself out of the window without a high chance of survival.
“Aren’t you going to ask for my name?” The spirit floats lazily next to him, staring outside the window with a raise of his eyebrows.
Megumi sighs. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t curious, what with Gojo typically talking about dead people with a casual wave of his hand. Nothing quite makes sense about this, though, because why wouldn’t he mention someone like this?
He talks a lot about Ieiri and Nanami and Haibara as students, and Megumi can occasionally muster up a fuzzy memory or two of them still in school, but he never once mentioned this person. Why doesn’t he know the name of someone so prominent in these photographs? And, more importantly, why doesn’t he remember him?
“What’s your name?” Megumi asks dryly.
The spirit’s smile twitches downward, but it quickly settles not too long after. “Geto Suguru,” he says. “Seventh year Slytherin and soon to be conqueror of the world.”
At Megumi’s unimpressed stare, Geto laughs and raises his hands in surrender. “I’m kidding. World domination doesn’t really suit my style.”
Megumi glances at Geto’s translucent body and watches his hair blend with his robes, defying gravity in a peculiar manner unrelated to his own spiritual physics.
“Did you drown?”
Geto scowls with no real fire in his gaze. “Did you go to the Satoru school of manners?” he retorts, folding ghostly arms across his chest.
Megumi quickly searches for a way to change the subject. “You must have been close with Professor Gojo,” he remarks, jutting his chin towards the bulletin board.
Something strange flickers in the spirit’s dark eyes. “Well, he and I—”
Suddenly, Geto pauses, his entire body going stiff. Megumi swears he sees one of his eyes twitch, and the spirit opens and closes his mouth a few times.
“Did you just say ‘professor’?”
“Don’t be ridiculous—I said ‘progressor’. I’ve been keeping progress of his fifteen-year sentence in Azkaban.”
“Huh?” Geto’s eyes practically bulge out of his head.
“He’s got about six years left, in case you were curious.”
Geto runs a hand through shimmering locks. He looks about five seconds away from an aneurysm, and he pinches the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “Are you joking? Please tell me you’re joking.”
“I’m not,” Megumi lies, staring deadpan at the ghost. “Well, sort of. He’s the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.”
Geto’s shoulders sag with relief. His robes sway and float like a current, swallowing up the floor beneath him and making him seem impossibly overwhelming. He’s calm, though, purposely so, dark eyes bearing a frightening resemblance to his godfather in their analytical gaze.
“Professor Gojo,” he murmurs, rolling the words off his tongue to see how they taste. “I never…”
Something flits across his gaze, unfamiliar and dark. Perhaps someone more emotionally intelligent could decipher his expression, but Megumi is much better equipped to handle magical creatures than people.
“Ah,” Geto blinks and the look is gone, replaced by an steadfast politeness, “Where are my manners? I haven’t even asked for your name.”
“Fushiguro Megumi,” he replies, prying open the window manually and staring out at the darkness below.
He briefly envies Nobara and Yuuji, as they wouldn’t even hesitate before either jumping out the window (Yuuji) or scaling it to climb down (Nobara), but the envy quickly vanishes when he thinks about Ieiri’s prying gaze on his wounds.
If he times it right, he could try and cast ventus, but if he isn’t careful, it could easily backfire and give him worse injuries than jumping out would. It might be his only option, though, considering the locks on the door and the rapidly shortening window of time before Gojo inevitably shows up.
Perhaps it might be better to throw in the towel and admit that he broke the one rule given to him, but then he thinks about joking blue eyes hardening and he feels the urge to vomit.
Yeah, he’d much rather jump out a window.
“Megumi?”
He jumps at his name, having momentarily forgotten about the mysterious spirit, and when he turns around, he’s met with a humungous smile. Eurgh, it’s hideous. He hopes Geto never smiles like this again, it looks weird and genuine. Sappy, too, like he cares about him. It’s been hard enough dealing with friends who care, he really doesn’t want to add a spirit to the mix.
“Megumi,” Geto whispers, awestruck for some reason, “You were so small when I last saw you—do you not remember me?”
“Nope,” he half-fibs. He’s fairly certain that Geto is the blurry man from his memories, the one who read all about magical creatures to him.
Fortunately, Geto doesn’t take any offense to that, nor does he see through his semi truth—or, if he does, he doesn’t comment on it. “That makes sense. I mean, I only knew you for a few months before I died, and that was…”
Megumi quickly does the math for the poor guy. “Ten years ago.”
He expects some sort of dramatic reaction from Geto. A fluctuation in spiritual energy, perhaps, or a flare in his floaty body, or a scream or yell or something.
Instead, the spirit just presses his lips together tightly, leaving Megumi at a loss. Does he want to be comforted? He’s not exactly one for coddling, but maybe a pat on the intangible back might do some good.
“You haven’t changed much,” Geto muses, floating around Megumi in a circle. “How are you doing these days? Made any friends?”
Megumi decides right then and there that Geto is annoying. He’s more subtle about it than Gojo, but he still manages to get under his skin, whether on purpose or not. He doesn’t want to think about how insufferable they must have been together.
“If you help me get out of here, I’ll tell you everything you want to know,” Megumi says, leaning out the window as the chill of the autumn sky sinks into his bones.
“Well, I can’t exactly argue,” Geto says, floating towards the wand in Megumi’s pocket. “I think I might be stuck with you for a while.”
Megumi furrows his brow. “What?”
Geto gestures towards Megumi’s pocket. “My wand. I’m, oh, what’s the word… I can’t explain it, but I think I’m tethered to the wand somehow.”
Megumi pulls the wand out of his pocket, flips it over in his hand. It has a surprisingly good balance for a wand that’s not his, thrumming with unspent magic after years of neglect. It doesn’t fit as well as his own wand, but it feels familiar somehow, like slipping on an old glove.
“How peculiar,” Geto brushes a ghostly finger over the side of his wand, “It likes you.”
“It’s just a wand.”
“You and I both know that’s not true.”
There’s something teasing in Geto’s tone, and if he’s anything like how Gojo would be as a spirit, then he can already see where this is going. He needs to put his foot down before this guy becomes delusional.
“I’m not giving up my wand so I can be your personal chauffeur.”
“You’re not ‘giving up’ anything,” Geto argues, that stupidly calm smile never leaving his face. “It’ll be temporary! Just until we figure out what’s going on with me.”
Megumi really, truly didn’t think it was possible for someone to have a worse personality than Gojo, and yet here Geto Suguru is, masking the most annoying person on the planet under a façade of polite smiles and kind words.
Murder is wrong, Megumi, he tells himself, taking a long, deep breath.
His conscience is right. Murder is wrong, especially if it’s murdering someone who is already dead. If he’s dealt with Gojo for the past ten years (admittedly, not well), then he can handle this freak.
“And, what, you’re expecting me to just give up the little free time I already have to research into why a spirit could be trapped inside his own wand for ten years?”
Geto’s patient smile says it all. Megumi weighs the pros and cons of throwing himself out of this window right now and thinks that defenestration might just be the light at the end of this tunnel.
“Wouldn’t it be easier for me to just give you to Gojo? You two seemed awfully close.”
The spirit’s smile twitches downward almost imperceptibly. “I haven’t felt his presence here since the day after I died.”
Would it be hypocritical of Megumi to criticize Gojo for his inability to handle emotions like grief? Maybe, but he’s going to do it anyways. Loathe as he is to admit it, Megumi knows that if he abandoned the spirit here, he wouldn’t feel good about it.
“Think about it, Megumi,” a ghostly hand clasps onto his shoulder, and he shivers at the cold sensation. “You could use my wand for a little while, and we can research what’s happening with me. It’ll be mutually beneficial!”
“How would it be mutual?”
Megumi tries not to be alarmed at how Geto’s hand is not passing through him, but rather remains on his shoulder, cold and damp but tangible nonetheless. He files the information away for later and creates a list of possible books to pour over later.
“I was the top student in academics, you know—I wouldn’t mind assisting you with your studies. What classes are you struggling in?”
“None of them,” Megumi says, just to see if he can make the ghost squirm.
Unfortunately, Geto is unfazed, having the audacity to laugh like his spirituality doesn’t rest in the palm of Megumi’s (admittedly, sweaty) hand.
“How could I expect any less?”
After a moment of silence, the teasing, lighthearted glint in Geto’s eyes dims, while the invisible currents around him sway uncertainly. For the first time tonight, he looks unsure of himself, eyes downcast and afraid.
Megumi thinks about two pairs of brown puppy eyes being trained on him like lethal weapons and wonders how quickly he can stab himself. Then, he thinks about all the unanswered questions he has swimming in his head, mostly for Gojo, and decides that death might not be the best option. Curse his stupid personal feelings and his stupid friends and this stupid, stupid situation.
“Fine,” Megumi grits his teeth and gives in, “I’ll help you figure out how to pass on.”
Geto’s eyes sparkle with mirth, and he clasps his hands together before placing both of them on Megumi’s shoulders. “Excellent! I’ll—”
“But,” Megumi holds up a hand, and Geto pauses, smile never leaving his face, “If I answer your questions, you have to answer mine.”
Geto tilts his head, and it’s in moments like these that Megumi wishes he knew how to read people’s emotions. Instead, he just sees something melancholic pass through the strange spirit’s eyes, and he knows he’ll get his answer soon enough.
Then, a cold and wet hand shakes his own, and two youthful eyes meet his own tired ones.
“ Fushiguro Megumi, you’ve got yourself a deal.”