Chapter Text
Gojo Satoru was the strongest. He could do anything he wanted, and do it with an unparalleled sense of style and flair. Anything he tried he was automatically the best at. The one thing this didn’t seem to apply to was children.
He’d been taking care of Tsumiki and Megumi for a few months. Well taking care of was generous, as Shoko so generously reminded him. Satoru paid for their apartment and dropped in a couple times a week to make sure the kids were still alive and eating and what not.
Sometimes he felt like he should be doing more. But he didn’t know what he was doing in the first place. It wasn’t like the kids had wanted a stranger to move into their apartment. They had been alone long enough that they knew how to take care of themselves and were severely mistrustful of adults. Satrou hadn’t wanted to make them more uneasy than they already were. They were comfortable with this arrangement, and Satrou got the impression that he was still around more than Toji ever was.
It was night’s like this though, when rain pounded against the roof and wind howled into the night, that Satrou wished he had moved in with the kids. Of course, it was for a selfish reason and not for their well being. He had never claimed to be a good person or a good guardian.
The kids were in bed and he normally would’ve gone home an hour ago, but Satrou didn’t want to leave. If he left then he would have to return to his dorm room. A dorm room that was too empty and too quiet now that his other half was missing. Satoru and Suguru had been living in each other's rooms since their first year. Their possessions were mixed together, half of his stuff was in Suguru’s room and vice versa. Except now Suguru was gone.
His room had been cleared by the school, but Satoru hadn’t touched anything in his own room. Not the hairbrush on his nightstand with black clumps of hair stuck in the bristles, not the baggy pants thrown over his chair, not the homework half done that Suguru had never finished. The items remained exactly where they were, a painful reminder of someone who was never coming back. But removing them would be more painful. A final acknowledgment of what Satoru knew, but didn’t want to believe.
The apartment didn’t have any of that. There weren't painful memories around every corner. With the kids he could forget some of the emptiness he felt. In their home, he had a place to go for shelter that wasn’t haunted by a ghost who wasn’t coming back.
“You’re still here,” a small voice broke him out of his thoughts. Satoru flinched at the sound. Megumi stood in the doorway to the living room hugging a stuffed dog close to his chest. Outside the apartment, thunder roared.
“Is that ok?” Satoru asked.
Megumi shrugged and moved to sit on the couch next to him. Satoru considered that permission to stay.
“What are you doing up?” Megumi had school tomorrow. A responsible adult would make him go back to sleep. “Having trouble sleeping? Is it the storm?” Kids were supposed to be scared of thunderstorms, right?
“I’m not a baby.” Megumi puffed out his chest. He didn’t realize that his protests just made him seem younger.
Satoru held up his hands anyway. “Ok ok. You’re not scared of the storm.” A similar conversation had occurred when Satoru had left on the hall light and implied Megumi might be scared of the dark.
Not scared of the dark. Not scared of the storm. Satoru didn’t want to think of the things that had taken place in Megumi’s life to make him fearless in the places kids his age were meant to be scared. It was good that he was brave, but he shouldn’t have had to be strong.
“So.” Megumi settled into the couch hugging his stuffed dog tighter. “Why are you still here?”
“I didn’t want to go home in the storm.” Satoru’s infinity would protect him from the rain fine, but saying that was a lot easier than trying to explain the real reason. “Now why are you still up?”
“I like the rain,” Megumi said. “It’s peaceful.”
Satoru would hardly call the tsunami going on outside peaceful, but Megumi was watching the window with something more than contempt and Satoru could count on one hand the number of real smiles he’d seen from the kid so for once he decided to keep his mouth shut. They sat in silence as the storm raged outside of the small apartment. Thunder exploded and shudders shook, but Megumi never flinched.
“Your infinity,” Megumi said, breaking their peaceful silence. Satoru gaped at him. Megumi never talked to him first. Never. “The rain wouldn’t even touch you.”
“Can’t pull one over on you, huh?” Megumi obviously wasn’t going to let this go. The few months spent around him had proved to Satoru that the kid was perceptive. If he tried to lie his way out of this there was a decent chance Megumi would catch it and drag this conversation out. Better to tell him part of the truth and end it quick. “My— my best friend left recently and sometimes my room feels too quiet without him.” Satoru Gojo wasn’t supposed to feel lonely, especially not because he was missing a murderer, but he didn’t think Megumi would tell anyone.
“Did he leave like my dad?” Of course after two months of taking care of him, the one time this kid decided to take interest in Satoru’s life it was to ask about Suguru.
“Something like that.” Satoru hoped not. It was selfish but he hoped that where he was Suguru was out there alive and safe. Even if he was a murderer and even if Satoru never got to see him again.
Megumi nodded. He didn’t know his dad was dead. He hadn’t wanted to listen to the story and if he didn’t care then Satoru saw no reason to burden him with Toji’s legacy.
“So going back to your room feels like coming home to the apartment feels,” Megumi said.
Satoru stared at him. “How does coming to the apartment feel?”
Megumi shrugged. “You open the door and you’re scared he’s going to be there, but the stupid part of you is hopeful too and every time you open the door it digs up the possibility of someone you’re trying to bury.”
Satoru had been so focused on how this apartment didn’t hold any ghosts for him, he never thought about the pain it might hold for Megumi and Tsumiki. But the kid had put it so well. Everytime he went home, there was some part of his brain that was convinced Suguru would be there waiting for him. He had thought he was the only one who understood that kind of loneliness. Now Satoru realized how arrogant that was. Suguru would chide him for it. Of course he wasn’t the only person who had ever been abandoned.
“Do you want to move out of here? The Gojo clan’s got plenty of money. I could get you guys a new apartment, a new start.”
“Would you live there too?”
A few months ago, he would’ve thought Megumi was asking in order to violently reject him if he said yes. But Megumi was here. Sitting with Satoru on the couch, allowing him into his apartment, into his peace, into his life. Maybe he wanted Satoru to move in and this was him asking, in his own Megumi way.
“Well it would be my apartment,” Satoru said with all his usual bluster. “I’m about to graduate and move out of the dorms so I’ve been looking at some places in Tokyo. One of them had three bedrooms.” That was a lie. Satoru hadn’t had any plans to leave Jujutsu Tech, but he didn’t want to look like he was inconveniencing himself to pity Megumi. That would be the fastest way for Megumi to reject his proposal. “What do you think?”
Satoru held his breath as thunder boomed and he waited for Megumi to answer. After a minute of silence, the kid just shrugged. “See if it would make Tsumiki happy.”
“I wasn’t asking about her. I’ll ask her tomorrow morning.” The selfless thing was sweet at first but now it was getting concerning. Kids his age should care more about their own feelings than anybody else’s. At least Satoru had. “I was asking about you. Be selfish for once. Would you like to get out of here?”
Megumi hugged his dog tighter to his chest. “Yes,” he answered. “Yes I would.”
Satoru ruffled his hair. “See that’s all you had to say.”