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Gojo feels sick to his stomach.
Megumi is standing in the doorway to the teacher’s lounge, speaking in low tones to Yuji. There’s a small smile on his face - it’s uncharacteristically soft, full of a warm kindness Gojo is unsure he’s ever seen on his face in the decade they’ve known one another. He has a shockingly nice smile. Distantly, Gojo thinks it would be nice if he smiled more, but then Megumi leans in and rests his forehead on Yuji’s shoulder before touching his hand briefly in farewell, and that sickly feeling in his stomach returns tenfold. He watches as Yuji departs, waving when the kid shoots him a little grin, and tries to massage the feeling away.
It’s been like this recently. Every time Yuji and Megumi get… chummy , Gojo has to fend off these weird, icky sensations. He’s never felt this way watching anybody else be together, and Yuji is perhaps the nicest, most selfless fifteen year old he’s ever had the pleasure of meeting. Any mentor worth their salt would be thrilled to have their ward date somebody like him.
“You two have really got something solid going on, eh?” Gojo ventures to ask, if only to appease that sickening feeling. Megumi just shrugs, making for the window, and sits himself down on a comically small stool in front of it, resting against the sill. The sun bathes him in light, turning his dark uniform a touch brown as it bakes the material warm, and he closes his eyes against it, sighing in satisfaction. He reminds Gojo of a cat.
“We’re taking things easy for now,” he hums, and he sounds so peaceful. So pleased . “But yeah. We’re pretty solid.”
“Ah.” Gojo can only nod. “I see.”
Again those weird, icky sensations. Gojo wants to banish them to the furthest recesses of his mind, where he never has to touch on them again. They’re stupid. And immature. And completely groundless, because Gojo has nothing against love of any kind. He just wants his child to be happy, and clearly, Yuji is doing just that. So what’s his problem? Why is he so mad ?
“Alright old man,” Megumi huffs suddenly, now looking directly at him. He frowns when Gojo makes eye contact, clearly displeased. “What is it now? You have that wrinkle in your forehead. The one you get when you’re upset.”
Gojo just raises an eyebrow. “So observant,” he whistles, trying for a teasing air. Change the subject - change it fast. “If only you could apply that to your social awareness skills, then we’d be golden”.
Megumi rolls his eyes impressively. “Please shut up,” he grumbles.
“Never,” Gojo titters, and shoots the glaring kid a toothy grin.
“Right. Because you’re physically incapable, is that it?”
“Manners, boy.”
“Nah.” Megumi smirks a little, his lips tilting up at the corners. “You don’t deserve them.”
Gojo puffs out a surprised breath at that. It’s rare for Megumi to be this playful, especially when he’s tired, which he clearly is right now. Exams just wrapped up earlier that day - Gojo had expected Megumi to barricade himself inside his dorm and not speak to anyone until at least lunchtime tomorrow. He must be in an especially good mood then, and already, Gojo is sure he knows why.
Almost right on cue, Megumi’s phone buzzes. He fishes it out of his pocket, and smiles wryly.
“Yuji?” Gojo asks, and prepares himself for the answer.
“Yeah.” Megumi turns the phone towards him. On the screen, in his text messages, in his chat to none other than Yuji, is a just now sent picture of a spiky black dog laying in a bed of blue flowers, a blue collar clipped around its neck. He looks like you , reads a message underneath it. The message is followed by a chain of red hearts you couldn’t pay Gojo to count.
“Huh,” he murmurs, unseeing. Unthinking. Huh.
“Huh,” Megumi repeats. He’s back to frowning now. “That’s it?”
“Yeah.” No, it’s not. “Do you have any plans this afternoon?”
“Going out with Itadori.”
Huh. That’s all Gojo can really think. Just a shit load of huh’s in various tones and pitches. “Where are you guys going?”
“The beach. Itadori says he wants to check out the sea cucumbers or something stupid like that.” Megumi lets loose a gentle, affectionate laugh. “He’s so stupid.”
Gojo nods robotically. Huh. Huh?
Huh.
The beach. Sea cucumbers. Gojo remembers a day like that, lifetimes and eons ago, back when things weren’t so difficult. Back before everything got complicated. Back before love wasn’t the greatest curse of all, and meaning still had value.
“Gojo?”
Shit. “Yeah?” He asks, trying to play it off like he hadn’t just zoned out, but Megumi is glaring at him with dark, vicious eyes. He’s been caught, and eerily, he feels oddly like a mouse stuck in a trap, with a cat looming over his frame.
“Do you have a problem with us going to the beach?”
“No, of course not.” What a strange question.
“Then why do you always look at us like that?” Megumi demands.
“Like what?”
And of course, in typical Megumi fashion, he goes instantly for the kill: “Like we’ve done something we shouldn’t have,” he hisses, to which Gojo almost chokes.
Because he can’t really explain it - doesn’t know how to put into words the visceral feelings of pain and anger that lance through him at the sight of his students together, fingers touching, knees bumping, laughing under their breaths like nothing but them matters. Like they could sneak off to the neighbourhood children’s park in the middle of the night and share secret kisses beneath the moonlight, far away from the pressures of eating curses and having more power than one could ever know what to do with, feeling as though nobody in the world would ever see them.
Gojo always sees, though. The six eyes let him do nothing but see.
And he gets deja vu at the sight of it; of the vessel he swore to protect and the child he swore to raise coming together in an amalgamation of care, of their raw and naive tenderness that speaks of being clumsily stumbled upon rather than carefully approached. They reek of young love, and a bond that runs deeper than anyone could have possibly predicted.
They also reek of bad decisions. They stink of terrible, terrible mistakes.
Gojo couldn’t save himself from those very same monsters before. He isn’t sure he has the strength to even try a second time, should his students let this - whatever it may be - take a turn for the worse.
“You still haven’t answered my question.”
“What?” Gojo jolts out of his stupor. He’s shaking, he realizes belatedly. Trembling like his body is freezing cold. “What?” He repeats dumbly.
Megumi sighs like he’s dealing with an unfortunately stupid child. “Why do you always look at us like we’ve done something we shouldn’t have?”
Gojo…..has no answer for him. “I don’t know,” he says softly, and wishes he could say something better. I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.
For a few moments, they say nothing. Gojo feels the silence suffocate him. It wraps his throat in a cold, tight grip, sends chills down his spine and shoots ice through his veins. He can’t move, can’t think; he’s so overtaken by fear, and memories of days long past, days now shrouded in a thick fog of death and darkness. He never wanted that life for Megumi - had told himself when he first met him in the middle of that dirty, sunlit alleyway that he’d always, always protect him. That he’d shield him. That he’d give him a happy childhood, one free of all the burdens no one bothered to save him from.
But he’s failing. He can see the dreaded pattern beginning. Re-beginning . Over and over, it fucks itself over. That is the way of the jujutsu sorcerers, perhaps. Maybe it’s inescapable.
Damn him if he doesn’t try, though.
“I’m worried for you two,” he says. It comes out sounding weirdly vulnerable, the shaky syllables foreign on his tongue. Gojo Satoru is the strongest sorcerer who ever lived - he is never vulnerable. He has never shook. “I keep thinking you’re going to crash out on me or something.”
“Well I’m not.” Megumi turns to face the window again, closing his eyes peacefully. “I’m happy, for the first time in ages. Why can’t that be enough for you?”
“It is enough for me.” Gojo is unsure how to explain that that’s all he’s ever wanted, that that’s everything in the world: Megumi and his happiness. Megumi and his joy. Megumi and his laughter, however scarce it may be. Gojo wishes he could give them all and take nothing in return, but the world is unfair, and it fucks itself over; over and over, without fail. He cannot stand by and watch Megumi be happy like this without also allowing him to walk straight into a thorny path full of complicated moral conflicts with potentially no solutions, dizzyingly cyclical in nature. Again, Suguru flashes in his mind’s eye. Again, he remembers how he let him get caught up in his thoughts, of meaning and significance and death, and how in the end, those thoughts destroyed him.
He’s afraid. Intimately and personally, he is utterly terrified that those same thoughts will destroy Megumi too.
“Gojo-sensei.”
Gojo jolts. He’s been silent for too long. “Yes, Megumi?”
For a moment, his student does nothing more than stare at him with a scrutinizing look on his face. It’s eerie, the way they can read each other sometimes, like they’re open books covered in lengthy scriptures, and as Megumi’s gaze flits left to right, up and down, analyzing every quirk to Gojo’s posture, he thinks that in many ways, perhaps that’s exactly what they are to one another. Novels, stories that tell of a pain only they have witnessed together, endlessly.
Finally, Megumi speaks. “You can trust me, you know.”
Oh. That’s not what Gojo expected. “I’m aware of that,” he says, suddenly unsure. Where is this going?
Megumi sighs, shifting in his short, uncomfortable seat, readjusting himself on the stool. There’s a determined glint in his eye. It’s the kind he gets before training, when he thinks this is the day, the day I’ll beat you Gojo-sensei, and rushes forward, never stopping. “I know you have complications about your past, with that Geto guy and everything you guys had to go through,” he declares. “I get it, I do. You only sulk about it every day.”
Gojo grunts grumpily.
“Listen.” Megumi frowns, all business. “I’m scared too. Sometimes I think about how happy I truly am and it makes me worry, because now I have that much more to lose. It’s terrifying.” He shudders visibly, despite the sun still shining through the window, and shakes his head. “It makes me think that being sad is so much easier.”
Jesus. “That’s not -“
“ However .” This time, Megumi actually holds a hand up to silence him, the look on his face imploring. “However - I have never known you to take the easy way out of anything, in all the time I’ve known you.” He lifts an eyebrow. “Right?”
Gojo freezes. Stares. Gulps, because he’s sure there’s something painful lodging his throat. “No,” he eventually whispers, with some difficulty. “I don’t ever take the easy way out.”
Megumi nods like that solves everything. It does and doesn’t, all at once. “Exactly,” he says simply. Then he turns back towards the window and rests his chin on his hand, eyes closed once again, and they lapse into another long, drawn out bout of quiet.
Gojo blinks.
It’s strange sometimes to think of how much Megumi has grown, emotionally as well as physically. Gojo often forgets that he isn’t the same five year old boy he met in that old alleyway, all gangly limbs and distrustful glances, wearing a t-shirt that looked and smelled pretty much ancient. Now he’s fifteen - mature and strong, discovering for perhaps the very first time in his life what it means to cherish friendship and love.
Gojo always meant for him to treasure those factors in his life. Suguru had asked him ages ago, in a memory long gone fuzzy, whether he was the strongest because he was Satoru Gojo, or if he was Satoru Gojo because he was the strongest. Gojo couldn’t answer him back then - he still can’t, not in full confidence - but perhaps that doesn’t matter anymore. Not completely, anyways. Not when the next generation, when the kids, when Megumi is discovering things that are gentle and soft and lovely, free from the shackles of overbearing higher ups, free to grow and fight however he damn well pleases. Maybe strength is redefined now, in something better than he and Suguru had when they were young and naive. Maybe love is painful and hard and violent, and also a battle Megumi can win, whether Gojo could or not.
You can trust me you know. Megumi had been so entirely firm. Gojo wants to wrap him in his arms and tell him he’s never trusted him more than he does now, realizing that his boy is head over heels in love, and also stronger than he ever knew. It’s the greatest relief he’s known in a while, and everything he’s ever wanted.
Maybe he doesn’t need to worry. Maybe Megumi knows what he’s doing. Maybe Megumi is all he needs to be, and all the world will need of him. Maybe he’s just right.
Gojo has gotten so many things in life wrong. His parents, his friends, Riko, Shoko, and then, finally, Suguru. He found himself alone soon enough, the strongest and yet completely isolated from the rest of the world, doomed for the remainder of eternity to drown in the endless sea of his own cursed technique without a single guiding hand. It was suffocating, and painful, and far too much for his already shattered heart to bear.
But then Megumi came along. And as he grew - as he grows - as he helps others and works hard in school and saves the life of some random teenage boy for no reason other than I don’t want him to die , Gojo looks at him and smiles and thinks, “huh. There’s one thing I got right.”
Because his boy is kind. He’s nothing if not kind. He’s supposed to be a hero, his clan’s saving grace, and yet he’s nothing if not kind, despite the power of the ten shadows living within him.
Gojo is so proud it makes his chest ache.
“Kid,” he says softly, breaking their silence, and Megumi turns with an acknowledging hum. The summer breeze catches him in the side of the face from the window, blowing his hair straight. For just a moment, he looks like Toji.
Gojo finds he doesn’t care. “Dont ever change,” he says simply.
From his place in the sunlight, Megumi grins.