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Megumi opens the door to his house, today he didn’t bother waiting for Tsumiki, she was doing some weird ‘test of courage’ with her friends today. She basically told him right after chucking a carton of strawberry milk at his head.
He sits down on the couch instead, flipping mindlessly through the channels before he settles on one that doesn’t seem too cheesy to do his homework to. He began working on his essay first, it was about a book that they were reading.
It was something about a girl losing her family and learning to deal with it, how broken she had been afterwards. Personally he found the whole thing stupid in a sense, he didn’t understand the girls reactions. Why she cried at the funeral and sobbed so loudly at random times. How minuscule things seemed to remind her of something that she once had.
It seemed like a call for attention to him.
He was always told he was colder than most though, he found some girls in his class sometimes sniffling as they read the book. One of them even shared that they knew how the girl felt and afterwards he heard their friends congratulate them on sharing that with the class.
He didn't understand.
He stared at the blank screen for what felt like hours, watching as the cursor blinked in and out mindlessly, after all it was just a program. Just a computer.
He barely got through the first few sentences before slamming his computer shut and working on something else, math, English, science, hell even Jujutsu would be better. At least he understood those things. At least he understood the concepts of them, they were systematic, they weren’t some abstract thing or concept thrown together by mindless emotions.
He could speak English, he could do math, science was all around them, and hell he could do Jujutsu.
It was only reading and writing.
All the concepts so vague, so many interpretations to take on a matter where everyone will agree there is no right answer, yet one of them is more right than the other.
Actually, it began sounding more like Jujutsu the more that he thought about it.
He looked down at his hands and stretched them a little, noticing how cramped they seemed all balled up and clutching a pencil like it was trying to break the poor object.
He sighed and took out some paper, he might as well get something done before Tsumiki gets back, then he can maybe help her with something and if she’s back a little later than usual then Gojo would be there by then to check up on them and make sure that they ‘hadn’t died yet’ according to him.
If anything they should be checking in on him.
He doesn’t know when he hears the doorbell but he does and he gets up opening the door. He knows that it’s Tsumiki, who else would it be? No one visits them this early, not typically at least.
He watches as she smiles at him, it's all genuine too, it reaches her eyes.
“Megumi! How was school?” She asked as Megumi stepped aside so that she could walk in properly, pushing her jacket off and onto the coat rack as she walked over towards the kitchen, already digging through the fridge to find something to make for them.
“It was fine,”
“Mhm, y’know I do think that we should discuss the whole ‘beating people up’ thing,” She said, she took out some meats and vegetables, along with some sauces and spices and he noticed the noodle packet in their hands too.
“Ramen?” he asked.
“Ah! Don’t try to change the subject mister!” Tsumiki giggled, she set down the ingredients and began washing the vegetables and Megumi watched her work. “Seriously, you can’t just keep hurting people because they make you mad Megumi, what’s a life like that?” she asked, she was worried he knew that it was in her eyes yet he couldn’t find it within himself to meet them.
“The life I’m going to live,” He states blandly and watches as Tsumiki seems to sigh and look away from him. She still didn’t fully understand Jujutsu and the society sometimes Megumi thinks that she thinks he’s insane, she wouldn’t be far off though.
“That’s no way to live,”
“I don’t have much of a choice,” his voice is drowned out by the sizzling of a pan and the starting of the oven, it looks like she’s boiling water now.
He sighs and sits at the table watching her carefully.
“Alright- whatever, I just don’t get it is all. I mean, sure you have to fight…” she trails off as if looking for the right word. “Monsters-”
“Curses,”
“-exactly, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t be kind. It doesn’t mean that you have to go around fighting your way around things just to get what you want like there’s some sort of power struggle right?” she asked.
He wants to laugh, if only she knew.
But she doesn’t so he only nods. “Yeah, I guess,” he doesn’t guess, he knows that he has to fight. Fight because it’s the only thing that’s keeping the both of them alive at this point. Gojo would’ve never taken them in if he couldn’t.
He has to fight.
“See?” Tsumiki turned to him, a smug smile on her face as she continued cooking.
He doesn’t know when she’s done but she is now. She sets the bowl of ramen down, one for her and one for him.
He begins eating and halfway through he notices something about her seems off. She seems to be breathing a little heavy and her eyes seem tired, not to mention something just feels off. He doesn’t know what though.
He really doesn’t.
She’s halfway through her food when she stands up suddenly giggling a little to herself. “Sorry Megumi- guess I’m a little tired today, I’ll finish these later just give me a minute…” her voice grows tired, sleepy.
Before he knows it he hears a loud thump and he knows what’s going on now, he knows what he was feeling.
Cursed energy, the slightest bit running through Tsumiki’s body right before she collapsed.
He stands up in an instant rushing down to her side to check for any injuries. “Tsumiki!” he shouts soon after, but there’s no response and when he gets a better look at her he sees something.
A symbol on her head.
She’s cursed.
Tsumiki was cursed.
He doesn’t know why it doesn’t hit him right then why he goes over to his phone and calls Gojo, he doesn't remember their conversation, not vividly at least. He remembers the way his voice sounded dull and more monotonous than usual, almost lifeless and it made him wonder if for a second that was even him speaking.
The next minute Gojo was there, he could tell that he was studying Tsumiki with his Six Eyes before crouching down and scooping her up.
“Well I’ve got good news and bad news,” Gojo says, his voice doesn’t sound like it usually does. He’s wary of Megumi, he can tell. “Which one do you want first?”
“I don’t care,”
“Alright! Well, good news is that Tsumiki is fine from what I can tell. She doesn’t seem to be in any pain or harm at the moment and from what I can tell it’s going to stay like that. However, bad news is that Six Eyes can’t exactly get a good read on what’s going on other than that Tsumiki is in a dormant state at the moment from visiting what was likely a curse site. This state can be deactivated by the one who casts the spell however…” Gojo mutters and laughs nervously looking away.
“What?” Megumi’s not in the mood for this, not really.
“The person who activated this curse made it kinda like this, Tsumiki is now at the mercy of the curse. Whether or not she wakes up or not, is up to it,” the fact that she could die goes unsaid between the both of them.
“Oh, okay,”
“So for right now the best idea would be to take her to a hospital, wanna come?” Gojo asks, but he knows that Megumi is gonna accept, Megumi knows he’s gonna too.
Megumi doesn’t say anything as Gojo gets someone to drive them over, he doesn’t know what favor he pulled because Igichi is there in about a minute flat and in about fifteen minutes they’re at the hospital and Tsumiki is hooked up to an IV and on the bed.
Gojo exits the room for some privacy but Megumi doesn’t know if he needs it.
What is he supposed to feel?
She’s not dead, just not here.
He doesn’t know why Gojo left, he’s not gonna have a breakdown. He won’t. He’s stronger than that. He’s stronger than that.
Time seems to not exist anymore by the time that he’s home, he looks at the counter at the ramen that she cooked and maybe it’s then that he finally feels something . It feels horrible though, it feels like someone ripped open through his chest and dug around pressing down on his heart, forcing it to stop.
His lungs feel like they don’t work anymore, the more he breathes in the more compressed he feels and when he breathes out he feels light headed and still attacked by the pressure, but not breathing isn’t an option for obvious reasons.
His mind is running faster than he can think and for a minute he thinks that he’s going to pass out. He keeps staring at the counter like it’s going to do something.
Like it’s going to bring her back.
But she’s not dead, just not here.
Not dead, but not here.
Not here.
Why isn’t she here?
He doesn’t know how but he’s sitting on the floor now, his knees gave way to his body and now he’s staring, staring, and staring. What’s he supposed to do?
He doesn’t really have anyone right now does he? Not anyone that he lives with at least.
He feels something touch his shoulder and he instantly smacks it off, he hears the clicking of footsteps but not the sigh that follows.
He doesn’t know that his eyes were shut until someone tells him to open them, he does. He sees Gojo, he’s sitting down weird like he always does but Megumi ignores it.
His blindfold is off right now and he’s looking at him questioningly. “Megumi, are you alright?”
They both know the answer so he doesn’t say anything.
Gojo laughs dryly, there’s no humor in it and for some reason that makes him feel worse than he already did. “Don’t worry, it’s gonna be alright,” he feels Gojo flick a strand of his hair out of his face and bites the inside of his cheek.
“I’m gonna figure this out, but in the meantime you should eat something,” Gojo said, his eyes drifted over towards the leftover food sitting on the counter and sighs grabbing Megumi’s hand and pulling him up.
“Come on, finish everything up and then I’ll clean up everything,” Gojo pulls over him and sits him down at the table.
It’s weird eating without Tsumiki.
With each bite he feels like he wants to throw up, he wants to stop eating but he knows that Gojo will just sit there with him until he finishes his food.
The food the Tsumiki made.
It’s a weird feeling, eating the food that someone who isn’t there made, or maybe he’s just being dramatic. Yeah maybe that’s it, he doesn’t cry though. He thinks that’s what’s probably shocking the Gojo most right now.
He feels like he wants to, his eyes are slightly watery but he doesn’t. He eats his food, shoving piece by piece in his mouth until it's all done. He looks back at the kitchen, there isn’t much to clean. Tsumiki never really made a mess when she cooked anyways.
He stares at it blankly, watching the stove and the pots as if they were on again, boiling and simmering. As if at any moment Tsumiki would place something in them, as if she would appear from thin air.
But she doesn’t, and he doesn’t know what he was thinking in the first place.
“Come on, to bed you go,” Gojo knows where he’s looking, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead Megumi feels his arms wrap around him in a half awkward hug, as if to try and comfort him.
He doesn’t cry.
He doesn’t know why, but he can’t. This doesn’t feel real to him, not right now at least. Maybe in the morning it might hit him, but he needs to sleep in order for that to happen and that’s the last thing he thinks he can do at the moment.
Even so Gojo’s leading him to his room and then his bed, telling him to get dressed, brush his teeth and then sleep.
He does the first two things. However he can’t do the last.
He lays in bed and feels his eyes water.
He cries.