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“I like you.”
Itadori’s hand freezes above the figurine she’d just been reaching for to dust. Settling back down onto the balls of her feet she turns, a question lodged in her expression. The feather duster in lax grip feels silly with how serious the expression that greets her is. She honestly hadn’t noticed him walk in, but that could have easily been chalked up to her hearing loss.
“Uh,” she looks over Fushiguro’s pursed lips and direct gaze. He wasn’t a typical eye-contact guy. You either got the sorta rare full stare or routine avoidance and an odd balance between them that looked painfully calculated. So, he obviously wanted something. And was thinking this out enough to relegate. “I like you too? You know you’re one of my greatest friends.”
“No Yuuji,” he states, mouth twisting like it was warring against him. He says her name like he’s trying to get attention as if she weren’t already looking at him. “That’s not what I mean. I really like you. Like not as a friend.”
“You mean—” Itadori pauses. Fushiguro nods with a sigh.
He twists the scarf in his hands, causing a bit of the snow to fall onto her apartment’s carpeted floors. It’d been a gift from Itadori a few winters ago before they’d graduated from their unusual high school—an appeasement of her worries bundled with teasings of how often he shoved his freezing feet near hers during movie nights. Somehow it found its way frequently to her place through a mix of his forgetfulness, and it being wrapped around her as she protested. For him to actually have it for once almost surprised her.
“Yes.”
“Like—”
“Yes.”
“But Kaito—” she blurts out. Was this a practical joke? Has she misunderstood something? This almost feels like one of her roommate's many inane pranks but Kugisaki is away for the holidays with her girlfriend. “You know I’m dating him.”
“I know.”
“So what…are you talking about?” she finishes lamely, cringing at the unintended cruelty via her genuine confusion.
“I,” he starts, “I don’t expect you to say anything. I only…I just. I had to say something.”
Itadori Yuuji didn’t really get confessed to. It wasn’t that it didn’t happen. There’d been some times in her middle school and then a few times from clients that came to their school with cases and others during her early undergrad whispered urgently with looks over their shoulders as if confessing to her was some nerve-wracking thing to be apprehensive about.
But those had been easy. Sure they’d been awkward and uncomfortable and taken many reassurances from both sides. And in the one case with Yuki, who had been the first actual friend to do it, Itadori had felt a lot of the same and said much of the same except for some small differences. It was acceptance and understanding and the gentlest of turning down she could manage.
(Only Yuki had a different outcome because she knew Yuki. He’d asked for just one date and Itadori who had always banked on a well of unfamiliarity excuses had come up dry and fresh out of reasons to decline.)
They all were surprising. Yet, none of them were…this. None of them made absolutely no sense. They were out of the blue, and from people she didn’t know and thus unpredictable but not something that went against what she knew to be true. This wasn’t a stranger or a blushing friend. She wants to ask what’s the part she’s not getting here but Itadori knows these types of things are a tightrope walk of grace.
“Ok,” she mumbles numbly. “Thank you for telling me.”
Fushiguro’s face sours at that. Before he’d looked uncomfortable, unsure. Now he steps forward and sets down his scarf at Itadori’s kitchen table, a vexation between his brows.
“I don’t expect this to change anything,” he mutters. “I know you’re together with him. But I’m through with lying; I hate it. And I think I’ll die if I have to go on even one more blind date.”
Her eyes widen in understanding. “Oh god.”
“No, don’t do that,” he chastises with a grimace. “You didn’t know, nor had you any way of knowing. Just— I don’t care what you have to tell Yuuta and Nobara or whoever else roped you into this; it’s not some failing of yours. I just don’t need setting up with any girls.”
“Because you’re already…” she mumbles in realization as the last few months of Fushiguro’s groaning and avoidance and discomfort bled through her memories into front and center of her brain.
“Yes,” he stresses, with suprasegmental urgency.
“But don’t you want to move on?” she says before quickly amending to: “I mean don’t you deserve something better? Instead of carrying on for, oh god— Megumi…how long?”
They’d been trying to set him up for months, roughly the same amount of time she’d been together with Yuki. He’d been the odd one out of their trio and it felt like the right thing to do at the time, especially as he seemed so lonely and unusually grouchy. Which now she was realizing hadn’t been because he was single or at least not in the way Itadori had assumed.
“That doesn’t matter. I’m only telling you because I don’t want to have this thing, this secret between us anymore. I needed you to know those stupid dates weren’t your fault or that you were letting me down or something like that.” He sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Damn Maki was right, this really does feel better.”
If he was being evasive then it was probably longer than she thought. So, essentially, for a long time, she hadn’t realized that one of her closest friends had feelings for her; she hadn’t even realized he had feelings in the first place.
“Which brings me to the second thing I wanted to talk to you about.” Itadori tenses, not sure what else he could possibly have to say. It was still odd to her that he had not made any inclination that he was going to bombard her with any of this. But then again she supposed Fushiguro had a knack for quietly appearing in places without explanation. “I’m leaving. At the start of the next semester, I’ll be going abroad.”
“Wait, what?” she propped up a hand on the wall beside her, feeling as if things had suddenly begun spinning around her. “But we’re in the middle of the school year.”
“I know. But some new curse forces offered to comp me my studies if I came to work with them,” Fushiguro explains calmly.
“What?” This didn’t make any sense. She knew of the few passions Fushiguro had, none of them were studying sorcery or academics in other countries. He barely liked leaving the house let alone his room. Sure he found plenty of enjoyment in expanding his technique, but cursed energy with other people?
“It’s a great opportunity,” he says.
“I don’t understand.”
“Yuuji,” he says, “I can’t do this anymore. I thought I could deal with this whole Kaito thing but it turns out, I’m just not that good of a friend.”
“Is this because of that mission? Because everyone knows you made a mistake—”
“It wasn’t,” he states flatly. “You all saw the best in me and I took advantage of that. Let my technique do that to him. I was surprised to see that he lived.” Her hands cover her face, stepping back until she falls into one of the dining table’s chairs. “I’m not a good friend, Yuuji. And I won’t get any better. It wasn’t a fluke even with…whatever Nobara wants to label that part of my technique as.”
She’d been assuring her boyfriend for weeks that it wasn’t what he’d assumed.
“I can’t do this Yuuji. It’s too much for me. I was already at my limit and then…obviously it’s not your fault. This is why I have to go.”
“But our friendship—”
“We can’t be friends. I don’t want to be friends.”
“How can you say that?” she asks toiling between anger at his lies, confusion of how much she’d been unaware of, hurt he’d want to go this far, and fear of what this was going to mean for them. She barely recognized the person before her.
“You don’t know what it’s like.” The anguish on his face wounded her, the fact that she’d be unknowingly making him feel this way was crushing. “And, I’m simply not strong enough for it anymore. I barely was. I’m not used to wanting things like this.”
“Can’t we just, I mean surely we can find a way around this? I don’t have to bring Kaito around you anymore and we can plan for—”
“That’s exactly what I don’t want. You don’t have to change anything, Yuuji; I’m leaving,” he lowers his head, “It’s not just about Kaito. Even if you broke up with him tomorrow, I wouldn’t be able to take it. Friendship isn’t enough anymore.”
“But—”
“There’s no point in trying to persuade me. It’s all already been finalized; I just came to tell you before I left.”
“When are you going?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” She must have heard wrong.
“Yes.”
“Tomorrow? As is the day after today, tomorrow? And you only came to tell me now?”
“I didn’t want you to talk me out of this.”
“Then—” she rises partially from her seat, chest rising and falling.
“But honestly even just seeing you would have been enough.”
She drops back, mouth agape, as if she’d forgotten what he’d initially stormed in here with, as if she only just then felt the weight of his words and what they implied. “This is so unfair!”
“I know; I’m sorry.”
“How long?” she asks weakly. “How long are you going?”
“Just this semester for now,” he says.
“And I can’t even visit? Or call?” she asks, voice wavering, “Because we’re not friends.”
Fushiguro sighs, looking as if he was seconds from falling into the chair across from her. “You said it yourself, I need to get over this.”
“And you can’t do that while still talking?”
Fushiguro laughs dejectedly. “No Yuuji, I can’t.”
“So that’s it? We’re just not friends anymore? Just because you decided? We’ll be what? Enemies? Strangers? Acquaintances?”
“This isn’t easy for me.”
“Yeah but,” she buries her face in her hands. “Is this really right?”
“Yuuji,” he whispers hoarsely. “You’ll have everyone else.”
“But none of them will be you,” she hiccups, rubbing hot tears from her eyes in embarrassment. She had never pictured she could have such close friends. The comfort had come to surround her life with a domesticity she hadn’t realized was so susceptible to disruption. Her face contorted as she reevaluated how incorrect she’d been about her paradise, how she’d managed to miss the pain of someone so dear. Perhaps if she’d been more aware. Her head bows lower at the hand across her shoulder blades. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” he tsks. “I’m the one at fault. It’ll be ok, you’ll see.”
“You don’t know that.”
“But I do. Because you’re you.”
Itadori wished she could be mad at him without making her stomach feel like it was about to collapse.
“When do you have to go?”
“I should have left a few minutes ago to finish my packing.”
“And I can’t come help?”
“Yuuji…”
“There’s nothing I can do to make you stay? I mean if I, if we—”
His hand freezes across her back. “Please don’t finish that sentence.”
“Fine,” she sniffs, gathering herself. “Go. I understand.”
“Bye Yuuji,” he whispers, getting up. Itadori doesn’t look up to see him go. She doesn’t move at all or even know when he leaves, sitting there at that table as if her world hadn’t just ended.
But Itadori’s world doesn’t end. Or maybe it does and Itadori just sort of learns how to deal. With the world ending on her. Because she still goes to classes and sees her friends and tries new recipes and takes art workshops.
She can’t particularly remember the weeks after Fushiguro had suddenly confessed his feelings and fled—though it’s not like she particularly wanted to. Nonetheless, the time had still passed and though the sudden break in communication had led to many a night spent curled in Kugisaki’s bed with her or crying into Yuki’s shoulder, she managed. The no contact even begins to help since there are fewer reminders of the vacancy. Of course, there are still the pieces of him he’d forgotten, the clothes he’d left at their apartment, the classes he no longer takes with her, the nights they don’t spend walking together, the cigarettes she no longer has to knock out of his hands nor pretends she’d didn't keep a lighter around for, the parties she doesn’t find him sneaking out of, the notes on his guitar that he no longer tries to teach her.
But at least she can start to forget the exact details of him. What he sounded like after a day of classes, what his hair looked like after a mission, what his cursed energy smelt like, what his hands felt like after a recording session.
“With all your moping you look like you’re mourning a dead lover,” Momo points out once during a study session.
Yuki laughs, butting shoulders with Itadori. “But I’m right here.”
“Whatever,” Momo says with an eye roll as Itadori reluctantly giggles.
Yuki would ask her about it later that night when it was just the two of them, nervously unsure what to do with his hands as he looked away from her. But she waves him off and tells him it’d been finals getting to her.
Maybe she shouldn’t have treated it so lightly as he breaks up with her a few weeks later, citing a preference for friendship. She should probably be sadder about it, but nothing particularly changes in their relationship.
And then Itadori graduates, and things get easier because things change around her and there’s less to remember. She starts her new part-time work, which leaves time for curse hunting, moves with Kugisaki to another part of the city, makes new friends.
She even runs back into Ozawa, a childhood friend, and the two of them start reconnecting. Itadori can tell she’s found something with how much taller she stands, the joy cradled in her face, the power she holds. Ozawa is a blend of heavily thought-out ponderings she shares in flowing conversation and the rafts she flows out for Itadori to join her in navigating. With her head held high and her outstretched arm, Itadori joins her easily.
“You know you have a crush on her right?” Kugisaki asks her once, interrupting Itadori mid-story. Itadori set down her sandwich, gaping. Instinctively she wants to deny it, she hadn’t even thought of being with others since Yuki.
(Though it’s not like she really thought it before him either.)
“She has a girlfriend,” Itadori says. There was nothing to think about.
“So?” Kugisaki shrugs, continuing to dig into her wrap. “Doesn’t mean you can’t have a crush.”
“Uh, but crushes are kind of gentle though, no? A person you want to hug and listen to. That’s how it felt with Kaito.”
“And you don’t feel that way with Yoko?”
“No, she… is so much, with her I want so much mo—” she turns to Kugisaki. “Oh.”
“Yup,” Kugisaki takes another bite, moving away the tinfoil as she works down the wrap. Reaching for some napkins she dabs at the mess pooling beneath her fingers. “You’re a little bit of a lesbian, huh?”
“Is this what it’s like?” she asks. “Her girlfriend makes me feel weird.”
“Weird, like you want to join or kill her?”
“Neither of those!” Itadori frowns.
“But kinda somewhere between those right?”
“Oh god,” she whispers. “What am I going to do?”
Kugisaki shrugs. “Same thing other gay girls do: pray on it.”
Praying on it turns out to mean hanging out with Ozawa with all the butterflies and making polite conversation with her smart girlfriend who spends all day with her startup and her nose buried in her laptop, who standing beside makes Itadori feel a bit stupid and loud. But Ozawa smiles so Itadori doesn’t mind too much.
She thinks about him less and her life carries on and she can handle that. Things are in a place that she can handle. The day comes and she weathers. She has her friends, she’s a bit of a lesbian, dating apps occasionally aren’t bad, curses die, flowers grow by the row of graves she speaks with, her job increases her pay, her bus route gets an extra bus stop, and so on.
When the curse that blasts a hole through her stomach gets her, it’s because Itadori is so healed and moved on that she freezes at a flash of white at the edges of her vision. Later she’d be sure she’d imagined it but for just a moment she was sure she caught the escape of a quick snowy hare.
She’d been running late for the movie Ozawa bought them tickets for, the book she had been meaning to return to her is tucked somewhere in the satchel she’d begun to carry to places. The nice outfit she’d picked has holes in it now though and Itadori probably won’t make it before the commercials end.
The pain is exquisite but Itadori’s brain blocks it out quickly as her body begins to try to repair.
She doesn’t remember falling or being caught.
“Am I dreaming?” she mumbles looking up at darkly circled eyes. The room echoes with whirring machinery that she can just barely pick up. She thinks she can smell the specific brand of Ieiri’s cigarettes that she’d finally learned to differentiate. She couldn’t tell how long she’d been looking at those eyes.
There must be a room, but Itadori can only sense shaded warmth blotting out the rest of her senses. She relaxes back into it.
“I was wrong.” Oh, Itadori must be dreaming. It was one of those dreams. “Yuuji...” His voice wavers, and he drops his forehead to hers. He smells like laundry. “I was so wrong. I’m sorry.”
“You’re here?” she breathes in deeply, a hand weakly lifts to poke him, to see how far her dream would go, if she could count all the rings in his ear. But the journey is farther than she expects and she huffs as her arm begins to strain.
Fushiguro catches her trembling hand. “Mhm. Not going anywhere.”
“But you left.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeats. “That was wrong of me.”
“Are you really here?” she asks, brain feeling a little fuzzy. Straining as her eyelids become heavy, she attempts to memorize warmth against her skin.
“I am.”
“If I close my eyes, will you be gone?”
“No. I’m never going to leave your side again.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
She nods.
“So you’re really over Yuuji?” Kugisaki challenges.
Itadori coughs, hand flying to her sore torso as she sits up from her bed. From over on the beanbag she’s plopped herself on Kugisaki shrugs. To his credit, Fushiguro looks unruffled by the foot of her bed.
It’s still so weird to see him in her room, to see him at all, breathing and just existing. He looks a bit older and still so familiar she can’t stop staring at him. Some part in the back of her brain says she should be mad at him, or that things should be awkward, or that she should apologize. But the relief she’d felt upon waking to still see him there plus the exhaustion that came from recovery eating into her day made her simply want to overlook all of that stuff. It took all of her energy not to sag at the memory of being told how lucky she’d been to survive.
“Yes,” Fushiguro says. “I have a girlfriend now.”
“You do?” she leans forward, wide-eyed. “Bullshit.”
Fushiguro flips her off. “She’s back in the States.”
“And how does she feel about you being here now?”
“She doesn’t love the long distance, but she’s supportive,” he answers.
Itadori’s chest squeezes thinking about the life she wasn’t privy to. She resists the urge to frown. Against her better judgment, she doesn’t change the conversation topic.
“A girlfriend?” she asks carefully, mouthing flipping into a rueful smile. “You really didn’t need those blind dates.”
“She asked me out,” he says. “Took me by surprise.”
Itadori doesn’t like the mental image. The negative reaction makes her sigh and lean back in bed, hating that her first instinct wasn’t to just be supportive. The idea was to be as welcoming as possible, not judging things.
“She’s going to come visit?” Kugisaki asks.
“Nah, she’ll just save up to move here since she knows I’m going to be here now.”
“Permanently?” Itadori asks, still in disbelief.
Fushiguro looks over at her. “Yes.”
Kugisaki laughs. “God, you’re so full of shit.”
“Hm, how are those applications coming?” he asks and then she shrieks and throws a shoe at his head.
Having Fuhshiguro back isn’t all that crazy, Itadori soon learns. He fits easily into their lives with the addition of some extra stories to share. It doesn’t take much to acclimate to him interweaving. He joins them on outings with their friends, he’s over most days at their apartment, he attends all of their missions (and even reluctantly shows off some of his techniques), he bickers with both her and Kugisaki, he teaches them words in English. Although the transition is rather seamless, there are still clumsy moments and conversations Itadori chooses not to have around him about her crush—not wanting to make things off or awkward.
The first time she mentions it is by mistake. A night out on a Friday after a week of getting back into the groove of work found her eager to take Kugisaki’s offer for drinks. It wasn’t long before she found herself resting her head against the bar, listening to her friend’s conversations as she enjoyed the pleasant buzz of the alcohol.
“What’s with all the sighs?” Fushiguro asks, quiet enough not to take away from the main conversation eruption between Kugisaki and the rest of their friends.
“Work,” she complains, turning up to look at him cocking his head over in her direction.
“But you love your work.”
“I do.”
“Then why do you keep…” he trails off, following her gaze before she can avert it, “staring at that girl.”
“I’m not!” she answers quickly. Kugisaki takes that moment to fling her arm around Itadori’s shoulder, leaning in on her with a giggle, clearly having overheard their conversation. Groaning, Itadori closes her eyes in preparation for whatever awful thing she was going to say.
“Megumi, you can’t seriously not know about Yuuji’s crush?”
“Nobara,” she hisses, stomach twisting from what was either a mix of too much alcohol, embarrassment, nerves, or some blend of all three. From the corner of her eye, she peeks at Fushiguro.
“What?” she looks over at her, raising her eyebrow. “He’s over you, remember.”
“You have a crush?” he says it easily enough and just like that some of the weight shifts off of her conscience.
“Yeah,” she answers meekly.
“On that girl Yuko, from like way back,” she hitches a thumb over in Ozawa’s direction where she’s nursing a beer and leaning sleepily on her girlfriend. Noticing their attention she waves over tentatively with a confused expression. Kugisaki flashes her a grin and a head shake. “And beside her is her girlfriend.”
“Oh,” Fushiguro says, looking back over at her.
Itadori groans again, shoving Kugisaki’s face away as her cheeks color, mentally blaming her for this situation. Kugisaki laughs, leaving as quickly as she had come as she falls over to her other seat neighbor to cajole them into taking another shot with her.
“It’s so lame,” Itadori mutters. “I really do like Rin, I think she’s great for Yuko.”
Fushiguro flicks her forehead. “It’s not lame. You’re allowed to want things.”
“You don’t get it,” she bemoans. “Yuko is my friend, but it’s kinda like torture! With Rin. And I wish it wasn’t. I can’t help how I feel and it makes hanging out with her so not awesome! And horrible because then she mentions Rin and I’m an asshole. ”
At the sound of laughter, Itadori looks up. “What?”
“I don’t get it?” he asks with a wry twist to his mouth. Taking a long sip of his drink, he knocks ankles with her under the bar.
Itadori sits up suddenly, pushing past the rush to her head. “Megumi ‘m sorry.”
He pinches her cheek. “Why are you apologizing?”
“I didn’t mean to make you feel like this,” she says, a bit slurred from the pinch.
He rolls his eyes, releasing her cheek. “That was a long time ago and I only meant it so you’d realize I’m probably like the one person who does understand all the stuff you’re talking about.”
“Thanks,” she says, rubbing the reddened spot, “it really sucks.”
“Yeah,” Fushiguro says. “It really does.”
Itadori is standing in her kitchen three days later. There’s gentle sunlight still streaming in from their sea foam curtains, golden from the elongating days that a few months ago would have ensured trepid darkness. She’s by the sink, an older mug in hand as she rubs her sponge over the ceramic in repeated circles. Humming, Itadori thinks about the cookies Ozawa had shared with her, relaying that they had come via a recipe of Rin’s. She sighs, guilty that had wanted them to taste bad. She wonders if she should bring it up to Fushiguro.
Itadori drops the cup. It shatters upon impact, though the pieces are luckily contained in the sink. Her mouth parts, hands frozen in mid-air still.
When Fushiguro had first confessed, Itadori did not understand. It made no sense to her why he would ever fly away over something like that. Fushiguro didn’t run and he didn’t buckle in uncomfortable situations. She had thought about Yuki at the time, rationalizing that she wouldn’t mind if he dated someone else and finding only support within herself. The fact then that Fushiguro would go so far had felt hurtful.
Itadori thinks about Ozawa. The warm squeezing crush to her chest, the way her laughter made it hard to breathe, the soft brushes that felt like she was being lit on fire, the way she couldn’t stop picturing her at all parts of the day, with her.
Itadori presses her cold hands to pinkening cheeks as she sucks in mouthfuls of air. Fushiguro had liked her. Enough to leave. Fushiguro had probably felt like this. Fushiguro had probably felt like this about her. Squeezing her eyes shut, she spun around in place a few times, hopped from leg to leg.
She can’t explain it but she suddenly wants to sprint out of their apartment and go on a run. She wants to punch something or scream. Itadori can’t stop moving. Of course, she knew Fushiguro had romantic feelings for her. She’d already processed it and moved on. But, standing there, she wants nothing more than to go find Fushiguro.
It was Fushiguro. She knew Fushiguro. Fushiguro who had been beside her for so long, who she’d begun to think she’d cursed forever. That Fushiguro had felt like this about her! For a long time probably!
Until recently. With a weak cry, she sinks to the floor. Wrapping her arms around her knees, she remembered why Fushiguro had returned. That he had a girlfriend he would be bringing over soon enough. That he no longer felt this way. Which was fine, Itadori had no reason to care about him or the girl he now felt like this about. So, she’ll stop thinking about it.
Except Itadori can’t stop thinking about it.
She suddenly has this horrible voice in her head that won’t shut up when she’s next to Fushiguro. Anytime she’s next to him it’s like there’s a massive label on him that reads ‘This person used to like you but now has a girlfriend!’ and it follows him no matter what she tries to do. It makes her mess up her words around him, trip despite her perfect eye-hand coordination, misplace things, and otherwise make it seem like she couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that he used to like her and now had a girlfriend!
It’s why she chooses to sit as far as she can from him during Kugisaki’s birthday, hoping his attention will be caught by her unwrapping gifts in the center of the room. Their apartment was lit up with the many streamers and fairy lights she and Kugisaki had hung, and filled with a teaming collection of their friends and acquaintances.
“My dear Hana Banana, how do you not know what a kabedon is?” Kugisaki chortles, shaking Kurusu back and forth.
“I never learned about things like these!” Kurusu defends with a splutter.
“Yuko, Rin,” she announces, as if calling out to her subjects. “You guys show her how it’s done.”
“A kabedon?” Ozawa asks with a head tilt. Itadori realizes she hadn’t noticed her or Rin in attendance even when they were only a few seats over from her. Ozawa smiles as she catches her eye.
“You don’t know either?” Kugisaki laughs harder in disbelief, setting aside her gifts to stand. Beside her, Maki catches the drink tumbling from her lap that she’d forgotten about, setting it aside carefully. “Who here knows? Yuuta senpai?”
“God,” Okkotsu groans. “Please not me Nobara.”
She points in his direction. “It’s my birthday. And your boyfriend is here.”
Inumaki blinks. Without any further prompting, he turns to Okkotsu, leaning forward to place his hand against the couch cushion behind him while the other boy turns scarlet and pushes him away with a splutter.
“Another,” Kugisaki cheers, clapping and laughing. “I want to see another.”
She pulls a giggling Hana to her feet and nudges her until she starts clapping excitedly along with her. Spinning them both, Kugisaki looks around the room while Maki shakes her head behind her with a fond smile. Itadori would laugh along too if not for how Kugisaki stops in front of her with an unreadable expression.
“Yuuji,” she announces. “And Megumi! Your turn.”
Itadori can feel her face turn red in embarrassment as she begins to refuse, shaking her head with a shy grin. At the same time, she tries communicating to Kugisaki with her eyes how bad of an idea this is. But she only mouths ‘he’s over it’ to her followed by shouts of it being her birthday. Beside her Hana covers her face.
“You must,” Okkotsu yells. “It’s only fair!”
Floundering, Itadori looks over at Fushiguro to gauge his reaction only to find him already staring at her. To her surprise he shrugs and stands up as Kugisaki prompts him, shoving him over toward Itadori.
“Hi,” he says standing before her while Kugisaki continues clamoring at other people to comply with her wishes, pointing at more people.
Itadori gets to her feet. “Hi.”
“C’mon party people,” Kugisaki echoes. “I don’t have all day. Megumi we all know this should be no challenge to you with your very real girl—”
Shoving Fushiguro, Itadori pushes him toward the nearest wall slamming her hand down by his shoulder. Behind them, Kugisaki erupts in applause before her attention is caught by another pair to torment with her ideals of whimsy. Breathing out a sigh of relief Itadori turns to look back, apology ready at the tip of her tongue. She hadn’t meant to do any of that; she had just wanted to get out of that situation as quickly as possible. Without Kugisaki talking about his girlfriend and without Fushiguro putting any sort of romantic move on her. Because Itadori’s head was a mess. For some reason.
Looking back over at him though, she freezes instead. Fushiguro stares back at her wide-eyed, peeking through the fingers he has splayed over his red face. Although Fushiguro could sometimes be bashful, he would normally turn away in his shyness, lash out a few times in frustration maybe. But, she had never seen him look like this.
“Oh, um,” Itadori says unintelligently, moving back. “Sorry.”
“It’s ok,” he says hoarsely, leaving before she can mutter anything else.
If Itadori thought Fushiguro was plaguing her daily musings beforehand, she now can’t get his expression out of her mind.
“I don’t think I like Yuko anymore,” she tells Kugisaki over coffee.
“Huh?” Kugisaki asks. “Yeah no shit, you haven’t mentioned her in like ages.”
“Oh yeah,” she says, taking a long sip of her tea. “I guess I haven’t.”
“So, you got someone new in mind?” Kugisaki asks with an eyebrow waggle. “Or should I say someone old?”
“You make it sound like I’m after some grandma.”
Kugisai rolls her eyes. “You might as well be.”
“Wait,” Itadori pauses with sudden understanding. “You know?”
“Yuuji don’t be mean,” Kugisaki wails, thunking her hand down on the table and causing their drinks to jump and spill a little. “Do you think I’m stupid?”
“No just,” she covers her face, “I was hoping it wasn’t that obvious.”
“Well,” Kugisaki pours sugar into her drink, stirring it with a wooden spoon. “We all hope for a lot of things. The real question is, what are you going to do about it?”
Itadori reaches for a pink sugar packet, mimicking her actions and placing the torn paper over Kugisaki’s. “I guess talk to him? I don’t know, is that unfair? Do you think I should try to get over it?”
“I think you should get payback.”
Coughing, Itadori thumps her chest with a closed fist. “That’s not what this is!”
“What, just making an observation? Besides, do you really think you have anything to worry about?”
Itadori looks at her, thinking. Taking a long sip from her drink, she ponders while leaning back in her seat. She thinks about Kugisaki’s birthday party, about their night out, about the many nights out, and parties and conversations and lunches and texts and calls and mending of a relationship that had deteriorated for years. “Hm.”
“You’re not over me,” she says. As the words come out of her mouth, she realizes she knows them to be true. It was supposed to be a question but the end of her sentence trails into certainty. As she sat down next to him on the couch Fushiguro set down the book he’d been evidently reading from as he waited for her to get back from work. She wonders if Kugisaki had given him the spare key she kept forgetting to hand over.
He looks surprised. “No, I’m not.”
“Do you even have a girlfriend?”
He turns his head away. “Does it matter?”
“Why wouldn’t it?”
Fushiguro sighs. “Yuuji…”
“Why did you come back?” she asks. “Was it because I wasn’t dating Kaito anymore?”
“No. It was because I was stupid and made a dumb decision. Kaito was just an unexpected bit of good fortune.” He pauses. “Sorry.”
“It’s ok,” Itadori says, oddly finding his words a bit funny. “That’s really what it was?”
“I missed you,” he answers plainly. “And I discovered that that was far worse of a pain than not having you.”
“I missed you too.” He offers her a small smile. “But why then? Why after so long?”
“Well, it’s easy to block it out when you get used to it. You get used to the knife in your side, and living with it becomes easier. And then you went and almost got yourself killed and ripped it out of me.” His face turns ashen. It wasn’t something they often talked about, more so an unspoken agreement not to address how he tagged along on missions and cautiously watched over her, appearing almost instantly by her side at any sign of danger. Itadori didn’t bring it up when he and Kugisaki would check with her first after missions. In return, they didn’t ask her to stop fighting or bog her down with endless questions about her condition.
“Sitting there, I realized I’d never been emptier. It was awful, waiting for you to wake up. I couldn’t stop thinking about all the time I’d been wasting away from you. How much more time I wanted, how much I wanted. You were lying right in front of me but you were so much further than when you’d been someone else’s.”
“I—” The story he’d told her was that he’d intended to fly in that day as a surprise visit to announce his impending return but that Itadori’s injury had been an unexpected coincidence—oddly occurring right after he’d arrived in Japan. “You really didn’t get over me in all that time?”
“No, there’s no getting over you,” he sighs. “At least now I don’t have to pretend anymore.”
“But, all those times I talked about Yuko…”
“Yuuji,” he turns his knees to face her, “I always want you to talk to me. No matter what. Getting to be beside you now…I wouldn’t trade anything for this. I want you to be happy. So, I’m ok with whatever you want to do, as long as she’s good and you like her—I’ll support you.”
Itadori looks at him in horror. “How could I ever do something so cruel?”
“Wha— cruel? It’s not cruel,” he argues. “You can’t control how you feel. The only thing I ask of you is that you let me stay beside you.”
“But that’s so awful,” she complains. “Megumi, how can you say any of this? It’s horrible. Just staying beside me? Only a terrible friend would allow this.”
“It’s simple, unlucky maybe depending on how you look at it, but not horrible. You feel the way you do and I feel the way I do. Simple. I only ask that we stay friends.”
“Well I never had an issue with that,” she amends. “But—”
“But?”
“What if I felt a different way?”
“Hm?”
She scoots closer to him. Fushiguro watches, fixed in place, seemingly a bit apprehensive. “You don’t have a girlfriend right?”
“As if there could be anyone else.”
“Ok so, what if I also had similar feelings?”
“What’s brought this up?” he questions.
“Just been thinking about it,” she says. “About you.”
One of his eyebrows raises. “Me?”
“Yes. Is that bad?”
“Hm.”
“What if I had been hoping you still liked me?” she asks, moving a bit close until her leg brushes his. Fushiguro doesn’t move.
“Then I’d tell you you’re in luck, because you don’t ever have to worry about that.”
“I don’t?”
“No.”
“Because you still like me?” she says, perhaps a bit greedily.
“Yes. Which I think you know.”
“Maybe I just want to make sure.”
“Yuuji,” he says, smiling. “I’m not sure I understand what’s going on.”
She moves just a tiny bit closer, grinning. Feeling a bit emboldened, she tucks a strand of his darker hair behind his ear. The same feeling before, of wanting to move or shout or dance, fills her up again the closer she gets. “What’s going on is I’m asking you out.”
Expecting him to go red again, she preens, wondering how far her phone was behind her and if she could snap a photo quickly enough. Yet, to her surprise, Fushiguro leans in closer with a hum, “Is that so?”
Itadori blinks. “Yeah, I like you so. Go out with me.”
He presses a gentle finger underneath her chin, pushing it up as if to inspect her face. Swallowing she holds her breath when he traces her jawbone to her lip, lightly pressing down. This definitely wasn’t how they typically hung out. And this certainly wasn’t how friends hung out in general! This was something new. With Fushiguro. Her friend, maybe.
Itadori wills herself to stay in place even as her face flushes.
“You want to date? Be my girlfriend?”
“Yes.” Itadori fiddles with her fingers as her heart races. This was so different from how it had been with Yuki, and honestly even from how it’d been with Ozawa. None of it had quite felt like her heart was about to explode in the most wonderful way. Especially as it was still novel to recontextualize Fushiguro like this, acting this way with her. She wasn’t even over him being into her in the first place—both previously and currently! Itadori had never expected to see this side of him. She looks down, unable to deal with his unwavering gaze. “I do.”
“Ok.”
“Huh?” Her head snaps up. “That easily?”
Fushiguro laughs, he lifts the dangly end of her earring. “You expected I could say no after this whole cute act. Did Nobara put you up to this?”
“Nobara?” she questions with a pout. “And what act? I’m not trying to be cute…I’m trying to ask you out.”
“Right,” he says. “I think I’m just a little confused about where this came from.”
“So you need me to explain,” she surmises with understanding, trying to ignore the way her skin was erupting with what felt like sparks every place he drifted his fingers over. Even her ear tingles from the weight of her earring being shifted.
“To be honest, I don’t need to know much else.”
“But aren’t you confused? And what if this is just some random idea? Or Nobara dared me?” she demands, crossing her arms.
“You would never do something like that. But even then, that would be ok.”
“Megumi, that’s awful,” she frowns. “You should have more self-respect.”
“Ok, then I do want to know.”
“I realized I like you,” she declares. “A lot. Not just as a friend. And not just to get you to stay. Or whatever twisted thing you’ve come up with. Even if you’re idiotically ok with that now.”
“What twisted things am I ok with?” he asks, head tilting to the side. “Are you sure you like me?”
“You know what I mean! Treat yourself better.”
“Hm,” he slides his arm along the back of the couch until they’re practically pressed against one another. “I think in order to treat myself better, I should demand I get a kiss. From this supposed person who likes me.”
Itadori rolls her eyes, looping tentatively around his neck. “Well since I want you to treat yourself better.”
Fushiguro leans closer, lips hovering just above hers as he whispers gently. “If this is somehow in any way a joke, please never tell me.” Before she can respond, he tilts his head and kisses her, cradling her face as if he was afraid she’d disappear. The hand on the couch moves to press her to him.
“Of course, it’s not a joke dummy,” she repeats between the kisses she later lays on his red face, leaving behind splotches of sparkly pink gloss. “It’s for real.”
“You know Kaito once told me he’d started to feel like he was being followed everywhere, that he could barely sleep at night or be in his dorm in peace.”
“Oh?”
“Which is weird, but he’s a little paranoid so he’s kind of prone to being a bit more nervous than the average person. But then the oddest thing happened, Yuko started reporting similar issues a few months ago—where she felt almost hunted.”
“That’s concerning.” … “What?”
“Don’t play dumb. It doesn’t work with me.”
“I’m not. Do you want to investigate it?”
“Go hang out with the thing that haunted my friends? Do you mean my weekly date night?”
“I don’t know what you’re implying. Stop laughing.”
“Your face is really adorable right now.”
“It’s not.”
“Well maybe not to them but to me it is!”
“Yuuji.”
“What are you going to do about it? You’re already haunting me…”