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Megumi thinks he's been cursed. Genuinely. As in, not by cursed energy or anything a shaman like him could fix, but rather someone had it out for him and put so much negative energy on him that it has negatively affected his life to a massive degree. A series of unfortunate events that have happened to Megumi since he came to live with Satoru (and later Suguru) that may not have happened should he not have been cursed;
- He got chronic nightmares from the first time he saw a curse with Satoru and he did climb into Suguru and Satoru's bed, but only once! Don't listen to any other story. They plagued him for months though and he did cry quite often.
- Once, during the School Exchange Event, Suguru brought him with them to introduce him to the rest of the Jujutsu world (Satoru's idea and that should have been the warning they needed was that it would go badly) and he spent the entire thing looking at Kamo Noritoshi. What an awful time to have a gay awakening, he remembers thinking to himself, with Satoru and Suguru on either side of him. When he got to meet all the kids, including the Kyoto kids, afterwards he turned a bright red shade when Kamo shook his hand.
2.1. Satoru noticed immediately and started grinning. Everyone was afraid.
(Dinner that evening was awful . Horrendous .)
- He's been kidnapped more times than he can count.
Now being a prime example.
Now, usually it’s either by someone wanting to get a leg up on Satoru and Suguru or because he’s got the treasured Zenin technique, ever since the ripe old age of seven, it’s happened periodically. It also could be because of his dad but that’s never been confirmed, not like the other two have been. Though he suspects it’s because he’s a jujutsu student this time, given they didn’t take just him but also his friends. While Megumi is used to the whole shebang, Nobara fought back the whole time and Yuuji broke free thrice before they sedated them all.
Tied to a pillar, with Yuuji and Nobara on either side of him still mostly knocked out, he thinks maybe being a Jujutsu sorcerer isn't for him. Not because he doesn't enjoy it, he does to some degree because it's brought him a good lot of friends and some okay memories. Rather, it's just a misfortune in his life. The memories pale in comparison to the scars littering his body, his mental health. No good sorcerer doesn't have some crazy in them but sometimes, Megumi thinks he's got too much crazy in him.
There's some sort of curse user in front of him, babbling about taking the power of the Ten Shadows, as well as Sukuna's Techniques. He feels irritated for Nobara. He likes her technique almost more than his! The Ten Shadows has only ever caused problems for him that seem impossible to solve, even with Satoru Gojo and Suguru Getou on his side — objectively, two of the most powerful Sorcerers and people in the world, the problems never go away. Maybe if this guy takes his technique away the Zenin's will leave him alone...
Hm.
No.
Not worth it. Poor Kuro and Shiro would be on their own then with a master who doesn't love them and grant them Yuuji time. No, this guy would be awful to the shikigami he's trained and most likely worse to the ones he hasn't because they'd be so difficult.
Megumi hasn't been focusing on what the curse user has been saying because it's all the same either way. Mostly, he's waiting for Satoru to come get them. The ropes tying them down have been sealed, ancient runes carved into the twisted bindings and they glow every time Yuuji breathes in, his lungs expanding further each time. Megumi thinks he may be awake but is pretending to still be knocked out, hoping to surprise their attacker. It's useless, probably. (Or, in his time of weakness, Sukuna has taken over but has been trapped again by the seals all over him.)
Nobara wakes up the same way as she went down; loudly.
"Oh, what the fuck?!" She screams as she pushes up against the bindings, wriggling around to try and disappear underneath them. They tighten imperceptibly as she does so and Nobara wheezes a little. The curse user, still rambling like he doesn’t have a limited amount of time before a slightly pissed off Gojo is here, pauses and sneers at her, telling her to stop moving and be quiet. Megumi only feels a little pity for him as Nobara’s face twists. Being told to shut up is like telling her to die. "Dude, you shut up for one second, I'm struggling a little here. Oh, also, no one cares." Megumi sends her a glare, if only because this guy could kill them quite easily now that they're all in one place. Her fingers, he realises, and heading towards her pocket to grab her straw doll.
Nice to see Nobara is still the smartest of them, to some degree. Megumi can't use his shadows or his shikigami without moving his hands in some way but, as far as he's aware, Nobara's technique is built off skill alone. If she grasps her straw doll, she may be able to help in a way neither himself of Yuuji can.
"Shut it, woman!"
Oh. A sexist then. Megumi looks at him out of the corner of his eye, subtly judging him a little more than he was before. Pick a group of people to hate, right? Non-shamans or women. You can’t do both. Now, it makes sense, to a degree, that he didn't care about Nobara's technique. Maybe he thinks she doesn't have one? Well that's stupid. He saw her fight with her hammer and nails, and knows that Yuuji is the close contact fighter while himself and Nobara are within the medium and long distance range. They had around ten minutes of fighting before he used some sort of powder to knock them out.
Assuming that Yuuji doesn't have a technique would be the most logical. It’s not like he used one of Sukuna’s because he’s not very good at Dismantle or Cleave yet. Yuuji’s too afraid of hurting them or killing their opponent to use techniques he’s not well skilled at in a fight. Suguru has been helping him wield Sukuna's techniques, but the application of Suguru’s curse absorption and Yuuji being a vessel falls short on the surface. They’re two very different things, really, since Suguru can control and tame the curses he eats due to his technique and Yuuji cannot tame or fully absorb Sukuna. When in training, his favourite is Cleave. It’s amazing to see him dice a straw doll or a cursed doll into small cubes. Sukuna’s techniques, the ones they know, are a definite advantage in a fight.
Especially when it's being used alongside him, not against him.
"Hey! Don't speak to her like that!" Yuuji breaks character to come to Nobara's defence, something she seems equal parts annoyed about and worthy of preening for. Megumi wishes Gojo wasn’t so dramatic and that he’d hurry up a little bit. Wasn’t he in Japan for his mission? They rarely send him overseas now that Okkotsu is out of the country. Satoru says it's because they don’t want him helping Okkotsu any more than he already has by claiming their familiar relation, therefore protecting him.
The curse user opens his mouth to retort, probably something ugly and so unimportant he wouldn’t remember it in five minutes, but then the door bursts open and the lights go out. He’s got about five seconds to thank the lord for having their teacher come and get them but then the man lights a ball of flames in his hands and it illuminates the room just enough for a swinging blade to be seen, the shine of it glinting in the low light by the door. Megumi squints against the fire, and his heart sinks when he recognises the figure. It’s not Satoru and it’s not Suguru either.
Megumi only has about a minute to sigh and shake his head a little, ducking down to ignore what's sure to be a murder happening right in front of him. Yuuji and Nobara seem to be in a state of shock, judging by their stiff bodies beside him, and to be frank, he can’t blame them.
It happens a lot slower than he thought it would. The blade ghosts by his head only once and retracts quick enough he doesn’t even have the time to flinch away from it. The curse user tries to dance around the fight, get distance between them but not even Satoru could avoid this particular cursed object. It swings in a wide arc again, cutting through the barrier the curse user put up to protect themselves. Megumi barely catches the twinkle of the chain before it swings back towards its user, crackling as it is pulled and twisted into a circle in his hands.
The soft sound of footsteps approach the prone body of the cursed user and, what seems to be just for good measure, the blade sinks into his skull as he passes by him. Megumi feels the binding pull taught a little more, both Yuuji and Nobara starting to pull at them openly to free themselves. Megumi doesn’t even bother to try. He knows how this ends and it's only another prime example of how his life is cursed. He’s got no doubt about it now. His life will end in flames and misfortune, truly, because he’s about to have the most embarrassing moment in his whole life and he’s only fifteen.
“Dumpling! Look what you’ve gotten yourself into!” Megumi ignores the shocked, twin screeches of ‘dumpling’ beside him and looks up at his father through his bangs, frowning. Normally, his hair would flop down a little more than it does but he saw a picture of his mother not so long ago and decided to spike it up the way she did. He thinks it makes his dad a little happier to see him, and it makes him happier too. Something about it suits his face, he supposes. Satoru says he looks too much like Toji, but Suguru is a hundred percent sure that he could be his mothers doppelganger.
“Don’t call me that!” He barks, embarrassed. Toji uses the spear to slice through the bindings at his side, crouching down to look him in the eye as he raises an eyebrow. Over the years, he hasn’t changed much except for the slow growing collection of scars across his face and neck. Megumi is sure they keep going down under his shirt but his dad is careful not to let Megumi see the toll his “job” takes on him. Longside the slice across his lip that was there when Megumi saw him again at seven is a glasgow smile, as well as a scar cutting right through his left eye. His hands, when they come up to cradle Megumi’s face in a gentle hold, are more scar tissue than anything else.
“What?” He says, more jokey than Megumi thought he’d be. He pushes some of his hair back behind his ear, rubbing the soft strands between his fingers for a moment before tilting his head down. Toji’s identical hair flops over his eyes then, and Megumi can just about see him cutting a glance towards Yuuji and Nobara beside him before he grins. Megumi gets the sense his life is about to get a lot more complicated. “A man can’t call son his favourite nickname anymore?”
Utter silence. Megumi sighs, drops his head down more securely into the hold Toji’s got on him, and wishes that Gojo was the one to arrive even if it would have been just as embarrassing. Yuuji and Nobara have a faint idea of his relationship with the two teachers, at least they should know that they’ve known him since he was a kid. If they’ve keyed into the fact they are in fact his parents, his friends have been kind enough to keep it to themselves.
“I’m going to need a bit more context,” Nobara drawls beside him. She’s stopped struggling, for what little good it did her. Toji, with a wicked grin still on his face, goes over to undo the portions of binding that have been keeping his friends tied up and doesn’t say a word to either of them. Megumi doesn’t look at Toji as he stands up, and helps up Yuuji and Nobara. Yuuji rolls his shoulder and cracks his neck, groaning a little, while Nobara takes out a nail and twists it between her fingers while staring at Toji.
“Meg?” Yuuji reminds him, but the name is practically a blood scent for Toji. How is life getting worse? It was horrible before, and yet it shows he’s got more room to fall. Megumi pinches his nose and suddenly understands why Suguru seems so tired of Satoru all the time, even if they love each other.
“God, take me now,” he grumbles under his breath, eyes slipping closed. He’d take anything; a heart attack, a brain aneurysm, even being struck down by lightning!
“ ‘Meg’ ?” Toji repeats. Megumi looks anywhere but him. He won’t do this right now, not when he’s managed to keep it from both Suguru and Satoru for a while now. They’re both on top of him, twenty four seven, for nine months of the year. The other three are spent with Toji, during the school breaks intermittently, and he hadn’t thought about how hard it would be to explain to his friends why he wouldn’t be spending a single holiday with them during the year.
“It’s complicated.” He’s not sure who he’s addressing, but it’s the best answer he can come up with. Surely, Yuuji and Nobara have figured it out anyway. Satoru is right — he does look an awful lot like Toji, especially as he’s grown. He’s seen pictures of them together as a kid, Toji smiling awkwardly at the camera while Megumi gives it a grin (about half a smile compared to the toothy, shark smile Satoru has beside them).
“Uncomplicate it.” Megumi shoots a dark look over to Nobara, scoffing when he sees she’s holding the nail in a throwing position, hand clenched around her hammer. She’s aiming it towards Toji.
“Long story short,” he starts and then pauses, looking around them at the dark room. He wishes he could turn on the lights again but maybe seeing the slaughter would be worse than seeing it. His cheeks feel a little wet, a bit gooey. He hopes he doesn’t have blood on him. It’s worse to see what his dad does. He can live with knowing he does it and ignore the odd hours of the night when he’s gone while they’re together, but having to see it would mean acknowledging his dad is the infamous Sorcerer Killer. “He’s my… dad?”
Yuuji actually gasps . Nobara drops her nail on the ground, the clink of it hitting the concrete, the only thing audible in the room. Toji lets out a small chuckle, standing up and walking over to the body on the ground, flipping over to take a look at the mutilated face. A clean cut right through the left eye, slicing through the skull and cerebrum, maybe even the brain stem depending on if the blade swerved while it was going down. He plucks something from the front pocket of the corpse, twirls it around in his fingers before standing.
“That’s theft,” Yuuji points out and Toji gapes at him, halting in his fiddling with the knife.
“He’s dead.”
“It’s also murder,” Nobara points out, although her voice has less of a shocked quality than Yuuji’s. He seems to be in a bit of a daze. Megumi doesn’t blame him. He'd also be scared shitless if one of Yuuji’s parents turned out to be a psycho killer. He feels bad for thinking it, but thank god Yuuji’s parents aren’t around to have an “introductory dinner” with him. He can’t imagine two non-shaman parents being forced into a dinner with Satoru, Suguru and Toji.
“Those silly sorcerers know where I am all the time. If they feel like charging me, they can come try and detain me.” Overconfidence leads to mistakes and danger, he knows. His dad is probably the most confident person he knows, aside from Satoru. Although, it is true that the Higher Ups do know where his father is most of the time. Apparently, and this is the part neither Suguru or Satoru want him to know, Toji nearly killed Satoru twice and slaughtered a dozen sorcerers when they were sent to apprehend him after reappearing. When asked, Toji will deny it and so will the other two.
“Okay,” Nobara says and then promptly turns her back on him to glare at him. He only recoils a little bit at her look, confused as to why he’s getting the death glare and not his dad. It’s not like he’s the one who’s robbing a dead body. “Why didn’t you tell us your dad was a, alive, b, semi-cool, and c, the Sorcerer Killer?”
“ Semi-cool?! ” Megumi parrots, scandalised.
“How do you know I’m the Sorcerer Killer?” Toji asks, seemingly genuinely curious. He pockets the knife, waltzes over to him and wipes at his face. He only looks a small bit guilty as he wipes away the small splatter of blood on Megumi’s face, thumb brushing across his cheekbone. Megumi lets him, hesitant to find reason in his dads actions because it might lead to hatred and, above everything else Toji Fushiguro does, he’s still his dad. That’s got to mean something.
“You’ve got the Inverted Spear of Heaven.” It’s Yuuji who points it out, daring to step closer and squint at the blade hanging from Toji’s side. Nobara nods as well when Megumi looks at her, a question in his gaze. How do either of them know about that? “I read about it in a book and asked Gojo-sensei. He said the Sorcerer Killer had it. So, unless you robbed his corpse too,” Yuuji trails off and then laughs a little, most definitely uncomfortable. He’s currently refusing to look at Megumi.
“Don’t take that idiot’s word for anything.”
“So, you are the Sorcerer Killer?” Nobara asks, raising a judgemental eyebrow at his father. She, none too subtle, looks him up and down and then scoffs when he lacks in some way. Not so cool now is he, Megumi thinks with a petty feeling rising in him. Megumi would be offended on behalf of his dad but he’s just revealed yet another embarrassing nickname to his overly playful friends. Not a day will go by for the next six months where he’s not called Dumpling. Or Chickee. Thank you, Satoru Gojo.
“I never said that.”
“What are you doing here?” Megumi asks, cutting to the chase. Toji, who’d been eyeing up Yuuji like his next victim, swivels to look at him. Toji tends to give a hundred percent of his focus to every thing that attracts it, putting all his effort and dedication into one singular thing. Megumi is torn between believing it’s an admirable quality and an annoying one. When he’s the centre of that focus, it’s nice, a little unnerving but pleasant all around. He spent so much time with very little adult supervision, nothing and no one but Tsumiki at his side, that when Satoru and Suguru took him in, he didn’t do very well. By the time Toji came around, he took to parental figures in his life like a duck to water, if a shy duck.
“The idiot sent me. He’s busy somewhere and so’s Getou. I was in the area.” No he wasn’t. This time of year, when sorcerers are the least active and the council has to find something to do with them, they send the bad ones or the overtly dangerous ones out looking for him. It’s more an errand than anything else. It never comes to fruit because Toji leaves Japan, and goes to a different country where the bounties are never ending and the money keeps flowing. He sends postcards, sometimes.
“Okay, well I’m fine now. You can go.”
“Megumi! That’s no way to talk to your dad,” Yuuji scolds, although he’s quiet about it. He’s standing close, meaning that that fire attention has barely shifted from Megumi to Yuuji but it’s moved and Megumi’s not sure how to fix it. There’s an anxiety there, he thinks, that Nobara and Yuuji are going to judge him for who his family is more than they probably do already.
“Yeah, listen to your friend, dumpling,” Toji grumbles, although he says it in a funny way — like Yuuji’s not just his friend. Satoru says it the same way. Megumi sighs and rolls his eyes, walks over to the door to leave. If they’re not found at the scene of the crime, it’ll only cause problems for everyone around. It's better to leave and go back to the school and say they got free before the guy died. Megumi will have to clear up the story with Nobara and Yuuji but Yuuji gets a little odd about lying to Getou… He’ll just have to figure it out.
Toji follows them out and none too subtly heards them towards a car. It’s a lot prettier than his usual ones and, with a judgement scowl thrown towards the faux-innocent man, Megumi recognises it as Gojo’s car. When they get inside, Yuuji and Nobara are already familiar with the interior given how many times they’ve gone down to the kitchen to find Gojo there and ask him to bring them to the shop. Gojo indulges them a little too much, he thinks, and climbs into the middle. Yuuji and Nobara flank him, both of them leaning onto him a bit too heavily for it to be natural.
“Dude,” Yuuji whispers to him while poking him in the side. Megumi swats his hand away and doesn’t answer.
“Fushiguro,” Nobara whispers as well, poking his thigh with the edge of her hammer.
“Ow!” He hisses, rubbing at his leg while she rolls her eyes and tells him to stop being so dramatic. Yuuji pats his thigh in sympathy but ultimately remains silent, therefore proclaiming his opinion on the matter. He’s on her side. Megumi swats his hand away again, with much more irritation, throwing a glare his way. He’s supposed to be on his side. “What?”
“You never told us your dad was alive.”
“You never told us you had parents, period,” Nobara adds, as though he committed a great sin against her by not telling her his father is a criminal, and a well known one at that. Sighing, and only catching a glimpse of Toji’s amused smile in the mirror, Megumi finds the patience in himself to answer them without yelling.
“Of course I have parents, Kugisaki, everybody does. I’m not some plant that can asexually reproduce!”
“I mean, I didn’t want to assume,” she snarks, lips pulling back into a sneer. He gives her a withering look and turns away but comes face to face with Yuuji’s face, as open and earnest as it usually is. He shies away a little, still unused to the well of kindness that lives within his… friend. Thing. He’s not a hundred percent sure what they are, to be honest. They’re something and that’s sort of enough for him right now. Especially with his goddamn father sitting in the front seat of the car he stole from Megumi’s guardians.
“What about Gojo?” Yuuji asks. Megumi blanks. Nobara makes an irritated noise, drowning out the sound of the car speeding up. They take a very harsh left that has them all squishing in on top of Yuuji, who takes it all in stride like the freak of nature he is. He barely even grunts, when both Megumi and Nobara do. Her hammer digs into his side for an uncomfortably long second.
“What about Gojo?” Megumi echoes, not understanding the question. Gojo is… Gojo? They had to have caught onto who they are to each other, as grey and neutral as it is in his head. Gojo doesn’t call all his students chickee or keep a photo of them on his desk. And that’s got nothing against The Wall™ at home.
“No, forget Gojo!” Nobara bursts, and he turns his head so quickly to look at her, Megumi is sure he got whiplash. “What about Getou?”
“What about him?” Megumi says, getting increasingly exasperated. Why the hell are they so locked in on those two? By now, he thought they’d be interrogating him about his dad or maybe even his mother.
“Is Getou not your dad?” Nobara asks, leaning forward. Megumi blinks.
“No!” Both Yuuji and Megumi exclaim at the same time, though Yuuji seems much more aggravated than him by her accusation. Megumi has never been more confused than he is right now. What has his life turned out to be? “Gojo is his dad!” Yuuji continues and – nevermind, this is the most confused Megumi has been.
“No, he’s not!” Nobara practically grinds the words out between her teeth, hands clenched tightly in her lap. They take another harsh turn though this time they go flying towards Nobara, who puts up much more of a fight of their combined weight against her than Yuuji did. Toji is practically grinning in the front seat of the car, ignoring his buzzing phone on the passenger seat and taking extra care to make sure the paint on the car is scratched and the tires are well worn. They’re almost at the school but he doubts arriving there will spare him from this conversation.
“Yes, he is! I’ve seen the photo in his office!”
“There’s also a photo of three girls in his office, does Gojo seem like a girl dad to you?”
“Well, why else would they be in there?” Yuuji snaps back. Megumi considers climbing over him to throw himself out of the moving car. They’re definitely speeding – would the impact kill him or only maim him? It wouldn’t be worth it if he didn’t die immediately. Anything to escape this conversation. While it started fairly silent, with them whispering and mumbling, Nobara and Yuuji have gotten so into it, they’re basically yelling in the backseat. Every now and then, Toji will actually chuckle.
“Because he’s a pervert!”
“No, he’s not! He’s in a relationship with Getou-sensei!”
“That doesn’t mean shit!”
“You tell him,” Toji mumbles from the front seat. Nobara points to him with a triumphant look on her face, turning to Megumi with a smug aura around her. ‘Semi-cool’, she mimes to him, possibly the first time he’s truly been addressed in this conversation.
“You’re just saying that because you and Gojo fought when he was a teenager and you lost !” Yuuji bursts and then stalls completely, his face losing all colour. The car is silent for a moment. Megumi feels a bead of sweat go down his back. This could go incredibly or horribly and he’s never been the optimistic one of their group. If they have to fight – god, how would that even work in a car? Nobara is the one sitting behind him so he couldn't push the seat back and crush Yuuji. Maybe he’ll throw something? Not the blade, not the blade, not the blade!
Unbelievably, Toji starts to laugh .
As in, a full body laugh, not the short chortles he usually does or even a thin smirk to show his amusement. He laughs so hard Megumi genuinely fears for their lives as the car begins to swerve towards the other side of the road. Nobara gawks beside him and Yuuji paled so quickly and then turned red just as quickly that he’s definitely getting a headache from the blood rushing to and from his face. Toji shakes his head and cuts himself off with a short grin, teeth on display in a predatory way as he looks at Yuuji in the mirror.
“Maybe I do like you after all,” he muses and Yuuji goes pale again. All Megumi can do is duck his face down into the collar of his uniform and hope that the car actually does crash.
“Damn, Itadori, already getting his blessing? Good job,” Nobara teases and Megumi slowly turns to her with, what he hopes to be, a scary look on his face. She does actually curve in on herself a little bit, laughing and rubbing the back of her neck. Sorry, she mouths at him, barely a whisper coming out of her mouth.
“Anyway!” she tacks on, “Fushiguro looks like Getou-sensei.”
“That… cannot be the only thing you're basing your argument on,” Megumi says blandly, finding it hard to believe that he’s indulging in this at all. Yuuji nods along with him while Toji gives a shrug, as if he’s agreeing with her. Megumi makes probably the most disgusted face he ever has at him.
(Gojo likes to say that he’s in his awkward phase of “I hate my dad” of being a teenager, with a little spice added in of “I hate my guardians too” added into it. Megumi thinks he’s simply grown up so much that he can recognise when they’re being embarrassing and that he doesn’t need that kind of misfortune in his life.)
(For Christ's sake, Gojo cried when Megumi learned how to tie his shoes! And he saw Getou and Toji getting weepy about it too.)
“He looks just like Fushiguro-san too! They even have the same last name,” Yuuji retaliates and then pauses. “Your last name is Fushiguro, right?” Toji and Megumi both nod at the same time, making Yuuji huff in triumph. Nobara tsks and rolls her eyes, crossing her arms with an eye roll.
“I thought you thought Gojo was his father?”
“Well, yeah, but if your argument is based around that Getou-sensei and Megumi look alike, then you should believe that Fushiguro-san is definitely his father. All Megumi has to do is stop doing his hair up and they’d be twins!” Yuuji states with complete certainty. Against all odds, Megumi nods along with him. Gojo has startled and Getou has summoned a curse on him enough times after a shower for him to start doing his hair in the bathroom with the steamy thick air still around him, putting a small hindrance on the whole process. It’s worth it though. Explaining to Tsumiki that Getou didn’t mean to slam him into a wall while she’s crying and beating him with an umbrella was not pleasant and not an event he wanted to repeat.
“What's your argument for Gojo being his dad?”
“May I remind everyone in the car that my real life actual dad is in the front seat?”
“We know that now, Megumi! But we didn’t before. Besides, Maki-san told me that you’d been around Gojo for the majority of your life. I figured that he didn’t know when you were born and came in later.” Nobara hums and nods as well, meaning she probably thinks the same thing happened with Getou for him to be his father instead. Megumi definitely has a tension headache. “Gojo has all those pictures of Megumi and I overheard him telling Nananmin that Megumi “moving out” of the house was the worst thing to ever happen to him because he’s going to miss his “chickee” . Name one sensei that would call their student chickee without having a familial relationship!”
Ugh, there’s that nickname again. Megumi rolls his eyes at his friend's use of it, cheeks turning a soft ruddy red. It’s so embarrassing. He’s simply glad that they haven’t said a word about the whole “dumpling” fiasco yet. (Although, he knows that’s still a very solid yet because they will undoubtedly make fun of him once they stop arguing.)
“No sensible adult uses the word chickee at all!” Nobara screeches, as if she refused to call him anything but chickee for months after the slip up happened in class. He can see Yuuji’s side of the argument because it came out so naturally and Megumi did respond to it on instinct before he could catch onto it. He does spend a little less time with Getou in school, if only because Gojo is the first year teacher and Getou teaches the twins in third year.
“That’s what parents call their kids!”
“As if you know that!” Nobara screeches and then falls silent. Megumi gapes at her. Yuuji recoiled a little bit. Toji frowns in the front, hands gripping the steering wheel. Nobara reaches across him to grab Yuuji’s hands, apologetic and frowning in earnest. “Wait, Yuuji, I’m so sorry. That was awful to say. And I know you say you don’t care, but…”
“I don’t care,” Yuuji stresses and grips her hands tightly, “but thanks.”
“I’m going to go into an early grave around you guys,” Megumi mumbles, leaning his head back onto the seat. Twin feelings of warmth hit his shoulders, Yuuji and Nobara leaning against him. He’s very tired actually, now that he’s got his eyes closed and can relax. Yuuji hums and says something about how they have to live long lives, and Megumi will make sure to yell at him later for not including himself in that proclamation.
“By the way, dumpling, you’re not going back to school.” Megumi’s eyes snap open very quickly. The two by his sides are already asleep, the freaks, but they shift around a little when he instinctively goes to move forward in shock.
“What? Why not?”
“Because you spent Golden Week last year with the idiot.”
“You were in Austria!”
“It was my turn! So, this year, you’re spending Golden Week with me and the week after. You’ve got enough clothing at the apartment, right?” Resigned, Megumi nods. At least he’ll be able to sleep in the car ride back to Toji’s apartment, in a whole other prefecture than Tokyo. Megumi actually isn’t a hundred percent sure where it is since he does sleep in the back every single time, except for the first time that they were driving for nearly ten hours. He vowed afterwards to remain unconscious for the whole trip.
Unfortunately, Toji pulls up to the school before he can figure out how to break the news to his friends that their plans for Golden Week have to be cancelled and moved forward to next year. When Toji turns around, presumably to yell at them to leave, but Megumi beats him to it and shakes them awake subtly. Yuuji snaps up with his eyebrows in a funny position while Nobara runs her eyes, smearing her maskara all over her face.
“We’re at school.” Yuuji nods and wipes the drool away from his mouth, getting out the door. At the end of the steps, a very nervous Ijichi stands, already spewing apologies that he couldn’t retrieve any of the teachers for them. He presumes that Yaga is busy as well, but he doesn’t know much about their odd principal despite the time Satoru took him into the school as a kid to introduce him to everyone. It felt more like he was being passive-aggressively shown off for him to care.
“You coming out?” Nobara asks, keeping her door open. Megumi shakes his head and relays the whole situation to them, swearing that as soon as they leave he’ll text Gojo to let him know. While hesitant, they both give him a lingering goodbye and head up the stairs next to Ijichi. Yuuji looks back a few times until Toji starts the car and then they’re gone, racing down the mountain again.
Megumi gets comfortable in the back. He stretches out across the seats, takes off his jumper to use it as a pillow, and puts the seatbelt across his torso into place and then clicks one across his feet as well. Toji, who hadn’t put on the radio before so he could hear their conversation, turns up the volume to a bearable level for both of them – Megumi so he can sleep and not worry, Toji so he won’t get distracted by outside conversations in passing cars. The limits of his heavenly restriction are unknown to Megumi but speed and strength aren’t the only things he gained with it, he’s sure.
“You’re friends are nice,” Toji says when he’s about to drop off into slumber. Half-asleep, Megumi hums and mumbles that they’re important to him. With a small laugh, Toji says he can see that.
“You’re not allowed to date that boy though,” he continues, cool as a cucumber.
Yeah. Megumi knows his life is cursed now. He doesn’t even bother to answer, instead choosing to fall asleep and dream about elephants in the sky that control dreams.