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Megumi knew no one ever truly cared for him, not when he was a baby and certainly not now.
Even his own name was a fake facade of what his parents had wanted: Megumi, meaning blessing, but also more distinctively a feminine name. He remembers his father speaking in a gruff voice, telling him that Megumi was a blessing.
But he’s not a girl, he’s not a woman, and he hardly feels like a boy.
Ostracized at school, mocked on the streets; a young boy with scratches and bruises on his body, rumors threading through strings connecting him between one poor instance to the next.
Megumi Fushiguro, the poor kid, the half-boy, half-girl, the boy who never stepped out of line, the boy who always pushed boundaries.
He was four when his father remarried and the two moved into a new household. Megumi was four and acutely aware of how distant everyone in his life was.
When he was five, he felt the dread of the world sagging his shoulders. He was stuck to his sister’s side, cradled and hugged her leg, begging for her not to leave him too, to not make him go and attend a school full of mocking looks.
Because Megumi had always been the poor kid. Always been the one who was shunned and looked down on.
A few months after his sixth birthday, his father and his stepmother left. They vanished from the rest of the universe, and Megumi was met by a new name, Satoru Gojo.
Megumi had hung his head down, tense and grim with the agony and distaste that was running through his body, pretending like he was fine when all he wanted was his father to come back, to hug him one last time.
He never hated his dad, he never actually held any resentment toward his father; he truly didn’t.
“Didn’t I tell you to pick up the shit in this room?” Megumi’s father had always grumbled after getting home from work. Megumi knew better. He knew that it wasn’t actually work, because his father always came back with a few injuries.
Megumi would hang his head in response, turn his gaze off to the side, and begin to clean up. His father was satisfied each time, like he was a good parent, like he was happy that Megumi was listening.
Because it wasn’t like they had bad moments; Megumi simply always felt more like a dog than a son to his father, like no matter what he did was never good enough, that it would never amount to what he wanted it to.
He was only six years old, and yet when he found the house empty after coming home, he hadn’t suspected anything. He assumed maybe his father was out late once more, perhaps his step-mother was out, too.
He had always taken notice of the bottles of alcohol scattered around the house, the shattered glass on the ground, and the traces of blood from stepping on the wrong spot in the floorboard, but it only ever seemed normal.
The smell of substances always clouded Megumi’s senses and his ability to understand what was going on, so he never tried to ask.
Except for the one time he did. It was during his birthday, when he was just beginning to turn 6. When things were okay for a little bit, until they weren't.
“Why are you drinking that?” He had asked, standing up as his hands rested in his father’s lap, who was sitting on the couch like it was the only thing he could do, “it’s my birthday. I want you to remember it.”
His father sighed, and dark eyes watched as calloused hands pinched the bridge of a bumped nose before patting the boy on the head.
Megumi’s head had been pressed down under the rough movement, and his lips shifted to a small smile for a moment, as if expecting, as if waiting for the bottle to be set down.
“Sorry, kid, but frankly, I don’t want to remember.”
A joke. It had to have been a joke, so Megumi had laughed.
When he realized it wasn’t a joke, he got quiet, his hands moving from his father’s thighs toward his knees, gently gripping at the fabric of his baggy sweatpants; he was only six, yet he at least understood when things were bad.
And his father got mean when he smelled strongly of whatever was in the bottle.
“Why?” Megumi asked, his voice smaller than before; his heart hurt in his chest, squeezing and tugging away at the expense of his ribs.
A bunny—figuratively—leaps over to a wolf that had adorned the small prey since birth. The wolf gently licked over the bunny’s flank and nuzzled into its side, a reassurance and promise of protection.
The wolf would eventually sink its teeth deep into the bunny’s flesh, leaving it squealing and crying out in pure agony, hoping for a swift end.
Teeth would unclasp from around the shaken bunny, with the lesson of being more careful, and as soon as the wounds are healed and scarred over, the wolf will do the same thing over and over again until both of them fall deeper into their own minds of petty vengeance.
A vendetta between a father and a son, an envious hatred of looking at the last human being left behind by a lover, only to realize that instead of a miniature version of her, it was a miniature version of him.
The hand atop of Megumi’s head pulled off, and his father glanced away, eyes downcast, before he took another swing of the bottle. Megumi wanted to protest; his eyes widening and mouth parting as he tried to express his distaste for such actions.
Instead, he was met with a tight throat and an even tighter chest.
The only times his father had ever been kind and loving toward Megumi had been in the moments where he smelled of oil and shampoo, when the boy was able to smell the body wash that Toji used instead of alcohol downed into his system.
The only times Megumi had ever genuinely and truly loved his father were when dark eyes stared down at a young soul, knelt down, and gently patted him on the head with kind words directed toward him.
“Why?” Echoed Toji, his head angled off to the side before he grunted and set the bottle down, his hands moving to pick Megumi up from under the shoulders and bring the boy into his lap.
Megumi flinched at the forming scent of alcohol tickling the inside of his nose, but the traces of gentle hand soap and shampoo were still there, so instead of shying away, Megumi nestled tightly against his father.
The top of his head bumped up against Toji’s chin, his hands tucked quietly to his own chest as he sat sideways on his father’s lap; one arm around his back, the other hand on the side of his head, gently cradling him like he was a baby.
With the side of his head pressing against his father’s collarbone, Megumi took in a shaky breath. He’s never been used to being cared for by anyone, hugged by anyone other than his sister; the gentle, familiar moments with his father specifically had been even more sparse.
Toji sighed from above Megumi’s head, and the boy felt a nose bury into his hair.
“Christ, kid,” he chuckled. It was dry and helpless. Megumi wanted to pull back to look his father in the face, slap some sense into him, make him realize that something was wrong and that they both needed help.
Megumi felt so lonely.
“You always did look just like your mother.”
Barely audible, soft and quiet, a deep voice lessened, and instead of sounding like a smoker, Toji sounded like a regretful father—one who had never been able to find himself in a stable condition—a regretful father who believed himself worthy of death.
Megumi kept quiet, his eyes fluttering shut as he turned his head and nestled against his father’s collarbone, his nose brushing over the fabric of his shirt. The arm around his back moved slowly, and a thumb rubbed the space of his spine.
Each notch was brushed against and stroked, and Megumi, for the first time in what seemed like ages, finally felt his eyelids grow tired, finally felt them grow faint as his body relaxed and melted into Toji.
The bunny with scars over its body continuously runs back to the wolf, the ownership and guarantee of protection once more appealing to the small creature.
It begs and tugs on the wolf’s arm, tiny teeth nibbling on fur before spitting it out, ears wired back and feet thumping against the ground; helpless to do anything except wait for more pain to be brought onto it.
The wolf, no longer having a want or need for the bunny, dips its head down and gently licks the prey’s forehead—confusion spreads through the creature—for why was it that the one who hurt it so often in the past was being so gentle and soft?
Defenseless at a default, everything felt more and more frustrating inside the bunny’s mind, for it was so used to being pained and wounded that it had forgotten all that it means to be created with care and love.
Now that the bunny has welcomed it, the promise hushed into its ears and the wet patch on the top of its head to show the warmth and love provided by the wolf, it can finally move on.
It can finally find peace in someone else who won’t wound it.
Megumi stares down at his lap, curling his legs in and pressing his feet to the side of Toji’s thigh, keeping them prompted into place to be more comfortable. “...’S that why you always drink?” He mumbled, a small hand reaching forward.
A palm clenched around the fabric of a dark shirt, tugging on it and holding it as bubbled up frustration prickled in Megumi’s eyes. He didn’t understand what was going on, didn’t understand why he was finally being held the way he’s always wanted.
The hand along the small of Megumi’s back paused, and Megumi felt a sharp exhale of air blow from where the nose was buried on the top of his head.
“Yeah, buddy. Yeah, that’s why I drink.” Toji whispered, and Megumi could feel the flutter of eyelashes closing. He nestles closer to his father, drawing in the smell of the laundry detergent off his father’s shirt.
There’s something akin to anger that fumbles inside of Megumi’s chest; it causes his insides to shift inside to outside. He wants to believe that his father is a good man; he wants to look up to him like all the other boys do to their own fathers, but he just can’t.
He can’t imagine himself as another boy his age, boasting about how cool their father is when Megumi doesn’t know anything about his own.
Megumi doesn’t know where his father works, where he does grocery shopping, where all the money goes at the end every other Friday, or why there are sometimes people who stare at them whenever they go out together.
He knows that eyes follow them everywhere; knows that people are watching his back when they think he doesn’t notice, but he does notice. He notices and it scares him.
In a pharmacy, they’ll wait in line for cold medicine: A stranger will hide behind a corner and stare at Megumi’s head. He’d turn to look at them, and all he sees is a shadow akin to a spirit resting alongside the shelves.
He’d move closer to Toji, and in response, his father would step away.
Megumi sniffles, and the feeling in his chest moves down to his gut. He suddenly feels ill all over—as if something was watching him at that very moment—he gets it a lot, the feeling of eyes watching from the shadows.
Sometimes, when he was really young, he’d have nightmares. Whenever he’d waddle to Toji’s room with tears in his eyes and a stuffed animal rabbit in his hands, the man would pick him up and set him on the bed, then turn on the lamp.
Megumi would watch Toji create shadow animals out of his hands for hours, watching as he makes a dog shadow and a rabbit one. Megumi begged to be taught how to do the rabbit, and his father had taught him.
Now, whenever he had nightmares, he would leave his small bedroom and come out into the kitchen—which was connected to the living room—and stare at his father passed out on the couch with bottles littered around the floor, dripping onto the stained carpet.
Nothing ever changes, not really, and Megumi knows no one ever really changes.
“Did you hate her, too?” He whispered, his voice small and barely there, his body shrinking and hunched over ever so slightly, hands tucked into his own lap.
The next moment goes by in a blur—hands are moved from Megumi’s back and side of his head to his sides, adjusting him to make him sit up. When Megumi looks up at his father, there’s panic deep within wide green eyes that reflect the state of a young boy’s gaze.
“You think I hate you?” Whispered the man, his hands sliding from Megumi’s sides down to his own lap; and Megumi just sits there, turning his head downward as his hair hangs in front of his face.
He messes with his fingers, touching the pad of each finger to his thumbs and watching the movement of pink turning yellowish white. He wonders if there’s maybe another way he could go about this. His eyes are blurry and his body hurts.
Megumi hates crying. He hates crying because he saw his father cry once, a long time ago, when Megumi accidentally ran into a drawer and hit his head on the corner, and a photograph of his mother fell and shattered.
Megumi had bled for an hour after that, and his father had been so panicked that he screamed at the boy, only to appear later on in Megumi’s room with tears in his eyes, hugging the young boy.
He had to have been around four at that time, he realizes, around the same time his father remarried.
Toji must have hated Megumi’s mother if he remarried so soon, if he was so upset over the fact that Megumi hurt the drawer instead of the photo, or his face. He never saw the frame of the picture ever again.
Hands moved to the sides of his shoulders, squeezing almost painfully, “answer me, Megumi.” The man breathed out. His voice sounded tight; he sounded angry. Megumi glanced up at his father, bottom lip trembling.
When Toji gets no response, hands slide down Megumi’s arms, and the boy looks down at his lap once more, tearing up and gripping onto the hem of his shirt, his eyes downcast and his face covered in humiliation.
A bunny makes a mistake on a hungry wolf; it gets pounced on, and fangs dig into scarred skin, transforming the tissue into something greater than that of simply a weapon.
The bunny, used to the constant tear and pull of organs hanging out, is resistant to the bite this time around, but it now aches somewhere different, in a section of its chest that it never knew existed.
The wolf flinches back, jaw dripping with saliva, desperate to go in for the kill, to find and do something differently to cause all the pain it wants; the bunny remains frozen, fight or flight senses ruined.
No one ever looks at a run-over bunny and wants to help it. No one runs over a bunny and expects themselves to pull over and mourn for the body lying limply on the road.
One could cry and cry over the loss of something, but they would keep moving forward. The world would keep spinning despite the soul being lost in the chaos of the moment, in the moment of adrenaline-crazed maniacs.
“You were our blessing, Megumi,” Toji whispered, his hands tightening around small shoulders. Underweight, underfed.
Megumi didn’t even have enough money to get lunch at school, much less eat breakfast. He was only able to ingest whatever his sister made for dinner while Toji and Megumi’s stepmother ran around having the time of their life.
“You meant the world to her, okay?” Toji’s hands trembled, and it shook Megumi’s body in response. The breath from his father was reeking of distant booze and sake, and Megumi’s eyes remained glistening with uncried droplets.
Megumi made a small squeak of discomfort, the grip around his arms almost becoming painful, his body uncomfortable as he turned his head to escape the smell of alcohol reeking off of Toji’s tongue.
But what about you? He wanted to yell, wanted to get off his father’s lap and hit something, tear the run-down apartment down, and find something worth fighting for.
Because Megumi had nothing. He’s always had nothing. He was born nothing, raised nothing, and he would continue to be nothing to anyone. The only person who even remotely cared about him was his step-sister, and even then she annoyed him to no end.
There was nothing more frustrating than watching the people you love drown themselves in their own hatred for the world, and Megumi could feel himself doing that now; he wanted to drown in everything his father was drowning in, wanted to taste the bitterness and the disgusting smell that reeked from a glass bottle.
He wanted to step in a pool of glass made by the bottles shattering on the ground late at night, when his father finally got home and was infuriated by something. Megumi would wake up and silently cry until Tsumiki realized the poor boy was sobbing and went to hug him—he hated it, being so weak.
Megumi was just a kid, and yet the effect of the world and the people around him was already beginning to kill him slowly but surely. there was no telling what may or may not happen in the future; it will all simply just continue to be.
There was nothing that ever changed.
“Megumi,” his father called out once more, and Megumi realizes two things: One, that his cheeks are wet, that they feel damp and it’s trickling down to his chin and onto his shirt, and two, that warm, calloused hands are on his cheeks, wiping the underneath of his eyes.
He tries to hold it in, he does, but instead of being able to contain his emotions like usual, a small wail leaves his mouth.
Megumi is not often the kind of kid who will cry—he finds it useless—attempting to sob over nothing and everything just because of a small inconvenience, but Megumi hardly remembers his mother, so why should it matter if she loved him or not? He wants to know if his father loves him.
“Hey, hey— buddy, don’t cry, c’mon, you’re putting me in a bad position—” babbled Toji, but Megumi could hardly register it through his wails, little small screams and hics of sobs pressing past his mouth.
Every moment the boys in his school share about them with their fathers is another moment Megumi feels like he’s in a world of worthlessness, like he’s so unloved that there’s no chance he could even belong in a happy family.
He lost his first tooth on his own, hid it under his pillow, and everything—no one came. The tooth fairy, he realized, was a made-up thing that parents used to make their kids happy—and Megumi wasn’t upset that there wasn’t a tradition his family had, but that he couldn’t get the money from the tooth fairy and give it to his father.
Every single parent meeting he ever had was just him sitting alone in a room with his teacher. They would make him tea, and he would decline and stare at his small hands and pray that when he got home, no one but Tsumiki would be there.
The first time he broke a bone, no one came to get him. It had been late at the playground. He lay there on the woodchips for an hour, crying himself exhausted until a kind stranger came over and brought him to a hospital.
There was no emergency contact to his name, so Megumi had to whisper out his address and have a police officer drive over to his house, dropping him off and leaving without a care in the world for the clear neglect imposed upon him.
“Please stop crying—” Toji scrambled out, and Megumi hiccuped. He tried to suck his tears back into his eyes before a large hand rested on the back of his head and pulled him close, hugging him around the back and keeping him close.
“It’s okay, buddy. You’re fine, ‘kay? C’mon, no more crying.”
But that’s not what Megumi needed to hear; that’s not what Megumi wanted to hear. He wanted and needed to know that he was something more than just a decoration, something more than just a name in a government database, and he was something important to someone.
He tried to stop crying, but it became slow, silent tears trickling down his face.
He was only six years old, and yet he needed confirmation that his father was a good man, that he was something worth waiting on, worth loving and worth being around.
Surely it wasn’t a hard thing for his father to do, to confirm that he at least cares for Megumi, that he’s a blessing to someone other than his mother, other than his sister or step-mother.
How was it possible for a man to hate his own offspring as much as Megumi’s father hated him? How was it possible that the flesh and blood of his father was as capable of hatred as he was?
With a pat on the back, Toji let go of Megumi’s face and reached for the bottle of booze, and Megumi wondered if his father feels the same twisted pain deep in his gut when he looks at him, too.
A mirror reflects only the truth, and when Megumi looks into his own reflection, he sees his father, drowning himself in alcohol and waiting for something different to change while patching up random cuts that appear on his arms, excused by the use of work.
There was nothing more Megumi could ever do for his father; there were no longer words that allowed him to express his hatred and love and adoration for the man he was sitting in the lap of.
The feelings deep inside Megumi’s gut were confusing for a six-year-old; he felt the weight of the world burying him, the weight of a loveless relationship between a father and a son collapsed into his mind and cradled his head until nothing was left.
Small hands moved to wipe off the blossomed droplets leaking from his eyes, wiping the snot from his nose and sniffling deeply to keep any more gross substances from leaking down his face and into his shirt.
Dark eyes watched the throat of his father bob as he gulped alcohol. There was nothing left to do here. A freshly six-year-old, living the worst birthday he could imagine.
Megumi slid off his father’s lap, staring down at his ruined socks as he tried to get over the fact that he was about to sob once more.
There was no point wasting his tears on a man who didn’t even see himself as Megumi’s father. There was no reason to be so upset over a wolf that drinks when he’s nothing more than a bunny that cries.
Nothing ever changes. He needs to leave this forever.
Several months later, Megumi understood that the memories he holds are the worst ones.
He remembers Satoru Gojo picking him up off the street, telling him to pack up his bags, and he had listened, because his father had left him once more, and the apartment, along with all of his clothes, smelled like alcohol.
It seemed like Toji had given up everything the second Megumi’s birthday had passed. He had grown more distant than ever, and then left one night and didn’t return, promising Megumi that he would get him a big present while he was out.
There were so many times drifting around in Megumi’s head, all spoken by his father to him, that he didn’t know right or wrong anymore. He just wanted to trust blindly and understand the world from a different perspective, from a perspective he’s never seen before.
He had learned after living with Satoru Gojo for a few weeks that the boy was very kind. He gave Megumi money and toys, bought him and Tsumiki a little apartment that was much nicer than the last one, and stopped by every single day around the same time, close to dinner time.
Megumi had everything he could want, but nothing was like his father. There was no more alcohol, no more screams, no more bottles smashing, and he should be happy about it.
A conditioned rabbit is only comfortable within a lab with needles poking away at its skin.
A bunny is only comfortable in the proximity of a dangerous wolf that wants to bite past flesh and into fat.
Megumi finds the lack of familiarity off-putting, he finds it distasteful, so he always wanders around his old streets and tries to find a trace of the same sickening smell that made his stomach tighten and contort.
Striding through the back alleys as the sun slowly began to set over the horizon, Megumi sticks his head around the corners of buildings until he sees his old run-down apartment complex. He presses forward, about to take a step back into the world of the known.
…Before a hand gently grabs the scruff of his jacket and lifts him up. Megumi’s head twists around, and he sees a familiar pair of bright blue eyes and sunglasses that are pushing white hair back from his forehead.
“Heya, ‘Gumi! Whatcha doin’ here? It’s pretty dangerous this late, y’know? Someone could snatch you up and gobble you like a witch!” Satoru exclaims, still holding Megumi by the scruff.
Dark eyes deadpanned at Satoru, but Megumi didn’t try to flail or scurry away, just hung there as Satoru held him by the scruff, a frustrated look in his eyes that made Satoru seem to recoil ever so slightly.
“Awh, don’t pout! You’re so adorable, ‘Gumi!” Satoru teases, and then turns and begins walking out of the alley with Megumi in hand. The boy begins to squirm.
“Put me down.” He muttered, his hands moving to pound against the teenager’s arm, his anger evident on his face.
Ever since his father left, Megumi felt more frustrated than ever. He would rather have gotten a simple I hate you before being left completely alone, maybe even a ‘ you were the worst son I could have asked for.’
Perhaps he left because Megumi just wasn’t what he needed. Perhaps Megumi wasn’t enough.
“No can do! It’s my job to make sure you’re nice and safe, Father’s wishes!” Satoru beamed, as if he had no idea how much suffering Megumi went through, as if he wasn’t aware of the malnourished form and the oversized clothes that only grew more oversized with time.
Megumi glances away, and he messes with the hem of his shirt, new and fitted. Satoru insists on getting him and Tsumiki a new wardrobe.
“…Yeah, right. Like he cares enough for that.” Megumi muttered, and Satoru paused where he was.
He could feel blue eyes scanning over his small, childish form, and Megumi felt awfully uncomfortable being under such specific stares. He squirmed again, his up-styled hair slouching forward and being messed around with due to the swaying wind.
There is a small sigh that Megumi knows all too well that leaves Satoru’s chest, and he sets Megumi down, reaching down to grab the boy's hand in such a delicate manner.
He leads Megumi through the sidewalks and pathways until they get to a small park, the two staying silent the entire time.
By the time they stop, Satoru is standing with Megumi beside him on the top of a small mountain-like hill. There are some temples around them, and the trees are mostly cleared off. It looks like it could be a monk temple.
In the far distance is a mountain with a white tip, massive and reaching toward the sky; Megumi stares at it, at the color of the sunset slowly going behind the mountain, the comfort and gentle feeling of the wind brushing through his hair so high.
Satoru sits down, feet hanging off the small drop, leaning back before blue eyes track against Megumi’s body. Megumi then slowly sits down, pulling his knees to his chest and his arms wrapping around the back of his thighs.
He stares forward at the sight, his lips parted ever so slightly. He had never seen such a beautiful sight from such an awful place in Japan; he’s never been outside of his hometown for anything except for school, so staring at the world from seemingly so high up in such a prestigious place made everything so small.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Satoru’s voice echoes, and Megumi glances over at him, then tucks his chin between his knees and looks forward again, shrugging.
“ ‘S okay,” Megumi mumbled, his eyes downcast for a moment.
He can feel eyes looking at him, and he’s expecting a little scolding for being so arrogant; he gets a chuckle instead, a small sound, and when he looks over at Satoru, the teenager is beaming and laughing like Megumi’s the only thing in the world that matters.
An arm is curled around Megumi’s shoulders, and Satoru pulls the boy against his side, moving his free hand and booping the boy on the nose, “you’re such a negative kid, y’know? You remind me a lot of how I was when I was a kid your age.” Satoru hummed, then wrapped his arm from Megumi’s shoulder to his neck.
Satoru pulled the boy closer, then racked his knuckle over the top of Megumi’s head as the boy yelped in protest.
“Stubborn as a board, Megumi!” Satoru hummed, and he lessened his grip, Megumi now between his legs as the sun fell further behind the mountain.
Megumi wasn’t used to happy jokes, to gentle play-fighting, and hands wrapped around him. He stared forward at the sunset and leaned silently against Satoru’s back, his hands coming up to curl around the teenager’s wrists.
“...It is,” he mumbled, “pretty. It’s pretty.”
As a sixteen-year-old, nearly a decade from losing his father, Megumi feels like he’s nothing more than the shell of a man who left him behind.
He knew that Satoru adored him, he knew that Yuuji Itadori adored his company, and he knew that Nobara Kugisaki also somewhat enjoyed being around him, but Megumi couldn’t help but look in the mirror and see the face of a wolf.
Megumi went from being a soft, scarred bunny and was turned into a wolf, digging its teeth into its own gums and waiting for the blood to trickle past and down its throat.
He was only sixteen, and yet he no longer had a dad.
Megumi would never have admitted it, that he saw Satoru as a father—mostly because he was Megumi’s teacher, and it was so awful referring to a teacher as dad— but also because it meant that his real dad was gone for good.
It meant that his dad truly would never come back.
Megumi sits on the bed in his dorm room, staring down at a white blindfold that once belonged to Satoru Gojo, strongest sorcerer, and he thinks about the fight he had with his father.
“It’s not Zen’in?” A gruff voice had paused, eyes locking on Megumi’s figure before a knife was raised. Megumi had gotten into stance, holding his breath as he scowled, gritting his teeth. “I’m glad.”
It had been too late to say anything else, to run and hug his father for the first time in nine years, but he lost his chance. He lost the chance to see his dad's corpse, too, because it was just a regular man once Megumi ran over to the body.
Clutching the blindfold, Megumi took in a sharp breath. It was all so complicated. He lost his dad, and then he lost Satoru. He lost his mentor, his guardian, the one person he had listened to through everything. The one person he believed in to stay alive.
Lying down on the bed, Megumi curls into himself, his eyes stinging with unshed tears. He can remember the feeling of bloody arms cradling his body while his soul was trapped in the essence of his internal mind.
He remembers crying to himself in there, sobbing and tugging at his hair as he watched Satoru’s body slide off itself and onto the ground.
He begged for Satoru to get up, that this wasn’t finished, that there had to be something more, that he could be fixed.
He cried because he was the reason for it. He delivered the blow with his technique; he had no control of it. He lost his dad once more, and this time all because he wasn’t strong enough to fight off the mental deterioration of his life.
Megumi rolls onto his back, staring up at the ceiling as a tear slides down his cheek.
A humorless laugh slides past his lips, and he sniffles.
He raises a hand to wipe away his tears, and glances out the window. The sun was setting.
It would look much better with his dad here with him. Either of them.