Chapter Text
Megumi
I didn’t want to like Yuuji Itadori. I didn’t even want to be near him. From the moment I met that bright-eyed, selfless-to-a-fault boy, I knew he’d only make things harder. It wasn’t just because of Sukuna, though the thought of him disappearing after sliding that 20th finger down his throat haunted me more than I’d ever admit. It was because he made me want things. He made me feel things; things I’d buried a long time ago.
I’d learned early on not to hold onto anyone, not when they all ended up leaving anyway. But Yuuji… he didn’t care about that. He barged into my room like it was nothing, smiling like someone who hadn’t realized he was halfway to dying.
So, I pushed him away. I ignored him when he and Nobara bickered in the next room, even when the sound of his laughter through the thin walls made my chest tight. I rejected their stupid movie nights, their inside jokes, their reckless attempts to get close. And when my heart sped up every time Yuuji stood too close or looked too long, I rationalized it. It wasn’t affection. It was resentment. It had to be.
So, when Gojo told me it would be just the two of us on the next mission, I fought it.
“This is a bad idea,” I snapped. “He’s not ready.”
Gojo just waved me off with that infuriating grin, like he knew something I didn’t. Like he knew.
The case was simple on paper: a second-grade cursed spirit lingering in a house where a teenage girl had taken her own life. The rest of the family was found murdered shortly after. But I could already feel the wrongness pulsing from the surface. Curses that stemmed from grief always twisted into something nastier.
Yuuji, as always, was too optimistic. He treated every mission like a chance to prove himself, like risking his life was just part of the job. As if being the vessel of Sukuna wasn’t already a death sentence. It pissed me off.
Not because he was reckless, but because he didn’t value himself enough.
Because I did.
Because even though I told myself not to care, I couldn’t stop watching his back. I’d save him again and again if I had to. Even if I had to pretend I didn’t care at all.
Yuuji
Megumi’s always been weird. Not in a bad way, he’s just impossible to read. You could tell him the dumbest joke or offer him your last chip, and all you’d get was a sigh or that bored look he gives you when he wants you to think he doesn’t care. But I know he cares. He just doesn’t say it. That’s why I keep trying.
I don’t even know when it started—the wanting. I wanted him to laugh at something I said. I wanted him to sit with us. Wanting him to look at me, really look at me, like I wasn’t just some dumb kid who ate a cursed finger and got stuck here. I wanted to prove something to him, not just that I belonged at Jujutsu High, but that he didn’t have to keep pushing everyone away.
Especially me.
I kept inviting him to hang out. Nobara would roll her eyes and say, “Yuuji, he’s not coming,” but I’d still say, “Hey, we’re watching a movie if you want to join!”
I could always hear him moving around in his room, consuming all of my focus. Deliberately quiet, never coming out.
Every time he didn’t answer, I told myself it was fine. That he was just tired, or studying, or whatever excuse made it easier to make the idea that I could be annoying him to stop eating me alive. But I wanted him there.
He made me feel grounded. Even when he was glaring or muttering under his breath, just having him near me made me feel like I wasn’t totally lost in this new world of curses and danger and dying too young.
So, when Gojo called me to his classroom, I was optimistic. I didn’t have to be afraid because I had Megumi and Nobara.
“He’s not ready.”
I heard Megumi’s protestant voice and paused at the classroom door. They must’ve been able to sense my energy, but I stood frozen nonetheless for another moment.
I took a deep breath, plastered on a smile, and entered the tense room.
“So, Megumi and I are fighting a second grade?”
Megumi wouldn’t even look at me. He just clenched his jaw and kept arguing. And I didn’t get it. What had I done wrong?
Gojo raised his brows, like he was already bored with Megumi’s whole routine. “You’re being dramatic,” he said, waving a dismissive hand through the air. “Yuuji’s more than ready. He’s been handling first-grades better than some second years.
I smiled weakly at that, but it didn’t hit the way it should have. Praise was meaningless if it wasn’t coming from him.
Megumi stood stiff, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the far wall like he wanted to punch through it. “That’s not the point. He’s reckless. He doesn’t think.”
“I do think,” I said sheepishly. “Just not the same way you do.”
He still didn’t look at me. Gojo sighed.
There was a silence, long enough to feel like it meant something. Long enough to make me wish I hadn’t walked in at all.
I’d gotten used to people judging me for Sukuna. I’d accepted that some people were scared of me or didn’t trust me. But Megumi… Megumi was supposed to be different. He was the first person who saw what I’d done back then, when I swallowed that finger, and didn’t immediately try to kill me. He was the one who convinced Gojo to save me. So why did it feel like every time I tried to reach him, he drew a bigger line between us?
“I can handle it,” I added, not for Gojo’s to hear, but for Megumi. I wasn’t trying to prove anything to our teacher. I just wanted him, Megumi, to believe I was capable. To believe I was worth partnering with. Not a burden.
He finally glanced at me then. It was brief and sharp, like he didn’t want to give even that. My throat closed up, but I said nothing, afraid I’d break and look weak.
He looked at me one last time, this one longer and deeper, as if he could see the pain behind my eyes.
“Fine,” he muttered, turning away. “Whatever.”
It wasn’t agreement. It was surrender. And not to me, which for some reason, I so badly wanted.
Gojo clapped his hands together with a grin. “Great! Pack up, boys, you leave tomorrow at 6 AM.”
I nodded, but it already felt miles away. I used to think that if I worked hard enough, if I kept surviving, if I kept smiling even when things were falling apart, people would stay. They would care. But I was starting to realize that with Megumi, maybe it wouldn’t ever be enough. And even if it wasn’t fair, if he was pushing me away for reasons I didn’t understand, it still hurt like hell that I couldn’t make him want me too.