Archive of Our Own ^beta

Gojo used to say that the technique exists before the sorcerer, and that the sorcerer is born to embody it.

“He can smell your fear, so…” Megumi felt Gojo’s long fingers settle over his bony shoulders. The gesture should provide comfort, but it only serves to make Megumi more nervous. “Try and relax.”

Demon dog looks at them both from across the living room. Its front legs are bent, and its head is craned up to look at Megumi, making sure to show both rows of its teeth, sharp enough to tear a grown man up, limb from limb. 

It’s growling, but not attacking. It hasn’t attacked Megumi for a couple of summons now. Observing is its new tactic. 

Dogs are quick learners, he has deduced. Too quick. 

“Have you figured out how you’re going to go about this?” Gojo asks with their hands still on Megumi’s shoulders, as if to keep him from sinking into a tar pit of his own making.

Unlike Megumi, they seem entirely unaffected by the dog’s threatening growls. To Gojo, it must seem less like a demon and more like a chihuahua.

“Yeah,” Megumi breathed out shakily. Then he took a step forward, escaping Gojo’s hold, only to look back at them. 

With the evening sun coming in from the window and hitting his back, Gojo Satoru was pure light. Incorporeal, in all the best and worst ways. If they weren’t real, it meant that nobody would save Megumi from his own technique’s canine teeth. If they were— if Gojo was truly there— it meant Megumi needed saving.

“Hey,” Gojo’s grip suddenly tightened, as if they felt Megumi’s mind slipping away. “If anything goes wrong, I got you.”

Megumi’s tiny fists clenched at his sides. 

“Hit me.”

Thankfully, it came off as a demand and not a plea. For a moment, Gojo was silent, just looking at Megumi with a tilted head.

“What?”

“Hit me,” Megumi repeated. “Preferably in the face. But don’t go all out, Tsumiki will be mad.”

He kept sneaking glances at the shikigami behind him, making sure it wasn’t getting any closer while Megumi was being insane. It wasn’t. 

A smile of pure intrigue crossed Gojo’s lips for a split second. And then—

“Alrighty.”

Megumi felt it, but never saw it.

One moment, his head was facing forward, and the next, his neck had snapped to the side with such force that he heard his neck crack. Hot, thick liquid ran from his nose, coating his lips.

He would think back to this moment many times as he grew older. The ease with which Gojo obliged the absurd request. Whether it was their way of showing Megumi immense trust, or whether it was some deep-buried hatred for the child that he was. For his clan. For his face and who he inherited it from. 

He’ll never know now. 

Back then, though, Megumi just straightened his ringing head without complaints and looked at the dog.

“Subjugation doesn’t always mean beating into submission,” he said.

Dogs are natural protectors, against their better judgment. The shikigami, although not real, are inevitably inspired by real animals and therefore share their defining traits. Slyness for the snake, quickness for the rabbits, horrific loyalty for the dogs.

Both the demon dogs, though untamed, know Megumi’s face. They know he is their summoner, and despite not obeying him, they know he has never tried attacking them. 

Admittedly, that was due to fear at the start (it might still be out of fear). But limitation breeds creativity, and so Megumi— age 7–finds himself in his living room, with a rabid dog shikigami, a bloody nose, and a cruel mentor.

He squares up, wiping the blood off his nose with his hand, and then turns the palm to the shikigami, inviting him to smell the blood.

He can’t help his wrist shaking when the dog’s nostrils flare, catching a whiff of the copper scent. Its head lowers even more, and the growling subsides, now just a low rumbling sound— like a revving engine, testing its own limits.

The dog gets closer. And closer. And closer.

Until its nose presses up against Megumi’s palm and its tongue darts out to lick the blood, thinking it's the wound. 

You’re weak, the gesture says

But you are my friend now. 

Megumi allows himself to breathe at the contact, knowing he still has an arm attached to his shoulder. Surprisingly, the dog’s fur is soft, and the skin beneath it emits heat.

He wonders what it means that this animal feels real in every capacity, but Megumi ought to use it as if it were not. 

Tentatively, Megumi lowers his head and presses it against the dog’s. He didn’t suppose such a cliche act of kinship could feel like anything, but it does. It feels warm, and safe, and right. 

“Congratulations are in order then!” Gojo suddenly exclaims, reminding both Megumi and the shikigami of their presence in the room. 

The dog snaps its head toward the noise, teeth showing up again, and Megumi decides to test the limits of this newfound friendship.

He lifts his index and points at Gojo’s right arm, where a spec of blood litters the knuckles.

“Go fetch.”

The shikigami launches toward Gojo like a spring, no longer suspended in imobility— mouth open and ready to tear apart.

Gojo doesn’t even flinch, however.

Doesn’t flinch at the sight of the oncoming attack.

Doesn’t flinch when the dog’s mouth seemingly wraps around his arm, but doesn’t.

Limitless keeps the shikigami’s fangs perpetually biting around dense air, mere inches above their desired target. The more the shikigami thrashed, trying to bite harder, the more Gojo’s laugh rang against the walls of the house.

Megumi clasped his hands together and unsummoned the animal with intention for the first time.

Gojo lowered their hand and shot Megumi an indiscernible look, the way all of his looks were indiscernible behind their glasses. Yet when the light hit the corner of their metallic skeleton, and Megumi caught a glimpse of Gojo’s actual gaze, he saw something so close to pride that it was hard to move.

So he didn’t. He remained completely still as Gojo took a step toward him and buried a hand in Megumi’s hair to ruffle the spikes. This one was real. He felt skin on skin. Megumi clinged onto the milliseconds of warmth, starved.

“Good job,” came the ever-light tone, just far enough out of reality to keep Megumi wanting more. “But it’s going to take a bit more than that to kill me.”

Megumi has always been a dog person. 

So there is some sick humour to be found in how the Funeral Tiger is the only shikigami he has left, when he dislikes cats.

He dislikes their quick temper, their distrustful nature, and their sheer arrogance. More than anything, he dislikes their refusal to be domesticated in spirit, even when they clearly have been in body.

Don’t you find that ironic? Gojo had once asked, with a smile that said Megumi should think about it harder. That you, of all people, dislikes felines?

At age 10, Megumi had not been able to pinpoint the irony, and so he’d spent the next five years subjugating every shikigami but the Tiger. He’d rather deal with an elephant and an electrocuting giant owl than the Tiger. 

Now, at age 21, it looks like he has no other choice. 

He could always let it go, of course. He could resign to a life of never wielding a shikigami again. Fushiguro Megumi and his nine shadows, all dead before he could even master their full potential. What business does he have with a shikigami now, anyway? 

He’s not a sorcerer anymore. Or he’s pretending not to be.

He might have quit Jujutsu High after the funeral and might not have exorcized a curse in six years, yet (much to his dismay) he remains a sorcerer in some sense of the word. 

Techniques are innate. They chose you once and demand that you live with them for the rest of your life. Fushiguro Megumi, forever the Ten Shadow user, whether he likes it or not. 

And there’s this thing. This one thing: The Tiger is the only one of Megumi’s shadows that hasn’t been used to hurt anyone yet. 

She’s the only pure thing left of this wretched technique of his that hasn’t been touched by Sukuna’s rot (at least not individually), and she’s calling for Megumi, like the pied piper. The lone survivor of a massacre, just like him. The one who should have just died and closed the cycle, just like him. 

Megumi would like to know her. Megumi could use a friend, now that his other nine are dust.

The problem is, she’s a bitch.

“Alright, you piece of shit,” Megumi pushes the tin plate across his living room’s floorboards until it stops in front of the summoned Tiger. 

She’s enormous, in a way that makes Megumi feel like an ant, more so emotionally than physically. Quite pretty too, if he were honest. A purely majestic animal, with eyes so vivid they shine yellow in the dark of Tokyo’s night. Fangs always out, hair on the back always on edge, claws touching the wooden floor. On guard. 

It’s been like this for months. Megumi has claimed her on paper, ever since he defeated her within the bounds of this very living room, but she’s not listening to him. This has never been the case with any other shikigami of his. Once defeated, they were owned for life, at the beck and call of a pre-teen Megumi. 

The Tiger, though? The Tiger seems deadset on having no God nor master. One minute, she wags her tail at Megumi, pleased; the next, she attacks him. One minute, she bumps her head against his arm, begging to be pet, and the next, she’s aiming for Megumi’s eyes. 

Push and pull, bite then meow, love and hate, protect and kill. 

Megumi’s tired.

But not tired enough to admit defeat.

“Eat,” he commands and nods to the tin plate filled with fishbones. 

He knows, of course, that the shikigami does not need to feed itself, much less with earthly commodities and a portion so small. But after the umpteenth failed attempt at giving her orders, or even making the Tiger acknowledge his presence in a meaningful way, Megumi took to the internet and started reading articles on domesticating feral cats.

Under mountains of blatantly obvious instructions, he landed on something interesting: Cats appreciate eating with company. 

To them, each meal is provided after a lengthy hunt, and so its consumption is a sort of ritual. Should you provide food, you’re considered useful. Should you eat it with them, you’re considered a friend. 

He watches as the Tiger dips her head down to the plate without taking her eyes off of Megumi, and he takes it as a sign to pick up his own bowl. Ten minutes or so pass, where they each take careful bites of their food without breaking eye contact. 

And for a moment, Megumi thinks he won. 

He sets his bowl down and reaches a hand towards the Tiger, careful not to make any abrupt movements. A hand for her to smell, a hand to touch the stripped fur lining the top of her head. 

Her neck cranes toward the peace offering, sniffing once.

And then she opens her jaw to bite the hand clean off the bone. 

Megumi flinches back, clasps his hands together, and unsummons her, knocking over his half-eaten bowl of ramen on the floor. The broth spills all over his cane, too, and Megumi has to dry it with the hem of his sweater before using it to get up on his feet. 

He can almost hear Gojo’s mocking laughter somewhere in the back of his head. 

There is something about the winter that always seems nefarious to Megumi.

Something about the cold, or the dying trees, or his birthday. He doesn’t trust winter, and the way it makes itself an unwelcome visitor within one’s lungs. He never did, but now he has one more reason not to.

His cane might slip. 

He has noticed this fallacy on especially humid days, how the edge of his walking cane doesn’t properly grip the asphalt and kind of slips against it. It’s made Megumi’s heart jump up to his throat a couple of times, the way it used to for far more exciting situations than a back-first fall on the pavement. 

They said it’s temporary. The whole cane thing. 

Granted, waking up one day with almost zero feeling in your left leg at the age of twenty-one isn’t the most promising situation by any means. But they said it’s temporary. Megumi has committed the doctor’s expression to memory. The non-committal raise of his eyebrows as he looked over Megumi’s clean X-rays.

‘Looks like a software issue, not hardware. Have you been experiencing any intense stress lately?’

And how does Megumi even begin to answer to that? 

He doesn’t. Or he didn’t. He stayed silent and hoped that the doctor drew the correct conclusions. 

But anyway. They said it’s temporary. That’s what matters. 

Soon(-ish) Megumi won’t have to worry about dying on his way to the mailbox. 

He flips through the letters one-handed, letting everything without his name on it fall back into the apartment block’s general box, until he reaches an envelope that does have his name, but handwritten. 

He doesn’t immediately attach the handwriting to a person, and that’s all the more strange. There’s just about six people left in this world that know where Megumi lives, and just about zero of them have reasons to be sending handwritten anything-s. 

He feigns patience in case any of his neighbours pass through the entrance while he’s there, but once back inside his apartment, Megumi rips the top of the envelope clean and meets the two-sentence card inside.

It takes him all of five seconds to grab his phone and call Kugisaki.

It takes her all of ten to actually pick it up, and she gets no word in before Megumi.

“They’re getting married?”

“People usually lead with ‘hello’, Fushiguro.”

Megumi winces at how abrupt he came off. Like this has an effect on him. Like he cares so much.

“Hello. Hi. Sorry—“ he corrects. And then, again, “Maki’s getting married?”

There’s some rustling on the other line, likely Kugisaki getting comfortable.

“Technically, she already did; last weekend, she and Yuta went to the town hall. All nice and quiet, just them.” Megumi catches the sound of folded paper coming from the back of the call, and he assumes she has opened her respective invite, looking over it. “This thing is just for show. Keeping up traditions, keeping the clans happy, or whatever the fuck.”

“Clans?” Megumi parrots. “What clans? There’s only one Zenin left, and that’s Maki.”

He doesn’t count himself. He never has. What’s a half Zenin without any clue of who made them so? 

“You forget that Yuta is technically part of the Gojo clan.”

Megumi hates how easy the eyeroll came to him.

“Oh, please, seventh cousin’s bastard and whatnot. I’m more—“

He stops himself abruptly before he can finish that mortifying sentence.

I’m more Gojo than he is.

How useless. How pathetic. ‘Scraping for rights to imaginary titles with no benefits in this life or the next. A one-sided competition against someone whom Megumi once admired. If all the half-orphaned children whom Gojo helped once upon a lifetime had rights to their name, then the Gojo clan population would be the size of a small village. 

Gojo had a thing for strays, and that’s that. Megumi needs to get over himself. 

“What was that?” Kugisaki does him the courtesy of pretending not to have heard properly, even though both of them know she did. 

“Maki and Yuta are married…”Megumi repeats like a broken record instead, this time as an affirmative. Just to get used to the bizarre thought. Marriage. Stability. Propriety. What the fuck?

“If anyone else heard you right now, they’d think you had an affair with one or both of them.”

“It’s just…wow? I suppose?”

“Yeah, a little.”

“How are you feeling about it?”

The question is gentle, or as gentle as Megumi knows how to phrase it, anyway. Still, Kugisaki barks out a genuine laugh. 

“Gee, not everyone is stuck pining after the fling they had at fifteen, Fushiguro.”

Megumi feels his fingers go rigid around his phone, spasming as if to break it in half. Both of them know the implications of that sentence like the back of their hand, but Megumi has a feeling Kugisaki is only teasing him, and he refuses to do or say anything that would prove he is way more pathetic than either of them knows.

“That’s not what I—I meant in general,” he stumbles over his words, and forces himself to sigh. “Do you think it’s a good choice?”

Despite all his efforts, the phrasing is still awkward. What even constitutes a good choice in their lives anymore, and how does marriage weigh in on that? They were old enough to save the world at sixteen but too young to wear a symbolic ring at twenty-one? Washing your school uniform off of blood and guts makes sense, but a shared bank account and joint taxes seem too much? 

“I think that if anyone deserves a sappy fairytale ending, it’s them.”

The toaster blinks, and two borderline charred slices of bread jump out, reminding Megumi that he’s in the kitchen of his apartment. Alone. And twenty-one. And there must be something unequivocally wrong with him, for being unable to be happy about this. 

“So…” Kugisaki drawls over the phone, after it becomes clear that Megumi has no further input. 

“So?”

“Are you coming?”

“I don’t know,” he admits with surprising honesty. It would be such a chore to lie to Kugisaki about this, so blatantly. Hiding what’s left unsaid? That’s easy. Denying what’s being demanded? Exhausting. “I’d have to get a gift…and a suit…and it’s a 3hour train ride to Kyoto…”

Excuses, mostly. But now that he thinks about it, it does sound boring. 

“And mentally prepare yourself to see everyone and dissociate for two days, yada yada,” Kugisaki finishes for him.

“I don’t know why I still talk to you.”

“Because you love me, deep down.”

“Like really, really deep.”

“Marianna trenches type of deep.”

“And beyond.”

A soft hum escapes Megumi’s lips, so quietly no one would guess it was a laugh. He hopes Kugisaki could. He hopes she knows. 

“Anyway. Don’t be stupid about this,” she warns. “Everyone wants you there.”

And maybe it’s just a sentence— a general statement, deduced from the fact that Megumi received an invite at all. But the thing is, Megumi cannot take it at face value. Perhaps they sent the invite out of obligation. Or worse, they sent it out of pity. Perhaps no one wants him there— Megumi Fushiguro, the coward. He whose hands wrecked half of Tokyo without his volition, but cleaned none of the blood off the streets after. The quitter. The fucking fraud. Perhaps they sent him an invite, hoping he would ignore it, like he has all of his responsibilities and legacy as a sorcerer. 

Perhaps they wanted him to know that there’s life beyond him. 

“Right,” he says quietly. 

“I mean it,” Kugisaki insists, and not for the first time, Megumi wonders if his spiraling was audible. “Some more than others.”

“I’ll think about it,” Megumi half-lies. 

A sigh. 

“That works for me.”

The printer starts choking on paper, filling the room with a cacophony of mechanical sounds.

Outside the lab’s doors is hell, probably. Muffled groans of pain, stretcher wheels creaking against the flooring, oxygen tanks, and doctors yelling at each other.

But that’s outside. Inside, it’s just Megumi’s frustrated sigh, the dying printer, and his overtly silent supervisor, Juno. 

He is fond of Juno in a safe, distant way. She’s always polite and soft spoken, with none of that extrovert glamour, blinding smiles, or shoulder pats that make Megumi’s whole body go rigid whenever they’re directed at him. She is also good at her job; thorough, calm, and punctual. Megumi learns a lot from her…even if she rarely ever speaks to him. 

He’s grateful, really. Most technicians are lucky to even be trusted with carrying the vials to the lab, and Megumi gets to analyze the blood all on his own (even if the only reason for that is that the hospital is so severely understaffed and underfunded that they have no other choice)

It’s a good gig, he tries to remind himself. And if it isn’t, it will be over in two months anyway. 

“We should put in a request for a new printer,” he announces and yanks the crumpled paper out of the printer’s gasping mouth to throw it in the trash. Juno only gives him a tiny sound of approval, without taking her eyes off the syringe and vial she’s handling. 

Megumi is all but ready to start noting the stats down on paper by hand, like a cretin, when a foul smell hits him.

Cursed energy. 

The fact that curses love hospitals is one of the first things he ever learned about them. Hospitals, schools, and graveyards— locations of mass misery. He knew, in getting this internship, that he would encounter all sorts of fourth grades, but that’s true about most places these days. Sometimes he’ll spot one slithering around a lamp post outside his apartment, or another crawling inside the sewer, almost like it knows Megumi saw it. 

Sometimes he’ll think about exorcising it. 

He’ll think about the rush of cursed energy pulsing inside the veins of his dominant hand, right on his pulse. 

He’ll think about the catharsis of it, 

like breathing in salty air

and feeling your insides open—

He never gives in to the temptation. He knows that if he does, it’s only a matter of time before he crawls back. To that school, to that life. But the knowledge of inevitable death always wins the fight against nostalgia, so he never indulges himself. 

This time it’s different. 

This time, the initial smell is so strong, so rotten, that it has Megumi freezing in his spot, his heart beating so violently against his ribcage, it might just burst through it. He knows this scent deep in his bones, even if he hasn’t smelled it in a long while.

The stench of death.

“Juno-san?”

“Mhm?” The woman doesn’t take her eyes off the vials.

“Juno-san, get under your desk.”

This time, Megumi does earn her gaze.

“What?”

He switches his grip on his cain and feels the instant burst of cursed energy flow through his hand and into the object.

“Get under your desk now.”

“What— o-okay!”

Megumi counts the seconds in his head.

One, Juno ducks, and shuffles under the furniture with shaky movements

Two, he lifts his cane like a bat.

Three, the door handle clicks downward.

Four, he strikes.

Or he tries to. 

A calloused hand wraps around Megumi’s cane, mid-swing, and whatever measly amount of cursed energy he had managed to imbue in it, fizzles out pathetically.

He doesn’t know who wills the cane to lower itself— he or Death— but when it does, Megumi comes face to face with a pair of glimmering eyes and a scar that wretchedly mirrors his own.

“Whoa!” Itadori yelps with a grin, but doesn’t backstep. “Is this how you greet old friends?”

“So!” 

Itadori sets down his drink and takes a seat in the booth across from Megumi. Some type of flat white situation with sprinkles is going on in his cup, as opposed to Megumi’s single shot of black coffee. 

Sitting across from him now and getting a clear, stable view of his face, Megumi realizes just how much Itadori has grown into his looks. His shoulders are broader, his jaw sharper, his eyes not as wide with teenage curiosity, but just as warm. His haircut is pretty much the same, if not sharper around the ears, but the cut of his uniform is entirely different. Bontan pants and a shorter, puffier jacket that seems to be lined with red fabric on the inside. 

The scars on his face are still there, too, making sure to remind Megumi that it wasn’t all a horrible nightmare.

He thinks about that sometimes.

That he might have imagined the entire thing.

That his own scars are from something else.

That it wasn’t real.

It certainly didn’t feel like it; all incorporeal and faded like a vision from a concussion.

But no. As the corner of Itadori’s mouth quirks up into a smile and the star-shaped scar there shifts, Megumi knows it was real. 

“I have so many questions, and so many House MD references,” Itadori says, vaguely gesturing at Megumi with his hands. 

His eyes slide to his cane resting against the table. 

“I’m afraid you’ve been beat to the punch by like. Twenty other people.”

The hospital’s cafeteria is always halfway empty, with visitors preferring to drink and eat in waiting rooms or by their loved one’s side. Megumi is silently grateful. Not that he would be stared at here of all places. And Japanese sensibility usually prevents people from staring anyway. 

But still. Megumi feels stared at, at times. Between the scars and the cane and him clearly being too young for both of those things, it’s hard not to feel it. 

“Sorry for being a cliché then, Doctor Fushiguro,” Itadori teases. 

“Biotechnician. Not a doctor.” 

“Right.” He swallows. The unspoken awkwardness of the fact that they know nothing about each other nowadays passes over them along with the breeze that enters through the door. “And the um..?”

He nods to the cane. 

“Walking aid,” Megumi deadpans. 

“Since when?”

“It’s not—It’s recent. And temporary.” Usually, Megumi slithers past these conversations with less than ten words. He hasn’t had to explain this to anyone important so far. He hasn’t wanted to explain either. This is hard. 

He vaguely gestures to his leg under the table.  “‘Couple of neurons got fried from stress and decided I don’t really need my left leg to move, so…it doesn’t, now. Not properly, at least. I still have feeling in it, but it doesn’t follow orders all that well.”

Itadori is staring at him, increasingly horrified, or just concerned. Megumi doesn’t know which is worse. 

“It’ll right itself in a few months,” he assures. Because it will. Because that’s what they’ve told him, and it really does feel easier by the day, but.

But,

But,

But—

“That sounds hard to deal with,” Itadori concludes. To his credit, he made a real effort to keep any sense of pity out of his voice. 

“I manage.”

“Is there anyone helping you out?”

Megumi takes a careful sip of his coffee and burns his tongue regardless. He can feel Itadori’s eyes still trained on him, studying his every move for answers Megumi won’t give.

“Itadori, what are you doing here?”

The question seems to take him off guard, as if he had completely forgotten this is not a usual meeting, and it’s definitely not a chance one.

“You’re quite hard to find, you know!” he says with a nervous laugh. “You never gave me your number, so it felt like a weird boundary violation to get it from Kugisaki. Like if you wanted me to have it, I’d have it, you know? But then she told me you worked here and—“

“Itadori,” Megumi deadpans again. That seems to clamp Itadori’s mouth shut. “Why are you here?”

“I need you.”

Straight up. 

Megumi has fantasized about this exact string of words leaving Itadori’s mouth in just about a thousand different ways, and settings, and times. He has replayed the scenario over and over in his head so many times that all the elements within it now only exist as an embarrassing figment of his imagination. He had almost forgotten that Itadori is real, and that he knows Megumi, and he could very well choose to speak these words, out of his own free will. Absurd.

Megumi chokes on his breath and coughs out to recover. 

“Huh?”

“Your ten shadows, I mean,” Itadori explains. “I need your technique for a little something, but um. Seeing you is a pleasant bonus!”

Aha.

To be honest, none of Megumi’s scenarios ever ended up this way. Perhaps it’s a testament to his lack of imagination, or to Itadori’s absurd way of phrasing himself and his talent for making people love him. 

“Right,” Megumi recovers as if he were drenched with cold water. “I have none of my ten shadows anymore, and I’m sure you remember why.”

He didn’t mean for the second part of the sentence to come out of his mouth at all, let alone so harshly. But then it did, and then Itadori’s eyes widened ever a fraction, as if Megumi had just kicked him under the table. It’d be preferable if he had. But because he is Itadori Yuuji, he spares Megumi from the mortifying ordeal of dignifying that remark with an appropriate reply. Or even tell Megumi to shut the fuck up. 

It’d be preferable if he had. 

Instead, he says something else;

“I don’t need the shikigami, I’m talking about your shadow pockets,” he explains without any of his previous enthusiasm. “There’s a really, really reaaally important object in my possession, and I must put it somewhere trustworthy and undetectable.”

“And you thought of me?”

For what’s worth, the surprise in Megumi’s voice is genuine. He wouldn’t put himself in any list of trustworthy people, especially where cursed energy is concerned. Itadori, however, seems to disagree. 

“Who else?” he shrugs, like it’s the simplest concept in the world. Because he’s Itadori Yuuji, and he’d trust you even if you plucked his eyes out and took him by the hand, offering to show him the way. “You’re an unregistered sorcerer, and as far as jujutsu society is concerned, the Zen’in clan is dust and bones, so no one will think to look for you.”

When put in such words, the argument does make an awful lot of sense, and Megumi hates it. 

“If—and I really mean if—I was even ludicrous enough to consider this, I would be a huge liability,” he says, and showcases his cane for emphasis, just in case Itadori already forgot. “I can’t fight.”

For whatever reason, that makes Itadori smile a little. It’s one of those crooked, overconfident smiles, and it gut-punches Megumi six years into the past, where he’s found some semblance of happiness, between the covers of Itadori’s dorm bed. 

“Bullshit,” he challenges, and the smile only grows. “You almost broke all of my upper teeth half an hour ago using your grandpa cane. You’re fine. And besides,” He leans in close to say this, as if it would break the spell, should anyone else hear. “I would never, ever ask this of you if there was even the slightest chance of you being in danger.”

The way in which he says it— like it’s an absolute truth— it makes Megumi’s skin itch. The sun rises in the east, and Itadori Yuuji would never endanger Fushiguro Megumi. 

Yeah, it sounds about right. But perhaps it has less to do with Megumi and more to do with Itadori’s primal fear of letting people down. He is terrified of disappointing people. Even if it’s people he doesn’t particularly care for.

Megumi has an inkling that he has become one of those people now. The thought makes him physically ill, to the point where his arm instinctively wraps around his stomach under the table. 

Pathetic. As if he was ever deserving of Itadori’s care to begin with. No one was. 

Therefore, it feels like a crime to be the one who disappoints Itadori. 

“How long?” he asks, and already feels himself regretting it. “For how long will I have the object in my possession?”

Itadori’s eyes light up as though in disbelief that this worked. In all honesty, it shouldn’t have. 

“Just until after the wedding weekend,” he says. “Yuta and I will figure out a more permanent solution when he’s back in Tokyo.” 

“And how heavy is it?”

Itadori brings his hands up, forming a little square with his fingers.

“Just a small box.”

“Fine.” Megumi tsks.

“You’ll do it?”

“Yes, fine, consider it done.”

Itadori breaks a smile then, as genuine as they get, and he goes to move his hands so abruptly he almost spills his coffee. 

“You’re the best,” he emphasizes with an iron grip on his cup. “I promise to keep an extra eye on you during the wedding.”

It’s then that Megumi cringes slightly. His stomach tightens. 

“I haven’t…decided if I’m going to go yet.”

“What?” Itadori’s face falls. “Why not? Are you working or something?”

“I’m not, I…” Megumi stumbles through his words in his head, trying to pick the easiest answer. The one that will be scrutinized the least. “I haven’t seen you all in a while. It’d be rather awkward, wouldn’t it?”

“Nonsense, dude.” Then, Itadori gets up from his seat and delivers a death blow, in the form of a hand, softly brushing Megumi’s arm. Something between a squeeze and a pat, halfway regretted. Like, he’s not sure if he should touch Megumi for real. Megumi isn’t sure either.

He almost speaks up again, if only to distract from the burning sensation traveling up his arm, but then he sees Itadori leave a bill on their table, paying for both their drinks. 

Oh. He’s leaving then. No sooner than he finished his monstrosity of a coffee and his business with Megumi, he has to bolt.

Well, he was never one to sit still in one place.

Megumi was secretly hoping he would have learned the art somewhere along these six years.

“Come celebrate,” he tells Megumi with a shrug, but it sounds like an order. “We rarely get a chance to.”

“There’s a group.”

Megumi lifts his gaze to the patient, careful not to make any abrupt movements while the needle is still embedded in her arm. She’s looking at Megumi’s face as though fearful of his reaction, but he’s just confused.

“Sorry?”

“I’m sorry, I just— I saw your face, and I thought…” her hand twitches up and points to her left eye, where Megumi’s scar sits on his own face. “There’s a support group, we meet up every Wednesday at a cafe near the memorial, and we sort of…discuss.”

Her voice trails off when she notices Megumi has gone incredibly still. 

“You were in Shibuya, right? Halloween, 2018?” she asks, and then uses her free hand to tentatively lift the leg of her trousers. There’s a thick, gnarly surgical scar running from her ankle to her knee. If Megumi had to guess, she would have had a rod placed there. Her leg must have been crushed under something. Building, most likely. 

A building his own shikigami might have torn down. 

“Um, you should probably get that—“

Megumi blinks back to reality and registers that the syringe has overflowed with the girl’s blood, and it’s now oozing out onto his lab coat and the floor. He jolts, as though electrocuted. 

“Fuck— oh my God, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s alright, don’t worry.”

“No, I’m so sorry, this is not— Don’t get up, you’ll be dizzy.”

He gives the girl a piece of cotton to press on her free-bleeding arm and scrambles to the lab’s sink to cap the vial and wash it from the outside. His hands are stained. The water comes off a shade of pink. 

Megumi’s not breathing. 

“It’s really okay,” the girl half-chuckles. “I didn’t feel anything. You have a very light hand.”

“Good to know before they fire me, I suppose.”

He drops some paper towels on the ground and uses his good foot to rub them against the stains. They’re not scrubbing off. If anything, Megumi is only making a bigger mess. He should try this with pure alcohol.

“I won’t tell on you or anything,” the girl shrugs. “It’s my fault you got distracted anyway.”

Megumi would tell her it’s absolutely not her fault, but his head’s fault, and that he should screw it back in place before leaving the house, let alone taking someone’s blood— but he can’t find his voice. His leg is still scrubbing away furiously. The paper towel has dried, and there are wide smears of blood on the floor now. Like someone dragged a corpse around. 

Megumi’s not breathing. 

“I…” he picks up the towel and throws it away, a little more aggressively than is warranted. “Your results should be out within the hour. You may sit in the waiting room, and I’ll have a nurse call for you.” 

The girl almost looks disappointed by the change of subject. She gets down from the bed very carefully and makes her way toward the door. It’s then that Megumi notices she’s limping. Ever so slightly. Her physiotherapist must be good. If Megumi were more of a person and less of a shell, he would ask her for his card.

“I’m sorry, again,” is what he says instead. “I’m new— well, I’m a student, actually—not that this is an excuse. I’m…not sure why I’m still talking. I’m just making it worse. Please go and report me.”

A small laugh escapes her as she lingers by the door. 

“It’s all good. I still don’t know how to quite talk about it either.”

No further explanation is needed between them. Despite being complete strangers, they have both been marred by this indescribable ‘it’, and the realization is equal parts comforting and horrifying to Megumi. 

His fingers wrap around his cane tightly. The wooden handle etches its shape along his palm. 

“Thank you for your invite, but I can’t come to your group.”

She half-shrugs.

“I mean, there are people from all over the place, and all ages, so—“

“No, um.” Megumi bites his cheek. Tastes blood. It’s not enough. “I cannot come to your group. I can’t be there. Do you understand?”

I can’t be there.

Among all these hurt people 

Not when I feel like this,

It will only make it worse.

The girl’s eyes soften. 

“I understand. It was nice meeting you.”

She’s silent as a breeze on her way out. 

He let Kugisaki give Itadori his number.

Does tomorrow at 6 pm work for you?

School gates

Don’t suppose you need directions hahah

No, Megumi doesn’t, but for a moment, he almost wishes he did. He wishes he had forgotten the way to that building and the forest surrounding it, and all that is sickeningly familiar about it. The smell of freshly cut grass. The sound of cicadas singing the afternoon away. Metal weapons clanging against each other in the training grounds, and chalk dragging itself against the blackboard in the classroom. 

The way the sun lights the back of the entrance archway, casting a shadow so tall it drowns Megumi in darkness, as he looks at it. 

Itadori said to meet at the gates, probably for convenience, but Megumi has not dared take a step forward. On the drive here, he got this compulsive, sickening thought: What if the barrier rejects him? What if there’s still some hideous remnants of Sukuna’s cursed energy clinging to Megumi for dear life, and the barrier catches them, preventing Megumi from getting inside? Worst yet, what if they have adjusted it to specifically keep Megumi out? He’s not a sorcerer anymore. He has no business walking freely here. 

“Hey, you still do the thing!”

The sound of Itadori’s voice plucks Megumi out of his thoughts, and he lifts his head to see him skipping down the entrance steps with a light jog. He’s dressed in uniform again, and it’s wrinkly. He was out on a job.

“Huh?”

Itadori stops two steps away from Megumi. For the first time, Megumi notices their height difference is not so exaggerated now. They see eye to eye. 

“You still do the thing where you arrive precisely two minutes early for every appointment,” he says. 

Megumi glances at his watch and realizes it’s only now, exactly 6 pm, so indeed, he must have been early. He was not aware he did that. The fact that Itadori was, and even remembers it, does a funny thing to the nerves behind Megumi’s ears. A buzz.

“Yeah. Sorry.”

Itadori scoffs. Or maybe chuckles. Regardless, he finds Megumi ridiculous, which might be a good thing.

“Don’t apologize. Come on.”

Instinctively, he puts a hand behind Megumi’s back and ushers him under the gate. It happened so swiftly, so naturally, that Megumi didn’t have time to brace for impact in case the barrier kicked at him. It would feel like smacking against a glass door. Solid. Humiliating.

Megumi passes through with ease. He feels the barrier’s energy whisk off him like a light curtain, and despite himself, he sighs. 

The walk up to the classrooms building is as scenic as he remembers. All thick greenery and cobble-paved roads. Having Itadori walk by his side on the way there makes him feel fifteen, in a horrifying sense. More blood and concussions and less high school simplicity. 

“We’ll just go grab Yuta from class, and then we will give you the cursed object. This won’t take long. You can hang around for as much as you want, though.”

Megumi’s eyebrows furrow at that.

“Okkotsu-san teaches?”

If there was any student who Megumi thought would become a field sorcerer, it’d be Okkotsu Yuta. His technique is perfectly tailored for combat and pest control; he is just about the second fastest sorcerer Megumi has witnessed, and he has that deranged, altruistic hero streak that eventually sends all sorcerers to their death. Why have they bound him to a classroom?

“He’s quite good,” Itadori smiles softly. “‘Reminds me of a certain someone.”

The door to the classroom is open, and the sound of overlapping voices carries to the hallway. Megumi physically braces himself as they cut the corner to the door’s opening, but the sight hits him no less.

Okkotsu Yuta, age twenty-two, dressed in slacks and a button-up, speaking in a class full of engrossed teenagers with a chalk in hand, the glint of dedication in his eyes. His ever-messy, ever-too-long bangs do a poor job of hiding the row of stitches that marks his forehead for now, until the day he dies. 

“And that creates what’s essentially a forcefield which then—“ Yuta’s eyes finally dart to the doorway, and he sees them standing there, in waiting. The chalk on his hand comes to a screeching stop against the blackboard, making all of the kids wince and cover their ears.

“Megumi,” he says. Calm, awfully calm. Then, for some reason Megumi can’t fathom, his face breaks into a gentle smile. Six pairs of eyes instantly land on Megumi, making him feel like he’s been put through an X-Ray. 

“Uh, everyone, this is Fushiguro Megumi, he’s—“

“We know who he is, sir,” one of the kids— a boy, shy of fourteen maybe— says, looking at Megumi as one would an intruder. “Respectfully.”

Well, it’s not that Megumi expected a red carpet and fireworks. 

By now, he has accepted that he might as well have a glowing sign with pointing arrows above his head as far as the jujutsu world is concerned, and it reads: Guy who killed Satoru Gojo and then dipped.

He tries to make a joke of it, but it hardly works without a smile, or even a lick of charm.

“Failed first grade sorcerer, very easy to remember.”

“I was going to say he’s an old friend,” Yuta says softly, his eyes on Megumi. It only lasts a moment before his attention snaps back to the class, with that newfound authoritarian tone. “Alright, everyone shoo, you get an early leave.”

A flurry of mumbling celebrations spreads through the small group of students as they push their chairs back, ready to bolt out before Yuta changes his mind. 

“I’m keeping you twenty minutes extra tomorrow, though!” he shouts as the last student cuts the corner. 

Megumi hears Itadori mumble something to the kids and high-five one or two of them, but he’s too focused on Yuta to make sense of anything else. It would be endearing, how seriously he’s taking this, if it didn’t gut-punch Megumi to see him at all, let alone in a class they used to once share.

“Alright,” he sighs. “My office?”

It’s Gojo’s old office.

Megumi figured as much, because why the hell wouldn’t it be? Why would anything in this wretched building be designed not to make Megumi want to vomit? 

He takes a seat on one of the visitor’s chairs. They used to be designer, atrociously expensive, and comfortable, but Yuta has opted for something more plain. At least there’s that. 

The desk is the same, though. Same high-end wood, same impeccable design. Megumi used to do his calculus homework on it when he was seven, and Gojo had nowhere to leave him but at work. His fingers itch to trace the wood, but he keeps his hands to himself.

“I assume Yuuji has given you the gist,” Yuta says, and opens the desk’s drawer, rummaging through it blindly. “Cursed object, has to be safekept, same old.”

“I have no idea what the object is, though.”

As a response, Yuta’s hand emerges from the drawer and sets a Rubik’s Cube atop the table. 

Immediately, the odor of bleach assaults Megumi’s nose and transports him back to the sun-showered living room of his apartment, more than a decade ago. There’s a lanky figure with hair as white as snow, lying on the wooden floor while their brilliant mind jumps through the loopholes of impossibility. 

‘What is sorcery if not the defiance of physics, eh, Megumi?’

Megumi flinches back as though the item burned him without touch.

“Is that Gojo’s?”

Itadori and Yuta share a look, communicating in silence. That’s all the answer Megumi needed anyway. 

“It’s not Gojo’s,” Yuta says.

“This is drenched in Gojo’s cursed energy, I can literally smell the Limitless.”

“This is not Satoru’s.”

It feels wrong, hearing Gojo’s first name from a mouth that isn’t Shoko Ieri’s. These days, it feels wrong to hear it at all. Megumi fixes Yuta with a glare, employing the art of demanding an explanation only with his eyes. 

Itadori clears his throat. 

“There’s this kid, born in the Gojo clan. They’re five, so the Limitless has just awakened. This is theirs.”

Oh.

The thought hadn't even dared occur to Megumi. It seemed utterly absurd that the three of them could even find themselves in a room talking about a Gojo that wasn't Satoru. 

“Theirs?”

“We don’t know the kid’s name or gender, for security reasons,” Itadori explains.

Megumi's eyes jump between them and the cube, wide to the point of dryness.

“The energy on this is too strong to have been placed by a five-year-old with a barely formed Limitless.”

Itadori looks to the window at this, and Yuta just sighs.

“Not if the five-year-old also has the Six Eye.”

“Jesus Christ,” Megumi gulps down, and then another, more sinister scenario sneaks between the folds of his brain. “It’s not…the kid is not Satoru’s, right?”

Megumi was no stranger to the concept of Gojo keeping secrets, especially where the Gojo clan was concerned. He knew next to nothing about these people, save for the fact that they were more than a little responsible for the person Satoru was (whether that was good or bad, Megumi won’t be the judge of that). 

Would he really put it past Gojo to hide a whole child? Or the desire for one? Either way, it serves as the final nail to the coffin of the notion that Megumi knew Gojo better than anyone.

Such bullshit.

Thankfully, Itadori saves him from the mortifying ordeal of thinking about this further.

“Oh, God no,” he says, and his whole face scrunches in disgust. “Ew, no. Can you imagine? No.”

“They’re something of a distant cousin,” Yuta offers. “Like how I am, but closer. They populate like rabbits.”

Something about how casually he says it pisses Megumi off, but he knows better than to show it. 

“And why did they make this?” He asks instead, gesturing at the cube. “What does it do?”

“Nothing, to my understanding,” Yuta shrugs, looking at the cube. “The way it was presented to us, the kid just threw a tantrum and launched this across the room.”

“And it went through three concrete walls,” Itadori snickers. Of course, he finds this entertaining. 

“The clan is worried that the toy could function as a tracking device for the kid, since it’s brimming with Limitless, so they asked if we could hide it somewhere. Problem is…” 

Yuta’s finger tries to make contact with the cube, and there’s a searing sound. Like oil sizzling in a pan. The finger comes off burned.

The technique can’t be copied without the Six Eye.  

“We don’t yet have the resources for something that will suppress that.”

Itadori snaps his fingers and points at Megumi with a sheepish smile. 

“That’s where you come in.”

Submerging the cube in Megumi’s shadow pocket wouldn’t exactly smother the Limitless, but it will camouflage it at the very least, even by smell alone. It’d be like painting the cube over with a solid color. It’s not a Rubik’s anymore, just an unassuming cube. Not bad, for a temporary solution. But still;

“This is insane.”

Realistically, Megumi knew that the Six Eye is passed down the moment the previous owner dies. But familiarity has always fooled him into believing no one but Gojo could fill that perfect space in the jujutsu world. It felt like something so uniquely tailored to them, so right, that no one else could have it. And to think that now a kid is carrying the weight Megumi saw Gojo crumble under all his life...to have assassins on their doorstep and an overprotective clan on their shoulders and now this.

It’s all fucking sad.

“We’ve seen worse, haven’t we?” Yuta asks, and it’s clear in the lines of his careful smile that he’s hoping this will be a moment to bond. That Megumi will somehow crack under the nostalgia, and they’ll all end up drinking a beer at his wedding and laughing about old times by the end of this week.

Fat chance. 

Regardless, Megumi puts his hand over the cube and drowns it in the shadow that his palm creates on the desk. Gone. Because he promised. 

“Consider it disappeared.”

“Thank you,” Yuta sighs. He might have been holding his breath this entire time. “Itadori will contact you again in two weeks to—“

“I’m gonna go get some air.”

Megumi doesn’t bother with a door, and instead just passes through his own shadow on the wall, leading him two rooms away, on the outside premises again. 

He does that trick around the house a lot, when he’s alone, and it almost functions as proof of concept that he still has his technique. That he is still Fushiguro Megumi, however mangled. 

It seems it serves as an excellent escape, too.

The air outside is crisp, true to the winter, and Megumi takes a large breath, seeing it materialize on its way out.

He starts walking without any true destination in mind, making a mess of his shoes by forgoing the stoned paths and passing straight through the grass instead. 

A six-eye user.

A child.

A constantly surveilled and repressed child. 

The cube began growing heavy in Megumi’s pocket and heavier on his mind. He was still within the school’s barrier, so he figured he could take it out and take another look at it. Just because. 

There was nothing extraordinary about it, but upon closer inspection, Megumi realized his fingers were just a millimeter apart from its actual surface, never quite touching the cube.

This forced, thick distance was one of the things he hated most about having Gojo around. This permanent intagibility. Now trying to bypass Limitless by pressing his thumb against it to no avail, Megumi realizes he misses it. He misses the never-ending race at trying to reach Gojo, and backing away when Gojo tried to reach for him back.

He doesn’t think there will ever be a time when he won’t miss it.

When he lowers the cube from his line of sight, Megumi notices he’s walked as far as to reach the school’s Shinto shrine, tucked deep beyond a clearing in the garden. He’s not sure why, but he feels his feet carrying him closer. There was never comfort to be found in Shinto for him. At least no more than there was to be found in a meal made by his sister’s hands. Yet he walks forward, his cane pointing the way.

Before he reaches the entrance of the shrine, he comes across a stone column that could easily be mistaken for a gravestone.

It sort of is.

There are a couple of incense sticks at the base that have been snuffed out by the wind, along with a flower. A crysanthemum, if Megumi’s right. It looks to be fresh.

The engraving on the stone reads; 

Here lies hope

until it’s reborn again

in the hands that it fostered

with faith

if not softness.

Gojo’s then.

There’s a proper gravesite for them at their family estate in Kyoto, where Megumi and Itadori had their last conversation six years or so ago. Though to be honest, this is more of a memorial and less of a grave. Somehow, it feels more significant than any piece of marble hosting Gojo's actual body.

With faith, if not softness.

Clever, Megumi thought with a sting. The skin above his top lip burned with the memory of blood running over it, courtesy of Gojo’s fairness and never their softness. 

Part of Megumi wants to smash the insense vase with the foot of his cane.

Part of him wants to start crying. 

He does neither, and just stays frozen in place, still somehow paralyzed in the presence of Gojo, even in death. 

Megumi hates them, but never more than himself. 

The sound of footsteps on the grass comes up behind him, and Megumi doesn’t have to look to know it’s Itadori. He’d know the force of his walk anywhere. The unparalleled confidence of it, even in times where he has no idea where he is going, and what awaits him there.

“Thought I’d find you here,” he tells Megumi, with an airiness that feels ill-fitted.

“I didn’t know ‘here’ even existed. I found it by accident.”

“Yeah,” Itadori shrugs. “I somehow knew you would.”

Megumi isn’t sure he likes the implication of that, but he says nothing of it, and just lets Itadori take his place next to him. Looking at the snuffed-out stick becomes a joint effort, until Itadori pulls a box of matches from his jacket’s pocket and lights it again. 

The smell sneaks between Megumi’s nostrils and transforms into guilt, which wraps around his lungs like thorny vines.

“So…” Itadori starts rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. The gesture comes off as painfully boyish. “What do you think of the job?”

“I said I would do it, didn’t I?”

A self-targeted tsk. “Alright, change of subject. What do you want to talk about?”

“Do we have to talk?”

“Jeez, you’re making this hard.”

And Megumi knows there is truth in that, and he wishes he were easier to talk to. Easier to like, easier to have and to hold. He wishes his jaw wasn’t set in stone and that his gaze didn’t cut like daggers, and more than anything, he wishes everyone would stop being so fucking nice. 

Megumi doesn’t need niceties, he needs an excuse. 

After a while no response, he hears Itadori sigh from next to him.

“Look, man, I miss them like crazy too, but—“

It’s the wrong thing to say.

“I don’t want to talk about Gojo,” Megumi deadpans, not even looking at Itadori’s way.

That’s the wrong thing to say, too. 

From his peripheral vision, Megumi sees Itadori fully turn to him, and his gaze burns the side of Megumi’s face.

“Maybe that’s your problem,” he says, in a tone harsher than Megumi has ever heard Itadori use on him. 

If he ever wondered where Itadori’s limit was, he’d just found it and stepped on it with all the force he could muster. Now dismissal can’t save Megumi. Itadori has him between his teeth and is not letting go.

“Megumi, what do you say to your coworkers when they ask you about your parents? Or your school years? Or your friends? Do they even ask? Do you have anyone in your life that you talk to?”

Still, Megumi refuses to look, his eyes locked on the stone. 

With faith, if not softness.

He is his master’s pupil, after all. The softness was gutted out of him long ago.

“I tell them the truth,” he says calmly. “I tell them my family is dead, that I went to a boarding school, and that my friends and I have grown apart.”

“Grown apart…” Itadori parrots, like there’s mud sticking to the words, rolling in his mouth.

Finally, Megumi’s head turns, and he comes face to face with an Itadori that’s been scraped raw. The halfway gnarl on his lips, the wrinkles between his eyebrows that Megumi wishes were responsible for erasing with his thumb. It all spoke of a need to bite. 

“What do you want from me, Itadori?” 

For some reason, the sound of his name seems to have a physical impact, even though he’s heard Megumi speak it countless times. Scream it, even. Now, Itadori almost flinches, and it takes Megumi a second to realize that he expected him to call him ‘Yuuji’ in a fight, if only to prove its severity. If only to hear it. 

Ow. 

“To actually say what you’re really thinking, for starters.”

The words came out before Megumi’s brain could put a rein on his mouth;

“I think about Shibuya.”

Their effect is akin to a gunshot in the clearing. Megumi could have sworn the birds around them abandoned their spots on the trees and flew away as a precaution. Or that the breeze that blew between them just then was a byproduct of his voice. The unblinking look on Itadori’s face certainly is. 

He swallows and feels the saliva go down his throat like gravel. 

“Every morning when I wake up and every night before I go to bed, I think about Shibuya. I replay the thirty-first of October 2018 over and over and over in my head, trying to find some logical fallacy, something that I could have done differently that night, just so I can have more ammunition to hate myself.”

Suddenly, Megumi is a tar pit, but instead of swallowing all that’s good and honorable, horrid things are pouring out of him, like an endless string of misery. 

“I get waking nightmares to this day. A vial will smash on the floor at work, and my hands twitch to cover my ears. Hell, I almost knocked you out this week. I took a gap year from university because I couldn’t be normal about anything,” he spits out, and his free hand starts twitching around nothing. 

“I used to sit in class, and suddenly I’d feel this gnarly tingling on my scalp like- like his fingers are actively sinking into my skin and grabbing at my brain. I hear him fucking laughing all the time, and I want to smash my head against a wall until he stops.”

“I used to get them too,” he says, voice softer than anything Megumi possibly deserves today. “The nightmares. I mean, of course I did. Sometimes I still do.”

A gulp. 

A blink.

Itadori’s gone, lost in his head.

It’s autumn, six years ago, and nothing will be the same again.

“I open my eyes, and I see Shibuya,” he admits. “A gaping hole of rubble and debris where the center should be. I can smell it, even— the scent of burned wires and rot. Sometimes the feeling of blood on my hands was so real, I jolted out of bed and turned on the lights to check. And sometimes I had to go to the kitchen and scrub my skin raw until the sensation went away.”

A blink again, and Itadori is back in the school’s garden.

It’s winter, six years later, and nothing is the same.

“But I don’t do that anymore,” he says. “It gets better.”

“What if it doesn’t?”

“It has to.”

With such conviction that it almost convinces Megumi. Almost. 

Until the most childish, petulant part of him takes over, begging to be addressed. He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose as if it would make the thought disappear, but of course it doesn’t.

“I just can’t stop being angry."

Itadori seems puzzled for a second. 

“At Sukuna?”

“At Gojo,” Megumi corrects. 

The admission cuts through him like a blunt-edged knife, leaving him unsightly. What a horror, to be perceived in this type of disgrace. To be witnessed while drowning in an ugly, imperfect sort of grief that screams for attention instead of killing you in silence.

“I’m angry at them for dying. Do you even register how fucked up this is?” It’s a near laugh— a wet one, at that, but not quite as raw, though equally pitiable. “But I just can’t stop. I keep thinking about how the only parent figure I’ve ever known beat my body to an inch of its life and then went and died on me. They swore they could win this, and then didn’t, and now we’re all here to pick up the pieces.”

A shake of his head, like that would make the words pour out faster, so he’d be done with this humiliation ritual.

Itadori’s lips are parted, but no words are coming out, so Megumi takes it as an invitation to continue being nasty.

“I can’t forgive them, or anyone for that matter. I’m angry at Gojo, I’m angry at Sukuna, I’m angry at Yuta and Shoko, for using the corpse like a fucked up muppet, I’m angry at the Higher Ups— I’m angry at God himself, and his sick joke, that I am still here.”

It’s going to take more than that to kill me.

Are you happy now, I wonder?

“You know what the worst part is?” The question is rhetorical, of course, but Megumi makes sure to point in the general direction of the main building, just to emphasize. “Gojo would be so fucking happy about Yuta and Maki. They would pay for everything, take a billion pictures, and would cry during the ceremony and then say it was some weird allergy, as if they even had any. Gojo would be ecstatic. But Gojo is not here, and I keep thinking about how I’m the reason why.”

Itadori interjects in the space of Megumi’s heaves, claiming it as his own. 

“You think you’re the only one between us who blames himself?” he asks, and it sounds like an accusation. Only Itadori, Megumi thinks. Only Itadori can deliver reassurance like a sword to the chest. “What do you think we’ve all been doing for the past six years?”

“So if you understand, then why can’t you just let me be?”

“Because!” It’s a yell this time, and it has Megumi nearly backing away. “Because each minute I spend hating myself, Sukuna wins. Because self-pity won’t fill the Gojo-shaped hole in any of our lives, and especially not yours. Because you’re the one who said it was our fault first. Ours. Plural. Because I care about you. Because I’ll always care about you. All of you. And it kills me that you won’t let me.”

“Let you—?“ Despite everything, a chuckle rips out of Megumi. A mean one. “What, do I have a sign on my back that says ‘please save me’?”

Itadori erases the distance Megumi put between them and drops his voice so that the dead may not hear.

“Yeah, only it’s not on your back, but your fucking forehead, and it’s been there since you were fifteen.”

Megumi had thought Itadori capable of many things, most of them extraordinarily good, but never did he think him capable of matching Megumi in a verbal fight. In all the ways he resembles Gojo, that used to be the biggest one. Softies, both of them. One mean-spirited word from someone they love, and they wilt like flowers.

A lot has changed, it seems. 

“The fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

Itadori jabs a finger on Megumi’s chest where a heart should be, despite everything.

“That, beyond all your self-sabotaging and clinical case of emotional constipation, you actually want my help. I know you do. So I’m going to bust your balls until you accept it.”

It feels ridiculous for Megumi to notice this in the middle of everything, but it’s the third time Itadori has cussed in half an hour, and Megumi’s pattern-seeking brain can’t help but take a wounded note of it. His whole face scrunches.

“Since when do you speak like that?”

That, surprisingly, is the right thing to say.

The words have the effect of a pacifier. A wave washing away amateur scribbles in the shore’s sand. Itadori sighs, like a weight has been lifted off of him, and he closes his eyes, so gently that his lashes kiss his cheeks.

“Please come to the wedding,” he says quietly. If it were a question, Megumi would have been powerless against it and would have said yes. Perhaps his mistake is that he was waiting for Itadori to ask a second time. “If you don’t want me to speak to you until then, I’ll just make myself scarce, but please come.”

His finger loses contact with Megumi’s chest then, and Megumi goes to mourn the stabbing contact, but then Itadori’s hand finds his shoulder and squeezes it before he gets to.

He might as well have ripped Megumi’s arm off. 

There would have been no complaints if he had.

Violence was the first love language Megumi was taught, anyway.

 After the funeral, all the students fought like dogs over who got to keep what from Gojo’s office. 

In a way, it felt no different than what was happening while Gojo was still alive. Everyone felt entitled to little pieces of them, ready to claw them out of grips or cold, dead hands. 

And Megumi— well, Megumi was sixteen and petty and angry beyond any stretch of the imagination, so he never told anyone about all of Gojo’s possessions he had in his and Tsumiki’s apartment. 

He let the others fight over office plants and picture frames while he kept onto everything else: clothes, uniforms, books, even shaving razors. 

It took him about six months to touch anything of Gojo’s in the apartment at all. The objects were scattered across the space, exactly as Gojo had last left them. Toothbrush hanging halfway into the sink and everything. It felt like blasphemy to put it all away. If Megumi left them as they were, his apartment could be a time-capsule from a time when Gojo was still alive. Like they’d come and put the toothbrush back in its cup themselves. 

That didn’t happen, of course.

So Megumi spent a summer weekend packing every last trace of Gojo’s existence into carton boxes, back in 2019.

Some stuff he gave away; civilian clothes mostly, that either didn’t fit Megumi or that were too fancy for him.

Most, he kept. He had a specific box labeled “first-years” with stuff he wanted to give to Itadori, Kugisaki, and maybe Maki, but never did. He kept thinking about it, and had written three different paragraphs in his notes about how to introduce the concept of said stuff, and ask if they even wanted them. But by the time he felt satisfied with the wording, he realized it’d been nine months since he’d spoken to any of them, and it felt wrong for this to be his opener. Then he started talking to Kugisaki again, and the “right time” to mention never came. 

He stands in front of the box now and takes notice of how the black ink of the label has faded after years of too little sun exposure from the attic’s tiny window. 

He takes a switchblade and stabs the box open in search of a wedding gift. 

The train ride to Kyoto is admittedly beautiful. 

Megumi had brought a book, but he ended up spending the majority of his time looking outside the window, watching as the city landscape slowly faded into a snowy countryside, until he fell asleep.

He dreamt of Rubik’s cubes with eyes where colored squares should be and white hair and ringing laughter. 

The Zen’in estate sat at the foot of a mountain deep within Kyoto’s most rural areas, surrounded by forestry and blankets of snow as far as the eye could see. Wooden bridges and streams, stone pathways, and the sound of country birds guiding you along to what once was a den of vipers, and is now just an empty house, with a beautiful thatched roof.

There was no one to stop Megumi from waltzing in at the entrance, but he did feel the purifying energy of a veil whisk off the ends of his hair as he did. He supposes a building filled with the strongest sorcerers in the world hardly needs any worldly security. Yet the absence of the estate’s staff, or everyone, really, makes the walk to the main building twice as eerie.

Megumi had walked this particular plank once again when he was around eight.

His heart is now beating just as loud as it did then.

The only difference is that now he’s wearing a suit jacket, not a yukata, and no one is holding his hand.

Maki made a handsome bride, if that makes sense. Even though she wasn’t even dressed yet. 

“No fucking way,” were her first words to Megumi when she saw him standing in the doorway of her room. "You actually showed up."

The wedding wasn’t for another two hours, and Megumi had no interest in partaking in the activities happening on the groom’s side of the estate, so he thought he would be better off with the bridal party. Less sake, less hollering. 

Maki sat on a spinning makeup chair with her hair pinned back from her face, and although Megumi couldn’t tell what had been done to her by Nobara holding a tiny paint brush, he thinks that she looks…softer. 

Not in a bad way, just different, and yet somehow entirely herself. Perhaps Megumi’s problem was that he’d never seen her face adorned with anything other than blood.

“I come bearing gifts,” Megumi tries to smile and lifts the rectangular box in his hand to showcase it. 

He and Nobara talk on the phone more often than Megumi could justify with any title other than "friendship", but it's been more than a year since he has seen her up close. The thing about Nobara is that she never changes, fortunately.

She changes her hair every once in a while, and gets new clothes and tries different styles of eyepatches but she hasn't changed in the way Megumi and Itadori have. Her jaw doesn't seem stiff like she's expecting a punch. Her shoulders are pushed back but relaxed, her stance graceful. The youthfulness about her hasn't been beaten out of her raw. Or perhaps it's that she had the least out of all three of them to begin with. 

She gives Megumi a nod of acknowledgment. 

Maki is up on her feet before Nobara can meaningfully protest, and walks up to Megumi until they’re nose to nose. For a moment there, Megumi thinks she might attempt to hug him, and his whole body goes rigid at the thought. Instead, Maki takes a rough hold of his arm that’s not leaning on the cane, and lifts it as she would a doll’s.

“When was the last time you ate any carbs, dude?”

Oh. Gym talk. On her wedding day. Right, of course. 

Megumi melts into a sort of ease that he hasn’t felt with any of them thus far and defensively takes his arm back with a childish frown. 

“I’m on the cut, okay?”

“Yeah, cutting life support. You look like a stick, how’d you even get up the stairs without heaving?”

She says nothing about the cane, and Megumi is silently thankful. Perhaps it’s a quintessential Zen’in thing, this mute acknowledgment. This aggressive clinginess to a normalcy that barely even exists anymore. A sort of ‘I see you. I don’t wish to talk about it either. But I see you.’ After weeks of Itadori handling him like he’s made of glass, Megumi welcomes this. 

She does look at it, though, and after a moment, her fingers make a gentle move towards the handle.

“May I see that?”

At first, Megumi stills. He looks between Maki’s reaching hand and her unreadable gaze, stern as ever, and decides to let go of the cane. He leans his shoulder against the door’s opening for support as Maki takes it in her hands.

Nobara has remained silent throughout this whole exchange, but the nervousness on her face is unmistakable. Nervousness for whom Megumi isn’t sure. 

In a swift motion, Maki twists the cane horizontally and pulls the head and the body apart, revealing the hidden blade inside. Short sword. No engravings. Thin and practical. 

Her lips break into a smirk that could almost be prideful, if it came from a softer person.

“Sneaky.”

Nobara’s sigh is audible when she relaxes back against the table.

“Seriously, Fushiguro? Weaponry at a wedding?”

“Like you haven’t got your hammer strapped somewhere.”

“That's different, I’m a lady.”

Megumi rolls his eyes and lets that be an answer enough. 

“The blade’s fine, but it’s not cursed, from what I can tell.” Maki tosses the hollow end of the cane at Megumi and takes the sword for a spin, examining the blade under the warm lighting of the room's lanterns. The reflection of her eyes on the metal stares back at Megumi. “Any particular reason as to why?”

The answer to that was that it was purchased at a perfectly ordinary and non-sorcerer antique shop on a whim, and Megumi never bothered to imbue it with cursed energy. He found the blade to be already over the top, but still nice to have. It made the cane feel slightly more useful. More like a tool, and less like a glowing sign of weakness.

Nobara catches Maki’s hand by the forearm mid-swing and glares at her.

“If you sweat in your make-up, I will kill you.”

Maki tsks and rolls her eyes, but throws the sword back at Megumi regardless. It’s good to know Nobara inspires fear in people who are not Megumi. 

“And what’s that, then?” she nods at the box in Megumi’s hand, and all of his nervousness comes back. 

He extends the box to her as a sign that she should be the one to open it. Although less than a box and more of a fancy sunglasses case made of polished wood that Megumi found lying around the house. He watches carefully as Maki flips the clasp of the case open with her index finger and takes a look inside.

Her curious expression melts. 

Inside the velvet cushion, Megumi has carefully folded Gojo’s white blindfold. For most of the years that Megumi knew them, Gojo opted for sunglasses, but as time went on and they grew into their Six Eye, those became exhausting too, and only opaque cloth offered visual silence. Save for Megumi, all the other students knew them with a blindfold, but only Maki and Yuta’s year knew them with a white one. They only wore that one for a short while or along with traditional attire. 

But only Megumi knows that. This blindhold is but another of Gojo’s outfits for him, but to Maki and Yuta, it’s a piece of them. It’s how they met Gojo, and all that Gojo was for them. 

Maki’s fingers reach into the box and almost touch the blindfold, but she stops herself. Her hand adopts a slight tremor, a breath away from the act. Like she’s scared she would taint it if she were to touch it truly. 

For a while, neither she nor Nobara says anything, and with each passing second of silence, Megumi grows restless in his spot. 

“I thought you might—“ he starts, but Maki cuts him off.

“Shut up,” she says without looking at him. There is no real heat behind the insult or force behind her voice. “Just shut up.”

As high a praise as he could hope for, from Maki. 

So it’s a good gift. 

Megumi did well. 

The thought pleases him more than is warranted for his age.

Nobara looks up with an indecipherable loopsided smirk. Pride? Loving mockery? A bit of both, maybe.

“Would you look at that; Fuahiguro Megumi has a heart.”

Megumi spotted Itadori only after he’d taken his seat at the ceremony. 

They had both been turned around as it happened and had already sat too firmly to get up again in a way that wouldn’t make it painfully obvious they were avoiding each other. Or at least, Megumi is avoiding Itadori and his amber eyes that keep searching for softness somewhere between Megumi’s eyebrows. 

They find none, and so after the two share a look of quiet acknowledgment, they each face forward again. Silent.

The shrine is cramped, but they make do. Were the room just filled with people who are important to Yuta and Maki, only the first row of seats would be occupied. Alas, clan politics have made this a busier event. 

Megumi spots some familiar faces as he looks around (he’s reached the pathetic point of preferring to make eye contact with a borderline stranger than Itadori), but he’s entirely uninterested in firing up a conversation with half of them, especially sober. And unfortunately, Inumaki-san doesn't count.

Gojo clan members are easier to spot, even without knowing them. They’re the only ones other than Yuta and Maki dressed in traditional attire, and despite this not being any of their weddings, they all wore veils or blindfolds. 

Megumi supposed it’s a less flashy substitute for designer round-lens sunglasses.

He wishes one of them had worn a pair.

If only so they could give Megumi a heart attack for a split second

And then he could have smiled, shaken his head, and pretended Gojo was there.

None of the Gojos were so kind as to feed into that fantasy. 

He turns his head to the hall when the officiating sorcerer comes out, and the vows begin.

It’s funny; Megumi is watching what’s supposed to be two of the most important people in his life get married by the law of whichever God is kind enough to lend an ear, and all he can focus on is the burning sensation along his neck, where he can feel Itadori’s fleeting glances as Yuta and Maki exchange sorcerer’s vows.

Where there is no struggle, there is no strength.

I chose this person out of my own free will.

And with them I will endure a day, and then a day after that.

And a thousand more.

They don’t tear up in the slightest. Maki is more serious than warranted, and Yuta is almost gigglish, and Megumi realizes it’s because this is their second time doing this. Having an audience must take all the sappiness out of it. It’s not that they don’t mean the words— on the contrary, it’s that they mean them to the point of weightlessness. The promise of forever rings so simple, and they’re so certain of it that it becomes devoid of dramatics. 

What’s scary about a lifetime of forever with someone you’ve almost died with more than once? 

Their palms rest upon each other’s as they say so, and they never break eye contact. 

Without looking away from the display, Megumi finds his hand twitching at his side till his knuckles brush against Itadori’s busted ones.

He’d wondered, for a single moment, if the tingling sensation was just in his head or actual skin-on-bloody-skin, but reassurance quickly came in the form of Itadori flinching in his seat.

His head whipped toward Megumi, and it took everything not tear his eyes from Yuta and Maki and meet him halfway. Itadori’s cheeks are wet with remnants of hurriedly wiped tears. Nothing unexpected, really. Itadori would be the first person to cry at anyone’s wedding. They are tears of joy, obviously. 

So Megumi isn’t sure why the sight guts him so. 

Alive, I will forever seek them.

In death, I will return to them.

“I’m sorry,” Megumi mouths inaudibly. He figures even without the ceremony being an excuse to keep quiet, he’d still make no sound when apologizing.

Itadori meets him in his silence, but the edge of his lips quirks up into the smallest of smiles. The scar that marks the tender spot is exaggerated when he does this. It cuts at Megumi’s knees better than a sword would.

The only enforcement of love is the will to love.

"Why do I always have to be the one to tell you you're stupid?"

Nobara finds the corner of the room Megumi had tucked himself into and comes to wreck its safety like a gust of wind. She pushes a drink into his hand by force and comes to lean against the wall next to him.

"I don't drink," Megumi starts. Which is not exactly true. He means to say he doesn't drink in situations where he might need the focus to stab someone. "And I don't know what you're talking about."

Nobara just nods ahead into the room, and it's pitiful, really, how quickly Megumi's eyes find Itadori chatting up someone with a drink in his hand. Megumi isn't sure who he should be more envious of: The person who gets to be the target of Itadori's undivided and illuminating attention, or Itadori himself, for how easygoing he seems. How utterly weightless.

"Remind me how many years it's been?" Nobara asks mockingly.

"Clearly not enough for you to let it fucking go."

"And clearly not enough for you do something about it."

It's easy to forget, sometimes, that Itadori had only been present in Megumi's life for a full year. And not even that. From the moment he saw him break through a hallway window in the spring of 2018 to the moment he patted Megumi's bag at the graveyard and walked away in February of 2019. Almost a year. 

So it feels absolutely ridiculous, to say the least, that for the following six of those years, Megumi has been unable to erase even a modicum of all that he feels for Itadori Yuuji. 

"It's like you said on the phone," he shrugs, making sure to look elsewhere so that Kugisaki won't call him on his shit. "Simple high-school infatuations and whatnot."

She still does.

"I was joking," she says, and then the conviction in her voice fades out, slowly. She goes quiet. "Nothing is ever simple with people like us."

Megumi looks back at Itadori's direction, and at the scar that marks his nose-bridge, so similar to the one that marks Megumi's.

What’s scary about a lifetime of forever with someone you’ve almost died with more than once? 

A few hours of forced socializing later, Megumi escaped through the backdoor of the estate for some fresh air. 

The atmosphere is so much clearer in the countryside. He feels each breath prickly frosty holes inside him, in a good way. Under the cover of night, it has started to snow again.

He’s not sure how long he has been outside for before he hears the backdoor slide open again. Along with the sound comes an overwhelming pressure in the corners of his eyes. Familiar, but dangerous.

Megumi’s hand slowly, so slowly, tightens its grip around the cane’s head, ready to pull, but—

“Don’t draw a weapon.”

The command is delivered by a voice so light and pitchy it could only belong to a child. Megumi looks over his shoulder, and sure enough, he finds a kid standing on the snowy steps. 

They’d be about five or six if he had to guess from their height, and they wore a white blindfold that tucked under their choppy hair. Stark white, with a few rogue black strands near their temple. Megumi wonders about those.

“Hello,” he says, but doesn’t remove his grip from the cane.

“Hi,” the kid smiles, all teeth. There’s an equally giddy quality to it as there is an eerie one. “Sorry, did I scare you?”

“No,” Megumi replies, and it’s partially true. The kid didn’t scare him; he’s constantly on guard regardless. Though now, looking at a spitting image of what he imagined Gojo looked like as a child, he’s…alert. If not scared.

It’s ridiculous, though. The kid’s head would barely knock on Megumi’s knees if they were closer, and they seem far more nervous than he is, biting the nail of their thumb and shifting their weight from one foot to the other. 

“Shouldn’t you be inside?” Megumi asks, if only to urge the kid to speak. They clearly want something, that’s why they’re here. Or maybe they’re seeking to satiate a simple childlike curiosity. Maybe they saw Megumi exit, and they followed him. Maybe the ceremony bored them to death. “It’s quite cold out here. Aren’t you freezing?”

The kid shakes their head and speaks around their thumb.

“Ion feel it.”

Well, Megumi’s out of lines.

“Right, sure,” he points at the half-open door behind them. “I should get back so—“

“Can I see it?”

Megumi blinks, partly confused.

“Sorry?”

“You’re him, right? The ten shadows user?”

Something about the way they asked felt rhetorical. Like they already knew the answer and were just waiting for Megumi to catch up.

“I’m Fushiguro,” seems like an appropriate reply.

“Yes, that’s what I said.”

Megumi doesn’t point out that this is not what they said, or even close. He has a feeling the kid wouldn’t give a damn. 

They reach a hand on the back of their head, where the blindfold is tied, and they loosen it, revealing a set of disturbingly wide, clear blue eyes that could stare into Megumi's soul if they so pleased, and find all that's rotten there. 

“I know you have my cube on you, that’s why I followed you out. I sensed it when you passed my table, but I can’t see where you hid it. That’s when it clicked: a shadow pocket! I read about your technique. But looking now, I still can’t see the cube. There’s something else, though. And I’d like to see it.”

And then, seemingly realizing how demanding that came off, “Please?”

Megumi is not sure what to dissect first, so he starts simple: “What’s your name?”

“You know my name.”

Gojo, obviously. 

Megumi feels himself frown at the thought, and he doesn’t know exactly why. It just feels wrong. 

“Your given name,” he clarifies. “What does your mother call you?”

The kid bites their bottom lip, trying to suppress a huge smile. 

“I’m not allowed to tell you.”

“I’m not calling you Gojo.”

“Itadori-san called me ‘Sixer’ the other day. That was fun,” they say, voice bubbling into a giggle. “But you don’t have to call me anything. Do I get to see the shinigami now?”

Megumi’s eyes dart to the doorway to ensure that no one is coming. Not that he’s doing anything wrong, but he’d hate to explain what it is that he’s truly doing. He is unsure of what that is, too. 

“She has been tamed, but she doesn’t take well to commands,” he warns. “She might hurt you.”

“Exciting!” the kid exclaims anyway. The precise opposite reaction of what Megumi was hoping for, but insanity must run in the family. “Show me!”

Tentatively, he starts dragging his cane on the snow, forming a circle and closing it around himself. Not that this will keep the Tiger in for sure, but something is better than nothing. If he still had the dogs, he'd summon one without a second thought, and let the kid play with it to their heart's content. The rabbits, even. Do kids like rabbits?

This is different. 

He grips the cane from the body and uses the head along with his free hand to form the shadow sign, cast in pitch black against the snow. If Todo Aoi was ever right about one thing, it’s that the hands are but a decoration. Sorcery is an expression of the soul. 

If it casts a shadow, Megumi can use it. 

He takes in a deep breath, and his eyes flutter closed. 

“Funeral Tiger.”

It never gets old, calling out a Shikigami. 

Feeling its incorporeal form drag against his legs. 

Feeling the burst of sorcery buzzing beneath the skin of his forearms.

He wishes he didn’t love it as much. 

The Tiger lets out a rumble of a growl, and Megumi opens his eyes to see the kid stunned into place. 

“Mirror my steps,” he commands, and they begin circling the tiger along the line in the snow together, one on each side. “Don’t do anything, just observe.”

Observe, they do. Their gaze seems unblinking as they drag it across the Tiger’s length, from the triangle sign of divinity on her forehead to the ends of her tail.

“She’s beautiful,” the kid says, absent-mindedly, and with such softness it makes Megumi wonder how they could ever throw a tantrum. It’s bizarre, having to correlate this image with someone with the power of breaking through concrete. Or worse, someone like Gojo. Tall and charming, but no less terrifying. 

“What?” the kid says suddenly, snapping their eyes at Megumi. It’s been a while since a Six Eye has pinned him in place with their gaze alone. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I just can’t imagine you throwing things at walls.”

The kid frowns, clearly not proud of themself.

“I was mad. I’m over it now. It was stupid, anyway.”

“Humor me,” Megumi shrugs. “Tell me anyway, even if I don’t get it.”

They look away again, embarrassed, and it reminds Megumi of how young they truly are. They’re still circling each other. The Tiger is just observing them. 

“Do you know how many Six Eyes have lived to see old age?” they ask, but Megumi already knows the bleak answer to that. “None, in more than a century. They are either killed as children or die in battle.”

The kid quickly realizes their blunder when their eyes meet Megumi again. The Tiger lets out another low growl. 

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

It would be hypocritical of Megumi to ask others to forgive and forget when he hasn’t done so with himself first.

“I just mean, Six Eyes are not people,” they say, and their tiny face twists up in frustration. The tension is palpable as their voice climbs higher, and Megumi is alert enough to see the Tiger’s fur go taut at the accidental activation of Limitless. “We are servants of peace. We are swords. That’s what Grandfather says. I don’t want to be sword. I want to—“

A couple of things happen within the span of a second; 

One, the Tiger mistakes the kid’s anger as hostility and launches forward.

Megumi mistakes himself for a hero and slides between the kid and the line of her jaw.

The Tiger stops.

“Whoa!” the kid exclaims, stumbling further backwards. At least their reflexes are good. “Liar. You said she wasn’t loyal to you.”

It’s hard to argue for that when Megumi is face-to-face with a set of fangs the size of his forearm, and no damage to speak of. 

The Tiger looks at him, and he looks at her, and they seem to have an understanding. 

I hate you, her eyes say. But I hate others more.

“Alright, playtime’s over,” Megumi says as he clasps his hands with his cane between the palms, and the Tiger disperses just as the sound of footsteps reaches the back door. 

It slides open to reveal a slightly disheveled but still presentable Yuta. 

“Gojo-chan,” he smiles with a tilt of his head. “Your mother is looking around for you. Perhaps you should let her know you’re alright.”

Nothing is intimidating about the sentence, so to speak, but something about it has the kid straightening their spine and scurrying inside again.

“Yes, Okkotsu-sensei.”

Megumi watches them get behind Yuta and give a little wave of goodbye before disappearing completely. 

“Impressive,” he tells Yuta. “Didn’t think giving orders was your forte.”

Yuta fully steps outside, and the previous authoritarian stance crumbles, as if it took everything to maintain it, even for these few seconds. 

“It’s really not. And that kid scares me shitless.”

It finally sinks in when Megumi notices the two wedding bands stacked upon each other on Yuta’s ring finger.

He is married.

He is twenty-two, and alive, and married.

He is a teacher— a decent one at that—, and he just got married.

He is happy. They all seem to be. 

Megumi searches around his brain for the right words to carry the sentiment he wants to express, and finds none that aren’t insufferably corny, so he settles for;

“Gojo would be disgustingly proud of you, you know.”

Which is just the truth, really, and Yuta seems to know it. His eyes widen for a fraction (the surprise likely aimed at the fact that the statement came from Megumi, and not at the statement itself), but then he just nods, and says;

“As for you.”

Which is not really the truth, just a baseless suspicion that makes Megumi shake his head ’no’. It feels wrong to receive the compliment, like the sky might split and lightning will crack down upon him for daring to imagine a Gojo so selfless and so forgiving they’d be proud of their murderer. 

“‘Not so sure about that.” Megumi just says, because all of the above crosses a tender line of honesty, he doesn’t even cross with himself most of the time.

Yuta just tsks. 

“Oh, shut up. You were his favourite, and we all knew it.”

At that, Megumi gives him a look. He’s not sure what kind of look exactly, but he feels his features tense in something close to confusion, or maybe denial. 

There’s a rise of Yuta’s eyebrows that makes the stitches on his forehead tense. “You don’t know? During our whole first year, Gojo would go on and on about ‘a private student’ who was leaps ahead of us despite being a year younger,” he lifts his fingers in air-quotes. “Oh, Megumi this, Megumi that, Megumi can cast a veil in his sleep, Megumi’s read these books without me telling him, Megumi, Megumi, Megumi.”

“They did the same fucking thing to me! They’d come home and be like; Oh, you know what Yuta did today? He copied cursed speech, and he hasn’t even been learning sorcery for a year. Meanwhile, I’ve been on your ass since you were six, and look at your footwork.”

Yuta genuinely laughs at that, light and gentle like rain against a window, and Megumi has no idea why.

“You make a mean Gojo impression.”

Megumi swallows a laugh and just looks away at the trees.

“Itadori’s is better.”

“Have you…” Yuta starts and then seems to regret it. He shakes his head. Tries again. “You should come by the school more often. It was really nice having you.”

Megumi keeps looking away toward the garden, if only to avoid facing even the sound of that sentence. What would he even say? That he can’t? Or that he doesn’t want to? Neither of these options is entirely true. 

“I mean, you know you can come by whenever, right? Or call, or text? Or send a pigeon? Do you do pigeons?”

“I don’t, but I can always learn.”

“I’m serious,” Yuta lightly shoves Megumi (though his version of light still sends Megumi stumbling a couple of steps), and instantly looks at Megumi’s face for signs that this type of friendly contact is allowed. 

Megumi is not sure what’s really allowed between them, but this didn’t feel half as bad.

“We…” Yuta pauses, but rips the bandaid anyway. “We miss you, is what I’m trying to say.”

In this lighting, it’s hard to make up most of Yuta’s more gentle features. The stitches, though, those are unmistakable. The glow from the lanterns bounces off them in a way that makes it seem like they’re bleeding anew. Or maybe that’s just Megumi’s mind playing cruel tricks.

He’s starring. He can’t help it. 

“Okkotsu-san, why did you become a teacher?”

Many subtle reactions pass over Yuta’s eyes in quick succession. Slight surprise. Realization. Melancholia.

He thinks about the question carefully. Megumi knows, from the barest twitches of his mouth. Like he knows the answer, but doesn’t know how to phrase it.

After a while, he says;

“I want to be for someone what Gojo was to me.”

Megumi looks down at his shoes and how they sink into the thin blanket of snow. 

He knows the feeling. Always in the form of some grand jolt of aspiration running down the spine. Wanting to one day enter a room and have people sigh in relief. 

‘He’s here. It will be okay. Whatever it is, he can handle it.’

That aspiration was cut out of Megumi like an appendix when he saw Gojo’s body split in two, painting Shinjuku red.

Or maybe it was long before that, when he saw Itadori rip out his heart, with hands that weren’t his own to steady. 

He doesn’t have the heart to cut it out of Yuta, so he just nods.

“I see.”

Yuta tilts his head, in search of Megumi’s gaze.

“You know…I could use the help.”

Megumi makes it easier for him, as his head snaps upward.

“What?”

“I mean, you know jujutsu theory better than any of us.” There’s a shrug, but it does nothing to downplay the weight of the request or drown the sound of Megumi’s blood beating inside his own eardrum. “You’ve had the most extensive training, you clearly still love sorcery—“

“What makes you say that?”

It’s a low fruit, Megumi knew, even before he asked, but it becomes even clearer with the look that Yuta gives him. A sort of ‘cut the crap’ that he undoubtedly inherited from Maki, since they’re almost identical now.

“Megumi, I just saw you summon a 8 foot long tiger— don’t try to tell me you did that without training. You never stopped.”

And Megumi has never been good at this. At compliments. At earnestness, the kind of which is so bright he has to scurry away and cover his eyes. He is better with shadows, and silent acknowledgments, and averted eyes, so

“I’m doing a degree,” he says, and it could be called a whine of protest. “I’m actually good at this. Like really good. Most of all— I like it.”

“So get your degree. Do whatever makes you happy,” Yuta halfway throws his hands up, but not in surrender. “I’m just letting you know that the door’s open if you ever want to cross the threshold.”

He raises a hand to set it on Megumi’s shoulder, but before it can make contact with the fabric of his suit jacket, Yuta seems to think otherwise. He retracts the gesture with a smile. 

“You should come inside. Your eyelashes have snowflakes on them.”

“What, like, actually?”

“Yeah, he almost gave me a fatherly squeeze on the shoulder and everything. Marriage has already aged him twenty years.”

Itadori offered to walk Megumi to the train station once the sun came out. He hadn’t planned on staying the weekend, lest he be tempted to do anything stupid. Like, take an eerily intimate walk with Itadori at 5 am, kind of stupid. 

But wherever Itadori is concerned, Megumi can’t help himself, it seems. 

“Well, are you gonna…give it any thought?”

There’s unmistakable hope in his voice as he asks. Unknowingly, he is making this so much harder for Megumi, and he hates Itadori a little for it. Just a little. 

“It’s not like we’re going to be coworkers, you’re on missions all the time,” he says, as if that will deter any of them. The truth is, Megumi’s brain ran rampant with fantasies as soon as Yuta said the word. Fantasies he’s not sure he’s allowed to even hold in the privacy of his brain. 

Itadori just smiles, positively undeterred. It might be all the sake they’ve consumed tonight, or it might just be Itadori.

“Yeah, but then I’ll come back and tell you all about them while we steam some rice in the teacher’s lounge.”

It feels like talking to a version of him that Megumi once selfishly called his. A lanky boy in a hoodie, stretching like a cat on Megumi’s bed as he owns it. A light, boisterous, smiling itadori, that would cut off his arm and gift it to you, if only you asked nicely. 

But Megumi is no longer that version of himself that used to have that Itadori, so he shakes his head.

“Don’t,” he says. 

Things will never, ever be the same again. 

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“You know damn well—“

“Like you’re pretty?”

“Yes,” grumbling. Because can he make this any fucking harder? “Just don’t.”

Turns out he can, by smiling lazily and invading Megumi’s space and shuffling close behind him, to get into the station without a ticket and prolong their goodbye.

“But you are very pretty indeed, Doctor Fushiguro,” he says behind Megumi. 

“Stop that.”

Megumi is not sure he’s even convincing himself. 

Somewhere along them walking the length of the platform, Itadori grabs Megumi by the forearm and spins him around, forcing them to face each other. 

The next train to Tokyo is leaving in an hour, and things will never be the same again.

Itadori tilts his head, and the station’s fluorescent lights gift him a halo.

“Hey, look, I'll even start off tame! No grand confessions or anything. Real adult stuff: Are you doing anything next Friday?” 

It’s such a luxury, Megumi realizes. For Itadori to be here, alive and whole— as whole as he can be— and to be able to say these things to Megumi, who is also alive, but has a sneaking suspicion he will never be whole. It’s such a luxury for Megumi to stand here, in front of someone like Itadori, who has never been careful with his words, and certainly not his heart. 

Megumi is so lucky. So, so lucky.

And so, undeserving. 

And so, so tired of feeling as such.

“You don’t want this, okay?” he argues, trying to force breathing space between them with animated gestures. “You’ve drunk sake, and it’s been a really good day, and you feel fifteen and invincible again. But you don’t want this. This-This thing?” He points between their chests, drawing an invisible and taut string that ties them. “It’s not real. It’s a high school fantasy, and we’re just—“

“We are what?” Itadori interjects. He’s not exactly angry. Megumi has never known him to be. But he is feeling argumentative. He has that tone, that look that he always used to give Megumi mid-training. An elaborate; keep hitting. Watch me avoid it next time. 

Megumi swallows. 

“We are trauma-bonded.”

The next train to Tokyo is leaving in an hour, and it feels like the end of the world.

There’s a lengthy pause, during which Megumi’s heart just about sinks to the floor in anticipation of a soap-opera slap, because how dare he? How dare he diminish this to something so bleak and far out of their control? When losing control is what got them here in the first place?

Then, Itadori lets him know exactly how he feels by pretending to barf.

“Oh, look at me,” he mocks softly. Always softly. “I’m Megumi Fushiguro, and I probably went to therapy once, and all I learned was how to use complicated terms to intellectualize and avoid my feelings better.”

The train hasn’t even parked at the station yet, so there’s no one else around, and Megumi is thankful. He would have to suffer through this with an audience otherwise.

He opens his mouth to defend himself, but all that comes out is;

“I actually went three times, thank you very much.”

That’s when he knows he has lost. He has lost, but Itadori has never been shy about winning (or anything really), so he makes sure to finish Megumi off by letting out the softest of laughs and hiding it by leaning forward on Megumi’s shoulder.

“This is stupid. We are stupid.”

It is. And they are. But, at the same time—

“I’m not entirely wrong, and you know it.”

This thing between them, it’s not a fantasy exactly, no, but it’s all scar tissue. 

It’s scrapped and scruffy and not nearly as shiny as that ‘love at first sight’ fairytale that once might have existed in the liminal space between their dorm rooms. 

“Yeah, but where does that leave us? All of us,” Itadori straightens his back to look at Megumi properly. “Suddenly I wake up and then boom— I’m eighty years old, and I haven’t loved, or lived at all, because I’m scared to hurt and be hurt in return. Honestly, that sounds infinitely more terrifying than anything you could do to me in an attempt to love me.”

Love.

That word has never been used between them, though Megumi is not sure why. Was it scary? 

That feels funny. Megumi knew the sight of a ripped-out heart at fifteen, and yet he was scared to give his feelings a real name, lest the universe hear and take away the reason for their existence.

The next train to Tokyo is leaving in an hour, and things will never be the same again.

But maybe that’s not a bad thing.

A sigh of defeat.

“It’s going to be really hard,” Megumi says, and he would be lying if he said he hated how Itadori’s eyes lit up at the sound.

“Probably, yeah.”

“And it might not work.”

“Yeah, and we might die tomorrow. Loads of ‘mights’.”

It takes grit to love someone in the first place, as Megumi has found out, and it takes bravery to do so again (or to never stop, depending on whom you ask).

To take all the baggage and all the weight over something shiny and new. 

And to hope that this time it will be different. 

It takes grit to love, and bravery to keep loving, but Megumi isn’t sure what it takes to forgive.

He’d love to know, though. 

“Monday, after I give you the cube,” he says. “Is the canteen around the corner still open?”

The next train to Tokyo is leaving in an hour, and Itadori is smiling oh so wide.

“The one with the heavenly onigiri? Oh, yeah.”

“Cool,” Megumi nods. “It’s a date, then.”

The next train to Tokyo is leaving in an hour, and Megumi thinks of trying to forgive himself. 

*