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Up there, the people were small as ants. Under Yuuji’s feet, under his hands, under wherever his sight could reach.
He reached to tap the glass with his knuckles. Good glass; a firm, thick one, of good money and even better hosts. He tapped again. The glass drowned the sound his skin made at contact. Tap-tap-tap.
Tap-tap-tap.
Dismantle would cut through it, as easy as cutting through butter, or meat, or bone; if he tried enough.
The people under his feet were as small as that day, in Shibuya, up in the sky and the falling buildings.
But Yuuji wasn’t himself, that day; and so, those memories weren’t his.
Those memories were another’s, forever ingrained in his brain, because–
Are you enjoying yourself?
His knuckles stop half an inch away from the glass.
Slowly, he pulls away.
He feels fire under his hands, and the sheer weight of the blood of a hundred men, women and children pulling his weight down from his wrists.
The man walking down the hallway tries to be quiet, and yet, Yuuji hears him. Down the stairs, across them. The material of his fine, expensive shoes doesn’t muffle the sound of his steps as good as he’d like to.
Or, maybe, Yuuji’s just different; both things can be true, at once.
Still, he’s not a bad guy. He has the decency to, at least, pretend that he doesn’t know he’s there, and allow him the indulgence of pulling out a cigarette from his pocket and wave a hand at him.
It’s all in the faith of good relations and kindness; other people wouldn’t get it. Yuuji clings desperately to it, especially on bad days. Especially today.
“Ah. I didn’t think you’d come today.” The smoke pools and slips out of his mouth, over the edge of his yellow teeth, out of tobacco, and bad habits. It lingers in the tense line of his fingers, holding the small, burning thing. Tension, could it be? Doubt?
Fear?
“You’re very hard to reach to,” he finishes, one small drop of ash coating his nice suit. Yuuji’s eyes fixate on it. What a waste, it looks like a James Bond suit, or something, “had to use all of my contacts for you, y’know?”
Yuuji doesn’t know; or, better said, he has some suspicion, but not confirmation. He doesn’t go around asking if he’s as invisible as he has made himself to be. That’s stupid.
He says, the picture of eloquence: “ah, yeah. Figures.”
But the man seems satisfied with his answer. As if, somehow, this short conversation has met his expectations, and he has morphed the image of Yuuji that he has in his head and the real man together; the legend, or whatever they call him now. A few years ago, it was the vessel, then the remaining one, then his shadow; then, the ghost, when he got married and absolutely dipped and never looked behind again. Nobara told him all of this over a cup of sake, drunk of laughter and nostalgia. Yuuji thought it was extremely cringe. Who calls people that way, especially at this age? They’re not in a video game.
But it’s not like he can step up and erase all of the rumors around him; the pretense, the lies. They wouldn’t believe him, anyhow.
He gave up a long, long time ago.
“Never thought you’d agree to this job, either.” He says, muffled around his cigarette, and...
Yuuji has heard that a bunch of times already and he’s already tired of it, “well, if the job comes, the job comes.” He shrugs. If there are curses, there are curses. The machinery is still going, and I’m a cog–
This is all terribly nostalgic. He feels, suddenly, sixteen again. Sixteen, doomed, already dead.
But the man hums, approvingly, and Yuuji figures that he passed some test; why would he, anyway? Wouldn’t he need to pass it?
Isn’t it enough what happened in Shinjuku–
The man pulls a file from– whatever the hell he pulled that out from. His ass, perhaps?
He wings it in his arm like a stupid cop in a movie, avoiding hitting Yuuji’s chest by half an inch, and that’s just because he stretches his palm in front of him to catch it. You’re not going to make an accomplice out of him in this silly, stupid act of badassery. He refuses.
The man’s hands dig in his pockets. Yuuji doesn’t read the file, letting it hang, uselessly, against his hip. It weighs like chains, like the weight of his own destiny over his head; the night he swallowed that finger.
What would he change of that night, would he–
For a hundred and some times, and for a hundred and some more times to come, he decides against it. Let it to him to be a madman; he wouldn’t change anything of it. Not even the pain. The pain made him tougher, after all. Thicker where it mattered, where it was most important.
He won’t read the file here. After all, he has a long way to the hospital and one long way back. If he reads it in the way there, he fears that he’d look in his eyes and find himself incapable of lying to him, all over again.
And if he reads it in the way home, he might realize, once again, how breathlessly empty their house is now; and he has a lifetime enough heartbreaks, now. He doesn’t need any more of them.
While he sleeps, then. While Yuuji monitors his breathing, as if the machines attached to him aren’t doing enough.
“We’re going to send you to Kyoto.” The man says, one foot tapping the floor. Yuuji catches it, stores it in his head. Are you afraid of me? “That’s where the most activity has been seen–”
“Yeah, yeah.” He shakes his hand, digging in the white strands hidden by the hood.
His roots are growing again. He might retouch it in Kyoto, before heading back home; just to surprise him. Though, he thinks, Megumi might be pissed about it. He has always liked retouching his roots, especially in early mornings, where Yuuji is too sleepy to even fight the smooches and touches of his hands against his nape, his ears, the meat in his cheeks; and there are two things he thinks of this:
That Megumi uses this as an excuse to touch him –as if he needs it, as if he doesn’t touch Yuuji because Yuuji belongs to him, heart and soul, way before the rings and Shinjuku and fuck, before the finger–.
And that he doesn’t need it, because Yuuji has never and would never fight him on it. He’d never push Megumi away.
And, as an afterthought; one that burns through his throat and his heart and soul as it goes up, Megumi can’t do that much labor. Megumi is in bed rest. Maybe the Kyoto retouch will be the best approach, then–
Or, maybe, he can soft launch that idea, that little thought, and work Megumi into standing, at least for a few minutes, to retouch his roots, fix the white, pink mess that is his hair...
If it were for him, Megumi would never stand up; Megumi would stay resting, sweet and lovely and good and his, and he’d be sure that he’s okay, taken care of, and happy, and to hell with his shitty roots. After all, do youngsters these days even care about it? Doesn’t he look swaggy with them?
Anyhow; he knows Megumi, knows him as good as the back of his hand, and knows that he’s very capable of dragging himself out of the hospital bed, hold him down and pour the bottle right there on his head, so maybe the little retouch date is better.
He leaves his hair alone; it’s frizzy and ugly enough, and only Megumi likes it, which is enough for him.
“As long as I can be back early.” He mutters, and now he’s the one tapping, fingernails against the thick fabric of his pants. Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap. “I don’t care about the rest.”
The man nods, approvingly, and by now, his cigarette has burn to a crisp; his useful life worn down.
Up close, you wouldn’t know the difference between a burnt human and a pile of mindless, faceless black ash.
Yuuji stares at it and away, feeling bile rising in his throat.
“I’ll call you, then, Itadori.” And he offers his hand for Yuuji to shake, “Nice doing business with you.”
Yuuji stares down at his hand, unmoving.
“I’m not Itadori anymore,” he says, burying his hands in his pockets, “it’s Fushiguro, now. Took my husband’s last name.”
Yuuji follows the path with the pad of his fingers, barely a brush of heat, from his warmth to the coldness there. It’s a path he knows by mind, by heart and soul; if he ever were to lose his sight, his taste, the very apex of his being, he’d know the way home by tracing this same pattern. He’d know, in his blood. In his soul.
He expects to find something different every time he does it. It’s this buzzing, underlying feeling, as old as time; coming from the Heian era, rooted in his chest. He expects– he doesn’t know what he expects. Emptiness, sickness, the death rattle breathing of Wasuke Itadori, that beautiful, sunny day of before.
It’s this paralyzing suspicion. Coming from Satozakura High School, and Shibuya, and Shinjuku...
He makes this path and presses his palm, wanting to melt through it, wanting to merge into it– and under his hand –and followed through, beautifully, by a sheer, shallow breath– a beating heart.
His lungs fill with air, and he can breathe. Now, he can breathe.
My baby is alive. Oh, my baby. My baby.
“Please.” He lets out a desperate, broken sound. It’s a beautiful one, morphed into Yuuji’s very being, into the code of his existence. Yuuji is made of a lot of things; bone and muscle and blood, and love, and hatred. Then, where the most important thing lays, Megumi takes that place in him; him, his existence, every single thing and sound he does. Yuuji is made of him. “Oh, please–”
Yuuji shushes him, pressing further into him, covering him like a shadow, or a blanket.
He’s melting, transforming into something greater, bigger. More important. He doesn’t know what it is, he just knows that– oh, it’s so good. It’s so, so good.
My baby, my boy.
“I’m going, baby. Megs–” he coos, drinking Megumi’s desperate, small whimpers, pressing his mouth to the sharp high line of his cheek. His thumb makes a dent out of his jaw, touching until he makes a bruise; when the moment comes, and only when he wants to, he’ll take that back with him and find the Yuuji silhouette of a bruise, blooming on his skin. His soul buzzes, soars through the skies, shouts Megumi’s name.
He thrusts only experimentally. Megumi lets out this shattered thing of a sound, breaking by the ends, and it sounds like his name.
“I’m going to give it to you, Megs. Oh, I’m going to give it to you so, so good–”
“Can you shut the fuck up and get on with it?” His baby hisses; strong thighs around his middle, his heels digging on his skin. Megumi kicks him, and Yuuji startles, wide, long-finger hand wrapping around Megumi’s knee; keeping him close, keeping him good. “I’m fucking sore, I’ll get soft–”
“You won’t get soft,” he says, rubbing his skin with his thumb, watching a blush blossoming, like a bruise, over Megumi’s cheeks. He says this because it’s true, and because he never feels like lying to Megumi.
He scoffs, “Well, how could I know? Do we have all night for this, Yuuji?”
“We have this one,” Yuuji murmurs, leaning in to catch the soft end of Megumi’s chin, rolling the skin between his teeth, touching it with his tongue. His breath catches in his throat, and Yuuji catches that, too. “And tomorrow’s. And a damn whole life of them–”
“Okay, I get it.” Megumi says, blushed, pink. “Jesus–”
Yuuji doesn’t let him finish that; embracing himself, pushing his feet against the mattress, filling him up the right way, the good way. Megumi rewards him with a soft cry, his eyes rolling to the back, and Yuuji grabs that and memorizes it for the rest of his days, stored with the rest of memories he has of Megumi.
Megumi cries every time he moves inside of him; it’s almost cute –“you’re in my lung, fucking idiot”–. Yuuji wants all of him, everything of him. Maybe he wants to eat him, too; he’s not sure. Maybe those are his feelings for Megumi, and not Yuuji’s, and he’s a little insane after the mess that was their teen ages, but Megumi has told him a hundred and some times that he’s the one who feels that way for him –“hopefully... Because, otherwise, this would be very awkward, wouldn’t it?”, “of course I love you, Megs! I love you with all of my heart!”, “I’m glad”–, and why would he not believe him?
Yuuji bottoms out, and Megumi trembles and shivers all over. He doesn’t cover his face anymore; who cares if his nose wrinkles when he’s feeling good? Who cares if he bites his lip in this funny, endearing way when Yuuji is with his head between his legs?
What’s that for them, and years together, and a golden ring that Megumi keeps on even when he showers and pretends not to?
But he cries; damn, he cries. These desperate sounds, these little sounds. Yuuji, sometime before, stopped and got soft at the sight of it, those tears. Got scared shitless, got soft, thrown back to a time where he was smaller, thinner –though always thicker than Megumi, or so he’d say–, where he messed up and had to watch dark, shadow marks on a beloved’s face–
Now, he drinks the sight and finds nourishment in it; not Megumi’s pain, though all he feels once Yuuji gets his hands on him is pleasure, and joy, and the unmeasurable feeling of forgetting all that ever hurt him, but his trust.
You trust me. You trust me, don’t you, baby?
I could crawl back to you, blood-soaked, and you’d still love me.
You’d love me.
I love–
“I love you, Megs.” Yuuji breathes out, desperate, breathing in Megumi’s whimpers, his tears, his crying. He’s sloppy and uncoordinated, and frankly messy, but who cares about it?
Who cares?
He trembles in his arms; Megumi’s arms, scarred, strong, stable. He wants to cry. Wants to never let him go. “I love you, Megs. I love you–”
“God, Yuuji–”
“I love you so much, Megs. I love you. God, what would I do without you?” He says, pushing further, cupping Megumi’s face, staring right into the soaking green and blue of his gaze, drowning in it. “I love you, Megs–”
Megumi shivers violently, a full-body one, like stricken by lightning. Yuuji holds him through it, pressing his mouth to his tears and drinking them all, hips moving slowly and steadily against the heated and raw skin of between his thighs.
And all the while, Megumi mutters the same, short word, in desperate breathing and kisses that miss half of the time Yuuji’s mouth: “Yuuji, Yuuji, Yuuji”.
Yuuji’s heart beats in tandem with Megumi’s words, and it sings Megumi’s name.
And God knows –if God even exists; but if Megumi exists in a world like this, and if he loves Yuuji, wouldn’t that mean that a divine entity sent him his way?– that Megumi would rather chew on glass that accept his softness, his tenderness before completion. He’ll complain; about the soreness, the love bites, the sticky mess that Yuuji made of him; between his legs, over his thighs, on his chest, the slightest drops of it highlighted in the dark mess of his hair.
And he’ll complain, he’ll run his mouth, until Yuuji’s presses to his, and all of it would be forgotten.
He doesn’t even need to ask anymore. The nice lady at the desk knows who he is and just sends him his way. Yuuji is shattered between two feelings, and the deep emptiness in his stomach wins over it all.
He’s been in this hospital more times than he’d like to, and he hates it; then he feels guilty about it.
Because if he hates it, how is it for Megumi, trapped here?
He doesn’t knock anymore, and Megumi is the same way as he’s been since the first day Yuuji came to visit –after sleepless nights, exams and a sharp “go to shower, you stink”. After he forced himself to pull away from him, with these visceral, deep terror–; quiet, calm, staring out the window.
The sun washes over him through the glass and catches one long, white strand of hair, turning it into silver.
Yuuji’s heart aches.
My handsome boy, then, my handsome man.
Megumi’s head turns in the pillow –just the slightest, this weak shadow of a movement–, and there’s this glint in the green forest of his eyes when he catches Yuuji’s gaze–
He’s fifteen again, suddenly. Fifteen, scared.
In love.
Yuuji waves a hand at him, mustering strength to part his mouth in a grin that feels like it’s melting off his face, “hey, you.”
Megumi smiles back, and if he felt something weird about him, Yuuji can’t tell for the life of him. “Hey, yourself.”
But all is good in the world, tilting back in its axis.
Yuuji, Megumi. Together.
What else could he possibly want?
There’s a vase close to Megumi’s window. Yuuji brought him flowers the first few times he stayed here, then he found out they made Megumi sick, and he stopped.
Now, all he brings are little trinkets, and messages, and good health wishes from his old friends and acquaintances.
And, on days like these, tangerines. Yuuji’s favorite fruit, Megumi’s most tolerated...
Sick, in bed, and still indulging his silly, stupid wishes.
He takes a plate from the table –and who knows whatever the hell was there; his Megumi is eating insipid food these days–, shaking it to clean the little remains of his lunch. Megumi chuckles at him, endearingly.
His eyes follow him as he sits on his bed, with the familiarity of a life doing it.
Megumi’s bed in Jujutsu Tech, too small for two growing, loving boys. Megumi’s bed in their first apartment, small because they were still figuring it out –and Yuuji’s became untouched way too sooner in their first days of living together–.
Their bed, in their home.
Yuuji at Megumi’s feet, over, and over, and over again. And doesn’t he like that? There isn’t a better place to be; basking in him.
Megumi has this silly, wide grin while he watches Yuuji peel tangerines, but Yuuji doesn’t comment on it. Knowing him, the silly man would be ashamed of it. Can say his vows in front of their friends, but can’t admit he’s, after all, still in love with Yuuji.
I love you. I love you.
Megumi straightens, a sudden sharp tug of energy, and pats Yuuji on his shoulder. He’s on his back too quickly for him to scold him, and the movement looks like has sucked the life out of him, “how did it go?”
Yuuji looks down at the messy, once tangerine in his hands, and shrugs.
“Nothing special,” he says, “Kyoto is still the same as always.”
Megumi huffs, closing his eyes, “how could it be, though? It’s been decades.”
Yuuji shrugs again, stuck in the movement. “I don’t know. Feels like it, though.”
Megumi huffs a that, “that’s because you’re still the same.” He says, gently. Yuuji finds the truth in his words and doesn’t fight him on it.
What a surprise it was to wake up one day and count the wrinkles surrounding Megumi’s sharp, beautiful eyes, and find none on him.
What a surprise it was to catch the silver glistening of a white hair, just for his to stay forever pink, untouched by time.
He didn’t have the time to get angry, then. He had a lot of time to do so, since. He’s angry. He’s always angry, he thinks. At himself, at him, at Gojo, for leaving them. At god, just because he can.
What a shame it was, to be cursed, to be doomed to be the remaining one–
Later, he understands that Megumi didn’t mean it that way, and he mutters:
“Yeah, I am.” And keeps peeling tangerines.
Who could have told him that tangerines are so, so hard to peel? Since when? –he has this underlying happiness under his skin; that maybe he’s growing old, too. That Megumi’s tired, worn bones are his and that he’s sharing his destiny. A man can dream–.
Anyhow, he always has hair dye, and he’s been using it since Megumi’s head turned totally white. Two twin, pale heads sharing a mirror, and a bed, and a toothpaste.
And a heart, if he wants to be sappy about it.
“Don’t fall asleep on me, now.” He scolds, gently, his hand finding Megumi’s knee under the sheets and patting it tenderly. “You gotta eat.”
“I already ate.” Megumi murmurs; half in dreams, half with Yuuji.
Yuuji scoffs at that, “what? Pale, bland hospital food? Please.” He shakes his head, watching the juice dripping from his fingers. “Megs, I gotta feed you well. Who do you take me for?”
He lets out a soft huff of laughter, and Yuuji feels warm all over.
“For an idiot, probably.”
And it’s been so long –five decades, actually– that he has grown used to it. It doesn’t anger him anymore.
It’s just something more to look forward to these days.
The sight of Megumi’s face and the sound of his voice, calling him his idiot. That’s all he wants.
Megumi turns his head on the pillow, eyes looking far away through the window, staring at something Yuuji can’t quite reach.
“I don’t even like tangerines,” he says.
And Yuuji hums at that; fingers sticky with juice, orange, wet. Messy as always. Megumi would grab the slices and peel them himself, but now, with his trembling hands, he can’t.
He can’t do a lot of stuff anymore.
“You do,” he retorts, dropping one more tangerine to the plate. “You just pretend you don’t, because you like fighting with me.”
And Megumi doesn’t deny that. He just huffs and laughs and falls silent, eyes closed, long eyelashes fanning over the curve of his cheekbone that’s more sharp these days.
He’s leaner, thinner, smaller. He’s nothing like the man he turned out to be, long gone were the days of their golden summer; he doesn’t have the face of his father, a man he didn’t even met.
But Tsumiki once told him that he had the face of his mother; that his father was broader and bigger, and so, he must have his mother’s face, to counter the everythingness that his father was. Yuuji, with all of his gentleness and care, couldn’t allow himself to ask him if he ever loathed how full he became after Shibuya; how suddenly, he lost weight and lankiness and the remaining baby fat on his cheeks. How his eyelashes got shorter, too. How he lost delicacy.
He figured that it was hard enough for Megumi to look in the mirror. He didn’t need Yuuji to point it out, too.
And –this stung, when he admitted it to himself– Yuuji didn’t understand him. Couldn’t.
He never knew if he looked more like his father or his mother. For all he knew, he looked like his grandpa; but he never dwelled into the issue, either. He assumed that Wasuke didn’t get along with his daughter in law way before Yuuji came into this world. Maybe he didn’t even get along with his own son, either.
Or, maybe, he just hated them because they left.
Yuuji never hated them. But he never met them, after all; so, how could he hate someone’s face if he never saw it?
He could look in the mirror and assume and pinpoint, and say that’s his nose, or that’s her mouth in me. I’m hers.
But it’s not quite the same as knowing, so he never thinks of it. Ghosts are in the past and he has a lifetime full of ghosts.
For now, Yuuji doesn’t talk. Why would he need to?
Yuuji was always the one that talked between Megumi and him. That’s how they work. Like well-oiled machinery, he and Yuuji; but now, he doesn’t feel like it.
Maybe Megumi has grown tired at this point of talking. From nurses, from doctors; of Yuuji’s voice over the phone, talking and talking and never stopping.
And –this is the biggest piece of truth he’s ever said– he finds more peace in Megumi’s silence than in people’s temples and religion, so...
So, it’s okay. It’s okay for him. It’s perfect, even.
It’s theirs.
“Oh, by the way...” he says, the juice sticking to his fingers, his palms, like hot blood, “I’m leaving for a while. Kyoto, again.” Then, “I hope you don’t mind.” Megumi never minds; Megumi doesn’t mind at all. About how loud he is when he eats, about his snoring, about his stupid, idiotic habit of leaving his socks and shoes in front of the door. Megumi never minds. “I’m bringing you a present. Something pretty for you to wear; though you’re always pretty. Maybe a souvenir? But we’ve gone to Kyoto a hundred and some times, right?” He chuckles, dropping the tangerine. There’s just one left. “I can go somewhere else. Come back quickly, bring something for you.”
Megumi doesn’t answer, his soft breathing filling the room.
Yuuji doesn’t hold it against him; he must be tired after months in the hospital, isn’t he? His poor baby.
He finishes the last tangerine and fixes them on the plate, trying to mimic the way Megumi does it: lotus, bunnies, dogs, hearts.
Yuuji’s name, when he wants to make him smile, make him laugh.
He sucks at it.
He taps his knee, softly, leaving the plate to rest on the bed. He’s careful not to cover the sheets with orange.
He doesn’t suck his fingers clean because he knows how much Megumi hates it.
“Megs, I got your tangerines ready. Eat before you fall asleep.” He says, looking down at his hands, dragging his nails across the orange marks on his knuckles. Then, “Megs?”
Megumi doesn’t answer; his face turned away from Yuuji, showing only the sharp line of his jaw, the roughness of his cheek. The window is barely open, and the breeze dances with his hair, and he doesn’t move. Not an ich.
Yuuji tangles his hands on his lap and waits, and waits, and listens.
He waits for something, maybe; the sharp sound of laughter, the forming syllables of his name, or “idiot”, or “fool”, or “my love”.
Breathing; even the slightest of it. Just one. Just once.
Yuuji sits, still like death.
His shoulders slump, and he slides his elbows to his knees to rest his head in his hands. He breathes, and tries to find the strength he doesn’t have to get up and call the nurses.
It was a beautiful reunion.
Yuuji loathed it.
What he loathed the most were the sorries. The apologies.
Half of them didn’t even meet Megumi; how did they find the place and time for the funeral, Yuuji doesn’t know. The other half didn’t understand him. By the second hour, he just accepted it.
The only person who could understand him was six feet under, now. Expecting the rest to be like him was unfair, and nothing that Megumi could ever want–
Wanted. Yeah, wanted.
By the third hour, Yuuji stayed long enough for the coffin to drop. Then, he left. Why he felt so bad about it, he doesn’t know–
But he’s been waking up alongside Megumi for the last six decades, and that’s the face he wants to go with when it’s his time. Not whatever the rest of them saw when they opened the casket to take a peek.
Yuuji couldn’t stand it. Nobara suggested it, and he folded in half and threw up his breakfast and his lunch, all at once. He could feel the wrinkles and the bones of her hands, rubbing up and down his back, and it made him feel sick.
Soon, it’ll be her, too. Soon, there will be no one for him.
That’s just how it is.
“Life hasn’t ended, y’know.” She said, later; perched on her nice, expensive suit, watching over Yuuji, like a child. Her cat on his lap was warm and alive. The cat wasn’t cold, like Megumi was, when he allowed himself to touch him before the nurses took him away and fell to his knees and wept for hours until he was sure he was gone and left him behind. You told me you’d never leave me behind. “You’re immortal. You have, like... Four of our lifetimes to live, still. Or so. I don’t know.”
He knew, then, that she just wanted to make him feel better. That she didn’t mean it in an ill, mean way. That she was lost and lonely, too. That she lost Fumi and Maki and no one would ever bring them back–
However:
“You don’t know.” He said, his hands dragging over the warm fur, feeling the purr reverberating through his skin and down and deep. I want that, too. I want to feel alive. “You don’t know, for sure–”
She clicked her tongue. He could feel her eyes on his skin, his nape, down to his soul. He wished she could stop doing it; that he was Megumi’s and Megumi’s alone, and now that he was gone, he was no one’s. “So, what? Now that he’s dead, you’re going to vow celibacy and turn into some caveman for the rest of your days?”
He shrugged, squeezing the cat in his hand. It didn’t like it. It ran away from him, and it stung, “You don’t know.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it, asshole.” Nobara snapped; it made him shiver, like a troubled, lonely little boy. “Do you really think that’s what he’d have wanted? That his death will act as some– stopping point for you, that now that he’s gone you can just stop living and give up? He wouldn’t be that fucking selfish–”
“What do you know?” He said, then, feeling empty. Emptier than when he signed the papers and called her, first, to tell her that Megs was gone for good. Emptier than Shibuya. Emptier than Shinjuku. “How could you possibly know.”
She tightened her jaw and looked away from him, and he knew then –and forever– that he had broken her heart.
“Screw you. You weren’t the only one who lost him.” She murmured, weakly.
“We lost two different people.” Then, “We’re not the same.”
She had quieted and Yuuji thought that was it, until:
“In that we agree.”
He had the courtesy to thank her for the tea, apologize for the mess, clean after himself. She dismissed him with a wave of her hand, and that was it.
He didn’t see her after it.
He wouldn’t see her for a long, long time.
Everything was the same as Yuuji left it; as Megumi liked it to be.
Their shoes in front of the door, the keys in their bowl, with the matching keychains– a lion, a wolf. The windows closed, keeping the cold air inside. The lights off.
Yuuji doesn’t kick his shoes off at the front, and when he steps over them and traces the too-familiar path into their home, he rises dust under his feet.
No one has cleaned it in a while since Megumi left; and no one will clean it anymore.
Yuuji is leaving for Kyoto, and he needs his stuff. That’s all he needs; that’s all he will take from this haunted house, with his haunted memories and walls and floors.
The floors that Megumi chose, the chime bells that he wanted, because they sounded like Yuuji’s laugh, and it soothed him when they were apart. The color of their windows, the fine wood of their tables–
Should he sell it? –he drags a duffle bag from their closet (and avoids the dark colored clothes in the left side of it like sickness). He doesn’t even know whose it is– should he? –he throws whatever he can find in there. Clothes, the bitten pencil that Megumi last used, Yuuji’s shirt that he wore to bed, pretending that he didn’t steal it. His wallet. His books. The bag is wide and heavy, almost tearing at the edges– should he?
He falls to his knees in front of the couch; maybe Megumi’s slippers are there. He had to get him new ones for him to wear at the hospital, since the collapse was away from home. He hated it every second. Yuuji should have returned and gave them to him, he should have; but now it’s too late and he can at least keep them, can’t he? The last remains of Megumi’s soul and being. The rest can burn. The house can burn, for all he cares. He doesn’t care. Doesn’t care anymore–
A soft sound above his head, and he’s out from under the couch and crawling backwards like a blind animal–
Two twin, emerald flames stare down at him, and for a moment his heart stops–
Shadow meows, and a scowl goes through Yuuji’s face so quickly he almost misses himself doing it.
“You’re still here.”
Shadow meows, again, and Yuuji takes it as his cue to leave.
He’s dark behind him, as his own name says. He tries to ignore the small, pitiful thing, but it slips into everything he does with the same quickness as sickness. Between his legs, through the open space between his stretching arms, feeling blindly up on the shelf; then when he kneels, then when he’s on his feet and hands, again, purring and bumping his elbows with wide, curious eyes.
It’s not even his. It’s not even theirs. Megumi had two dogs –not Shikigami, but regular dogs. White and black, like ying and yang– and stopped thinking of pets altogether when they died alongside each other. Not out of a tragedy, not out of sickness or violence...
One sunny afternoon, their silhouettes were resting right on the spot under their window, the sun washing over them. Megumi left them sleep, and when Yuuji came back from the nearest town and knelt to greet them, they were dead.
And maybe that’s what Megumi feared the most; nature and time and destiny. Death. Natural. Unnatural. He just hated it; he wanted infinity, and yet the was the first to leave.
The cat wasn’t even theirs, because Megumi could never allow himself to care so openly about something after Kuro and Shiro, and the twins, and just all the losses they had, and Yuuji never forced him.
But Shadow had a little plate, outside their home, right by the door. When winter started and the green nothingness around them turned silver. He had Yuuji’s old pillow, settled against the couch. He took a bath. He had cuddles. And, most importantly: he had a name.
Because he’s always behind you, Megumi had said. Like a little shadow.
Accurate, Yuuji must say.
In the darkness of what once was their home, Shadow can’t be seen.
Truth be told, he expected the cat to never come back. Between Megumi’s sickness and Yuuji’s missions, he expected the little, lithe thing to abandon this land and search for something better. After all, animals have to eat; and where was Yuuji to feed him?
Now he was curling over Yuuji’s feet, around Yuuji’s feet, jumping over on the counter with wide, shiny eyes, and everything was so clear, now.
“Were you waiting for Megumi?”
Shadow’s head perks up, ears straight and high. He’s an ugly cat; all ears, all head, no legs or tummy. He was Megumi’s adoration–
Yuuji’s teeth grind against one another and he’s afraid of turning one into dust.
“He’s not back, y’know.” He says, and he’s surprised to hear how stable and clear he sounds, like a mountain. “He’ll never come back. He’s gone, he left us; he left us a while ago, so–” he swallows. It feels like acid down his throat, “I don’t know why you don’t get that.”
The cat sits and stares at him, and then meows, and stares at his bowl.
Yuuji feels something– something terrible, and nasty and–
“Are you– why are you still here?” He grits out, every word rasping up his throat. He sounds small; broken glass around the edges of every syllable, “don’t you get it? Don’t you understand? He’s gone. I’ll be gone, too. Stop depending on us. You were never ours. You–”
He doesn't know what it is, exactly. He didn’t feel this at the funeral, at the hospital, even at Nobara’s penthouse–
Shadow tilts his small, dark head.
The dam breaks.
He sends one small cup flying, shattering into thousands of pieces under his feet.
Then, a glass.
Then, a bowl.
“Stupid cat– go. Leave–” he hisses, pushing the old, dusty plates he left on the table and never cleaned. They shatter right by the center, in two perfect halves, “why don’t you go? Starve, freeze– I couldn’t care less–” he chokes on his words, doing this ugly, sharp sound.
Shadow stares at him, unmoving, like death.
And Yuuji hates it; hates this stupid animal, this house, this world–
He coughs, wetness cupping the edge of his vision–
“Stupid, dumb animal.” He breathes out. Meaning every word. “He’ll never come back. He’s gone. He’s gone. He’s dead, idiot. He’s–” he blinks, the emerald fires unblinking, and unchanging, “why are you looking at me like that? Why–”
He sucks one sharp breath, the small bowl twirling, twirling, like a ballerina, right over the edge–
Yuuji is quicker than most people, and sorcerers, and curses–
It shatters, and it sounds like a gun in the quiet stillness of the dead house.
Yuuji hurries to his knees, hands palm down against the floor; there’s the sting of pain, as known as love and his own mind. There’s his blood, pooling and gushing out, slowly, painting the dark edges of the ceramic a sickening maroon–
His vision blurs, slowly.
He grabs the broken pieces, and they dig further into his skin.
“Oh, no. Oh, no, no. Please, I’m sorry.” Who’s he apologizing to? He’s the only one there. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Oh, my god–”
He turns the ceramic in his hand, the small, petite blue flower blinking back at him, and there’s this terrible feeling of emptiness inside of him.
He folds over the middle, forehead pressed against the floor, his own blood coating his hair and clinging to his skin.
Yuuj opens his mouth and lets out a wounded, broken sound.
What would Megumi think of him if he knew he broke it?
The small flower, indigo tint. The careful strikes. The love in every color and movement, the care–
Megumi, young and lively and beautiful, sitting by the window of their first apartment; hands cupped over his knees, brush slowly, but surely, working. A smile on his face, a giggle leaving his lips– I’ll show you later, bastard. Be patient. And when has Yuuji ever been patient? When he asked for his hand, probably.
Megumi on their wedding bed, body curling like water –oh, right. Wait a second–, his hands reaching for something out of Yuuji’s sight.
A small bowl, dark, with a flower in the center.
What do you think of your wedding gift, huh? Better not ask for anything else, alright? I busted my ass for it.
Yuuji had smiled– what? Megs, it’s perfect. I love it, then, I love you.
Okay, then.
Megumi was smiling.
I’m happy.
I’m happy with you, Yuuji.
Yuuji drags his hands over his face, coating his cheeks with his blood, the whiteness of his hair; he takes his tears with him, but there’s no point, because he keeps crying and crying like a little boy, making a mess out of Megumi’s beautiful gift.
He whines; a pathetic sound, down from his very soul–
“Oh, god.” He chokes on his own tears, holding his own body like Megumi used to–
His tears slide down, resting directly on the blue flower.
He has no idea how a heart attack feels; he’s sure he’ll never feel it. If he ever dies, he’ll lay down, rest on a sunny day, and say goodbye to the world. All that will be left of him will be the cursed objects formed out of his body, but dreams? Hopes? Memories? No, not that. That’ll turn into dust, too.
He doesn’t know how a heart attack feels like, but there must be something wrong with his heart, right? Why else he feels like he’s rotting inside out?
Like Sukuna dug his own hand inside of his chest and came back with his beating heart?
Like he’s been torn from the center, like he’s a ghost still walking–
Is he sick? Did Megumi give him something when he left? Did he curse him, somehow?
Megs would never curse me. Megs would never–
He has a coughing fit, curling into his own body, biting into his wrist to keep inside the pained whimpers, pooling out of his mouth like vomit. He tastes blood, and tears, and ash.
Whatever it might be; he might die tomorrow, perhaps. That’d be a good thing.
He’d see Megumi again.
“Megs–” He sniffs, closes his eyes. He expects to open them again and find Megumi.
Find him on the couch, reading his books, Shadow or Kon or the twins by his feet. Out of the shower, hair still damp, water droplets hanging off him like morning dew. Out in the porch, eyes closed, feeling the breeze against the chime bells and his cheeks, and when Yuuji would ask him why he liked that thing so badly, he’d say it laughs like you.
Curled in their bed, waiting for Yuuji to come back from watering the garden or making his nocturnal watch or just thinking, sitting on the steps of their door and reminiscing about white hair and the strongest and all the people he failed, because Megumi could never sleep well without Yuuji by his side.
Reading the newspaper, talking with Nobara on the phone, drinking his morning coffee, his glasses perched on his nose.
Doing his hair in the morning. Waking up before Yuuji.
His hands tracing his jaw, his cheeks, the scars of his face...
And Yuuji would pretend not to be awake; but truly, when did he ever manage to fool Megumi?
He opens his eyes again and all he finds, feels and sees is darkness.
And the remaining, slightest scent of Megumi.
Slowly fading away.
Yuuji closes his eyes, gripping into his chest, tears making a wet path into his hair.
He doesn’t move, waiting, miraculously, to die.
Something nudges his feet and his opens his eyes, twin emerald flames looking up at him–
“You’re awfully tender with that thing,” Yuuji grins, all sun and heat and happiness.
Megumi raises his eyes from his book; the fur ball on his lap doesn’t move an inch.
For a person that was so serious about the whole “no more pets” prospect, he did forget that.
He shrugs, long, slender fingers running over Shadow’s little head. “He wants to be here, no one forced him.”
Yuuji sits on the coffee table, sipping from his cup. His hand cups Megumi’s ankles, tenderly squeezing. He lets out a shallow breath, feeling his fingers pressing on the raw, sore spots of old and weary ankles. He blinks his eyes closed, and Yuuji raises his leg and kisses his foot.
“He looks like you, y’know.” He says, caressing Megumi’s toes, pinching him and giggling when he glares at Yuuji.
“Does he, know?”
Megumi raises the ugly thing; there it is, black hair, wide, open emerald eyes. Yuuji snickers at it, earning a smile from Megumi’s mouth. That’s a million and some.
His hand slips through Megumi’s hair, and the silver of it highlights the black void of Shadow’s fur.
Megumi closes his eyes, letting out a shallow breath. He drops Shadow and he finds his own way under his chin, curling like a C under it. Yuuji smiles tenderly at both of them. At his boys.
“Well, he can go gray in a few years, can’t he?” Megumi mutters, kissing Shadow’s little head, “we’ll be twins.”
Yuuji clings to Shadow’s body, long, loud sobs shattering through his whole body, his tears wetting his fur and drying there.
Against his little ears, almost drowned by his violent crying:
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” And then, “I’m sorry, my boy. I love you. I love you. I’m so sorry.”
The dark bowl rests against the window, basking in the sunlight. It looks almost ugly, fixed with a messy try of kintsugi that it’s so clearly been done by a clumsy hand; but the sun hits it just right, so it doesn’t ruin his beauty.
The flower that rests at the bottom of it is also a sight to behold, but how could anyone truly know? Only one has seen it, and he’s awfully protective of it.
There’s the cat’s bowl, close to his bed, because he can’t deal with sleeping soundlessly and alone. He doesn’t even mind when it wakes him up; it’s also a way of opening his eyes and staring into green eyes. He’s taking everything he can out of it.
It’s a small, lonely apartment. Not one of his neighbors truly knows him; no one knows his name, except his surname. It’s not a way of living, but he can see the sun going down every day and he can pray when he wants to, so it’s fine for him.
It’s far from the city. Way too far. Not one of his friends, acquaintances, or old allies knows where it is. No one knows where the wind took him after the funeral, and that was years ago.
The world might end tomorrow. And no one knows where the strongest is.
And he might tilt his head upwards; gazing into a high hoodie, into the white hair he knows so well, reminding him of an owner long gone; of miracles and cuddles in the middle of the winder, crouching slowly to not trip with his sore, weary limbs of an old soul, trying to peek into his mind and see what he’s thinking.
It’s a good place to be, he’d tell him. It’s a nice place to be. I like it. Don’t you, Shadow?
He doesn’t have anything to complain about, really.
The Fushiguro estate is empty, even years later. He’s not sure if anything lives there, apart from dust and ghosts and animals.
Every now and then, though, he’ll take him there and make him rest on his stomach as he prays.
He prays in front of the photo of the beautiful man with the green eyes. He prays at home. He prays at temples.
Shadow, on his way back home, curls inside of Fushiguro’s hoodie and falls asleep to the sound of his broken heart.