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yuuji moved in the shadows. worn red sneakers digging into crumbs of soil, he crouched and rushed between the endless skyscrapers. occasionally, as he passed through, he would peek out to the quiet street and observe for any other presence. paying attention to other’s cursed energy levels came easy to him now. after doing it for sixty years and being with countless other sorcerers with varying outputs, it was as easy as breathing.
sometimes, it was easier than breathing.
being in the jujutsu world meant that death was everywhere and thus inevitable. at first, yuuji struggled to accept this, even with the reassurances of gojo that sometimes, it was okay to kill. yuuji took this advice in stride but could never slow the pacing of his heart when he moved with murderous intent. after his first real kill, he felt so nauseous that he stumbled into gojo’s office and vomited in his bathroom. looking back now, he couldn’t help the smile from creeping onto his face. a sick and bitter show of teeth.
how ironic, he thought.
how many are under my belt now?
he did grow numb to the bloodshed after a couple years. now it came to him easier than the subconscious action of sucking in oxygen, letting it out. in this world, he could kill—he had to kill. with all the conflicts between younger sorcerers and the higher-ups seeking him out, he had no choice in the manner. it was either kill or be killed, and yuuji didn’t plan on dying. he had a promise to fulfill to his grandfather.
save those you love, and when you die, surround yourself by those you love.
those words. they absorbed into him like blood soaking into cotton. what was once a strong resolve turned into a wretched curse placed upon him. that was back when he had an execution order hanging over his head like a thunder cloud. it was a lot for fifteen year old yuuji to carry on his shoulders—waking up tied to a chair and told he was going to die was certainly daunting. but just as he did everything else, he carried it all with a smile.
he even carried it now, sixty years later, as he ducked between buildings in central tokyo. it had been a while since he came here, tended to avoid the area as much as possible. not only was it the home of one of two jujutsu tech headquarters, but the city made him feel too little. being here gave him higher opportunity to be found by others in jujutsu society, which he supposed he didn’t mind. it wasn’t like they could beat him or hold him captive, with his techniques. even then, he avoided trouble as much as humanly possible—or cursedly possible; he didn’t know which one he was anymore.
the other reason was far more painful. every time he thought of this—of him—he felt a spear gnawing through his chest, severing his spine into two. this was another thing he tried to avoid; there was very little use of negative emotions outside of cursed energy summoning. it was more so the reason he avoided tokyo, but he was here now due to the higher-ups chasing after him elsewhere. he heard in passing that one of them got a false alarm, and eventually, he ended up here. he supposed with a grimace that from his adolescence to his elderhood, tokyo was never not a place of hideout.
lazy summer afternoons were yuuji’s favorite. having nothing to do and being able to bask in the sunlight was enough to put a smile on his face. it was especially so because megumi, his boyfriend, agreed to let him come over. even on days off, megumi always had something to do and yuuji sulked when he heard the inevitable decline.
when megumi said yes, yuuji’s heart filled with helium and made him feel floaty with excitement.
they laid on opposite ends of the bed, megumi propped up at the headboard and yuuji half-hanging off the other end of it. megumi had his face covered with a book about the anthropocene while yuuji dug his nose into a shoujo manga. yuuji was reading a scene where the protagonist was turned down by their crush when megumi kicked him.
“ow! what was that for?” yuuji whined, rubbing the back of his head.
megumi shrugged. “i dunno, just felt like it.”
yuuji glared at him. “no, don’t lie. you want something.”
megumi chuffled, closing the book with one hand and grabbing yuuji’s arm with the other. the action took yuuji by surprise; megumi wasn’t always the physical type when it came to him. he preferred to tell yuuji his praises and affections as he felt a bit awkward showing them. yuuji was the opposite, so he figured they were like two perfectly fitting pieces of a puzzle.
that’s why it shocked him, when megumi pulled yuuji to his level, crashing their lips together.
yuuji’s eyes blew open at the unexpected contact but drifted shut when megumi started moving his lips. he dropped the manga, plot completely forgotten as his brain turned to mush in megumi’s hold. he planted his arms on either side of megumi’s slender body as megumi laced his fingers in yuuji’s babypink hair. their lips moved in a well-choreographed dance; slow, sensual, full of pulsing hearts and deep love.
after a couple minutes, megumi slowly backed off. yuuji opened his eyes and was met with a deep green forest shadowed in fog. he wanted to get lost in that forest, and even then, he wouldn’t call or sign for help. he would die there with a huge smile. a death perfectly welcomed, a death never reached.
the hospital stands unmoving behind him as he slides down the wall. when he’s sitting, he pulls his hood down, breathing even and looking to the impossibly blue sky. it was never easy being here, surrounded by all of these memories. when he glanced around, it was like standing in the middle of an open field as the world rained hellfire on him. bullets piercing every last inch of his body, blood spilling from his arteries as he folded to the ground. but just as good old yuuji itadori always did, his arms held up at his sides, his smile never leaving.
this hospital here. it’s the same one that his grandfather had stayed in while he was sick. it was here where his grandfather drew his final breath and yuuji might as well have done the same. it was here that his grandfather laid that curse on him, and everything was set in motion. he didn’t know it at the time—how could he have possibly known?—he simply assumed his grandfather wanted a good life for him. it wasn’t all wrong, not really; protecting and sticking with those you love and those who love you was a very reasonable ambition.
but it made him feel so much worse when he considered this was also the place where he met the love of his life. this building standing behind him was the very place where he, young and naive, laid eyes on that man and was done for. his head drooped downwards as he came to yet another predicament: which of these two occurrences was worse? it was his grandfather’s dying wish that put him on the path that he was treading alone now. however, it was the presence of his dearest love that gave him both the strength to continue and the resolve to leave.
regardless, his heels would dig into this soil. he knew this because in a sunny world, megumi would be sitting right next to him, wiping his tears.
their sweaty bodies tangled in the moon’s midnight rays. yuuji huffed as he lay curled on his side, melting into the dewy warmth of megumi behind him. megumi’s arms were wrapped around his middle, caressing his sides and upper thighs. yuuji’s bed was a mess; clothes strewn about, the sheet and comforter thrown around and crumpled. in the midst of the mess, both boys laid with pink-flushed cheeks and quiet smiles.
the sex was full of passion and heartfelt intimacy. megumi had been so careful with him; asking if everything he was doing was fine, checking in with him, his hands never leaving yuuji’s body. in turn, yuuji laid beneath him and obeyed. he took every caress, every kiss, lick, and thrust with love in his eyes and arousal boiling in his gut. it was everything yuuji wanted in his sex life, megumi was everything yuuji wanted. the two statements were perfect halves, non-negotiable equals.
“you okay, yuuji?” megumi asked, barely audible to yuuji in his post-orgasmic state.
yuuji reached down, squeezed his hand. “mhm.”
megumi wrapped his arms tighter around yuuji, kissed his temple with plump, wet lips. yuuji might as well have died right there.
“did i do good?” megumi asked.
it was a question megumi asked every single time they had sex. yuuji knew him to be the self-doubting type, so it never surprised him when it came up. however, yuuji thought that after giving him multiple yes’s, megumi would know by now that he didn’t need to ask. it was as if megumi could ever not satisfy yuuji, as if that was a possibility. yuuji could glance at megumi for one second and feel giddy the rest of the day. there was no room for error, not at all.
“megumi,” yuuji mumbled, eyes lidded as he stared at the poster-ridden wall, “you’re amazing. you don’t need to ask me that.”
“well, you know me,” megumi confided, “i just have to know.”
yuuji smiled, raising his hand to caress megumi’s head as he nuzzled it against yuuji’s own.
and then a random thought came to yuuji.
“did you read that swedish meatball recipe i sent you earlier? i thought maybe next weekend we could try it.”
the inquiry was unexpected, and megumi wheezed in laughter. yuuji realized then that it was, in fact, quite absurd, and he began chuckling. megumi pushed himself up and yuuji turned to face him, wincing at the ache in his lower belly. megumi was smiling—yuuji had made him smile. he figured he should’ve been crowned king for that.
“yuuji,” megumi asked between huffs of laughter, “are you an idiot?”
he rises to his feet and moves once more. i might as well be.
yuuji had a lot of regrets in his long life. he regretted not being able to save the people who slipped between his fingers. he regretted saving those who turned around and caused even worse trouble. he regretted going to jujutsu high and regretted leaving. he regretted meeting his friends and watching them die and he regretted leaving them all behind. he regretted gojo—not the man himself, never his sensei, but letting himself be taken under his wing and watching as he was slaughtered. he regretted not intervening, choosing the wrong decision, coming, leaving, moving, standing still, breathing, killing, being, being, being—
he regretted megumi.
oh, his dearest megumi. his name on yuuji’s lips felt like a dagger-laced hug squeezing him lifeless. the image of him warmed yuuji from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet to the point where he was burning alive. it tasted of sugar and sunshine and unadulterated love, and it felt like the detonation of a bomb. megumi swam through his scarred body, syrup catching on his bones and arteries before being shepherded onward. yuuji felt him everywhere all the time—at home, on the run, in the sun and in the rain. he felt him in his arms and legs, but mostly, he felt him in his chest, in his heart.
it was as if megumi never died.
yuuji and megumi were at the park near jujutsu high. the day was cold and dreary, but the weather wasn’t gross enough for them to change their plans. just like if the sun were out, they walked to the park hand-in-hand and took a seat on their favorite bench. it was the one right next to the pond full of colorful koi fish and millions of tad poles. they sat pressed into each other’s sides—any closer and they would merge into one being.
“look at that one!” yuuji exclaimed, pointing giddily at the water. the fish sparkled blue and pink. it reminded yuuji of the cotton candy gojo would bring back for them.
megumi turned toward the pond and smiled, fond, loving. “that one is cute, yuuji. looks like cotton candy.”
“that’s what i was thinking of!” yuuji cheered to megumi like an enthusiastic child.
megumi turned his attention back to his hands. when yuuji followed his eyes, he saw that megumi had been weaving together a flower crown. it was a long string of dandelions now, and he watched as megumi weaved the last two flowers together, closing the crown.
“i didn’t know you knew how to do that,” yuuji said.
megumi turned to yuuji and gave him the look that always meant he wanted something. eyes slanted and glinting, his lips pressed into a smirk. yuuji was fairly confident about what megumi wanted.
“here, put it on.”
yuuji wasted no time in bowing his head so megumi could put it on him. he felt the crown rest around his pink hair and straightened up. he thought he died at the sight of megumi beaming at him the way he did then.
“you’re so pretty, yuuji!” megumi cooed, pulling out his phone to take a picture.
yuuji sat there, smiling dumbly yet full of love and contentment. when megumi told him to pose for the picture, yuuji cupped both of his cheeks and gave the camera a cute smile. it was exactly how he felt when he was with megumi; happy, loved, full of light yet weightless. he swore he would quit sorcery, take megumi, and run far away so he could see megumi smile like this forever. it would be so worth everything to watch him smile for the rest of eternity.
yuuji was far away from the hospital now, somewhere—he didn’t know where, actually. his footsteps thumped on the pebbles of a sidestreet showered in thick shadows. the midday sun glistened overhead, cutting through the leaves. yuuji wouldn’t think of it as pure mockery if he were thirty years younger.
but that’s the thing: every shining sun and pelt of hail reminded yuuji of his dear megumi. he figured megumi would have laughed at the sentiment. he always told yuuji that he was the sun to his shadows, that he brought warm light into his life. it was like yesterday and a million years ago when megumi said that for the first time, but no matter how many days or years passed, it would always comfort him. the memory of megumi, the fact that he got to know megumi for as long as he had, was the driving force behind each step he took.
he remembered megumi’s final moments better than he knew himself in the mirror. it burned itself in his eyes, a permanent stamp that couldn’t be washed off. yuuji was out fighting a group of cursed spirits when he got a call from one of his elders. he left the spirits behind, the first and only time he left a mission unfinished. he didn’t care about the impending earful he would get from them—what were they to do, stop him? at this point, he was already the strongest. any bridge between him and the last living piece of his humanity would be torn apart with unrestrained fury.
when he returned, he found megumi lying in bed at the infirmary. it had been a while since he had been in this room. it looked the same, smelled the same—perhaps the only part of jujutsu high that hadn’t changed over the years. he rushed to megumi and sat at his side, taking the older man’s frail hands in his own stronger ones. he really looked at him now: white hair that used to be jet black, pale skin that was somehow paler now, wrinkles accompanying his scars, green eyes that used to shine so bright were now dull, an overused knife.
yuuji wanted to cry. he wanted to wail.
he told himself he was accustomed to loss. he understood very well that him being half-curse meant he aged far slower than his counterparts. watching those he spent countless years with dying began to numb him. outliving everybody he knew and loved seemed to be the plot of his narrative now, an unchangeable knitting of his fate.
but seeing megumi on the edge of his own death? yuuji could pound on god’s door, scream for him to come out and face his wrath. yuuji wanted to bathe the earth in sin, let his anguish and depression rain down until there was nothing left. a world without megumi fushiguro was a world that shouldn’t exist, yet here it was, entering with a smirk and a knife in its cold, dead hand.
yuuji did remember crying, apologizing for crying, and apologizing again when megumi started to cry, too. he squeezed yuuji’s hands—still going strong even on his last day alive—and spoke to him. even on this final precipice, his voice was buttersmooth and thick like fresh mildew. yuuji fell in love with him all over again, the best thing that’s ever happened to him and yet his greatest curse.
what megumi said to yuuji would never be forgotten as long as he walked this forsaken earth.
“yuuji, baby. listen to me.”
yuuji had his face buried in the crook of his elbow. the tears came flooding out and he, the supposed strongest, was powerless to stop them. he only looked up when megumi squeezed his hands, knowing the gesture all too well. it was something megumi did when he wanted yuuji’s attention—squeezing his shoulder to wake him up, squeezing his bicep during a movie when he wanted a kiss. it was one of millions of definitions yuuji had in his internal megumi dictionary.
he looked at megumi, eyes watered over and blurring his vision. yuuji couldn’t see him until he reached out and wiped the tears off of his cheeks. megumi was smiling brighter than the sun, the biggest smile yuuji had ever seen on him. the thought of that shattered his heart into a billion pieces.
“i walked this earth for as long as i had only because i got to walk it with you. sometimes, we dragged each other along and other times we fell completely. but i would never have done any of this if it weren’t for you standing at my side. i considered myself an unsavable person; you showed me otherwise. you showed me that despite all of my ugliness and everything i had been through, i was still worth loving. if there’s anybody in this world that saved me, it was you, yuuji itadori.”
yuuji held onto megumi like a lifeline. he was not ready to leave him, not him, anybody but him. he couldn’t bear the thought of walking the earth without him. he never wanted to, never thought he would.
“i know that there was a lot we didn’t get to do, but i loved every last second of my life with you. i would never trade us for anything in the entire universe. maybe in another life, we could have gotten married—”
“no, stop that—”
“yuuji, please.” his voice cracked as he spoke. “i wish we could have gotten married. i wanted your last name really bad, yuuji. we could have moved into a penthouse with dogs and a huge kitchen that you could cook in everyday. we could have had a daughter, you know? you mentioned that a while ago. we could have raised her into someone beautiful, the most beautiful girl in the world. i wouldn’t doubt that if you were raising her.”
both of them let out a wholeheartedly bitter laugh.
“we could live on the outskirts of the city, wake up and fall asleep to the sound of wind and rain every day. we could have big windows because i know how much you love natural lighting. we could cuddle during thunderstorms and watch the night life. we would have a garden.”
there was so much he wanted to say and yet he was rendered speechless. megumi knew, he always knew, what was in his heart, the impossible amount of love he carried for him. they wrapped their arms around each other, crying into each other’s heaving shoulders. their last moment together—tear-filled, desperate. it reminded yuuji so much of their first encounter that he wanted to vomit.
“meg—” he choked out, unable to speak. “megumi—”
“i know, i know,” megumi soothed, his thin body growing colder by the second. “it’s okay, yuuji. it will be okay.”
“no, please—”
megumi’s hand fell from yuuji’s.
“it’s okay, it’ll be okay.”
the gravestones stood tall and menacing in front of yuuji. he watched them with dignation as if they were speaking to him. they might as well have been; birds cooed overhead, the breeze rustled the tree’s leaves, people conversed far away from here. he found himself greatly aware of everything, every little sound in his vicinity.
it was as if megumi was here, standing next to him just like before. yuuji remembered when gojo died, they would visit his grave and he would have to hold megumi up so he wouldn’t collapse. neither of them took his death all that well, but yuuji had lost his teacher while megumi had lost his father. it took yuuji a while to convince megumi to go, and he kept his patience firm as megumi begged and wailed and cried for his father to come home.
and now here they were, buried next to each other. yuuji hoped they were together now, dancing in a heaven that promised eternal warmth, endless gardens, full bellies. he wasn’t sure if he believed in heaven, but he liked the idea of it existing only for them. it was the only thing comforting him now, the thought of them resting in their well-deserved eternal peace.
yuuji didn’t know when he was to join them, but he hoped, as he walked away, that it would not be much longer. the years had grown long since the day he instinctively went to punch megumi’s arm and was met with empty oxygen. his heart was broken for years and he could never find it in himself to mend it back together. the only person who could do that was megumi, his megumi, his loveliest dear, megumi fushiguro.
even then, he could feel him now. in this place they met where they made so many memories together, he could feel megumi all around him. he heard his laughter in the birds and his reassurances in the gentle breeze. he felt him in the soil of the earth and in the cold dew on the blades of grass below him. most of all, he felt him in the rays of the sunset, bursting across every inch of his skin with the radiance of a million suns.