Work Text:
Today, Megumi's book is Waiting for Godot.
He watches it change mid-page: the text of his last read, an anthology of poems, fades and morphs to become what is clearly the script of a play. Megumi raises his brows at the character names, and when he closes the book to look at the cover for confirmation, he can't help but snort. The afterlife, it seems, has a sense of humour.
He sets the book aside—if his memory serves him correctly, it's not a particularly long play, so he'll put off reading it for now so that he doesn't get bored too quickly. He stands and stretches. Walks to the vending machine and views his options, then decides he's not in the mood. He leans over the platform barricades and peers down the railway tracks, because he's fairly certain a train should be coming soon, but for now, at least, there is nothing.
It's all routine at this point. Megumi isn't sure how long he's been here, but he knows it's been a while. He memorised the layout of this place a long time ago. This is how it goes:
The train platform is exactly two hundred and seventy-three paces long and twenty-six paces wide. There are five benches evenly spaced throughout, all of which face both ways. There are ten gates on each platform edge, one for every train carriage, with freshly-painted lines on the ground to indicate where people should queue—though, of course, there are never any people. The trains come on both sides of the platform. Megumi would like to say they come twice a day, but it's hard to tell, because there isn't really a concept of days here. There is a map, but it's useless; there's one glaringly red dot in the middle, labelled YOU ARE HERE. Lines extend from either side of the dot to indicate train routes, but each line only has one station after this one. On the northbound line, which comes on the right side of the platform, the next station is Start Anew. On the southbound line, which comes on the left, the next station simply reads Return.
At the end of the platform, there is an escalator. It comes up, but not down; Megumi's tried walking down it before, but no matter how quickly he goes, he can never descend it faster than it moves. He's always ended up on the platform again in the end, so he assumes that he simply isn't allowed to access the rest of the station—if there even is a station. There are other platforms, but they're too far away for Megumi to see them properly; he thinks he sees silhouettes on them sometimes, hazy smudges of people, but he can't truly make them out. He has never, not once, met someone else here.
He keeps himself occupied in other ways. He has a book, which changes itself so regularly that sometimes Megumi loses it before he can finish, which always makes him huff with annoyance if he found it particularly good. There's a vending machine that dispenses any simple food that Megumi might ask for, including the line of iced tea that got discontinued when he was twenty. But aside from those...
If Megumi walks along the platform, he'll often come across things that have been dropped on the floor. He doesn't know what to call them—mementos? Souvenirs? The point is, they're his.
His house key. A seashell that he picked up from the beach on his and Yuuji's honeymoon. Tsumiki's star-shaped hairclip. An ink stamp that Nobara brought him back from overseas, which she carved herself (badly) to resemble Kon. Two pressed and dried flowers from his and Yuuji's wedding bouquets. A worn-out pack of kids' bandaids with Tsumiki's favourite cartoon character on them. A clothespin, a grocery store receipt, a fridge magnet. A hundred other pieces of evidence of his quiet, daily life. Megumi always pockets them, and they always disappear, but he appreciates them nonetheless. They make him reminisce.
So this is how he passes his time: he reads, and he remembers, and he waits. And—yes, here it comes now; Megumi can hear the distant rattling of the tracks. The southbound train is about to arrive at the station.
He steps back from the edge of the platform. He knows it's ridiculous, but he always makes sure to not stand too close to the gates when the trains arrive, just in case he somehow gets sucked in or something. He doesn't intend to leave until Yuuji gets here.
He's already got it planned out in his head. He's sure that the northbound line means reincarnation—start anew—and the southbound means...whatever the opposite of reincarnation is. An eternal afterlife, maybe. They can talk about it once Yuuji gets here, but Megumi's hoping that Yuuji will agree to go south with him. If the two of them could return to their life together...and, even better, if the rest of their loved ones were there...
It's what's been keeping him going. He's willing to wait for as long as it takes for Yuuji to arrive. He dreams of it often: Yuuji will come up the escalator, and they'll run to each other and reunite just like the lovers in Yuuji's cheesy movies, and they'll board the next train together. They'll ride off into the sunset, and then they'll arrive...somewhere. Megumi's not sure where, but he's been picturing their home. Tsumiki will knock on the door like she's been there this whole time. Wasuke will come to visit for family dinners. They'll be happy.
Megumi doesn't have any photos or videos here, so he has to content himself with counting things about Yuuji so that he won't forget them. He had that one strand of hair that always fell down over his forehead. His undercut felt like peach fuzz when it was freshly-cut. He had that one slightly crooked tooth, and a mole on his nape that Megumi liked to press his thumb to. The dips and valleys of his body, the bell-chime of his laugh; Megumi tucks all of those precious memories away like coins, keeping them safe until the day he no longer needs them.
The southbound train rumbles into the station, a sleek metal monster. Megumi stuffs his hands in his pockets and watches the doors open with a hiss; there is, as always, no one inside. It waits for a minute or two, Megumi and the open door locked in a standoff, before the doors slide shut again and the train groans back into movement.
With the sound of the leaving train being so loud, Megumi doesn't hear the footsteps coming up the escalator until they come to a stop. Even then, he doesn't notice, not until—
"Megumi?"
Megumi goes still.
For a second, he convinces himself he's gone insane. He's gone too long without talking to anyone else. He's spent too much time walking in laps around the platform. He's finally lost his mind—
"If that's you, you jerk, then you'd better turn around."
Megumi is acutely aware of each movement he makes. The twitch of his shoulders as he dares to turn his head, the pull of the muscle that runs down the side of his neck, the slight shifting of his feet to accomodate the change in direction. He's almost too scared to look, just in case the platform is empty and he really is crazy, but he lifts his eyes and—
Nobara is standing there, looking not a day over thirty-five, and Megumi loses any composure he still had left.
The platform is two hundred and seventy-three paces long. From the bench where Megumi is standing to the escalator where Nobara is, it's at least fifty of those paces.
Megumi closes the distance in thirty.
By the time he crashes into Nobara, his vision is already starting to blur. His hands feel like they're disconnected from his body—it's been so long since he saw someone, touched someone, that Nobara's stylish overcoat is like an electric shock of sensation to his fingers. He hugs her, probably tighter than he ever did when they were alive, and folds over her so he can bury his face in her shoulder.
"Oh my god," he mumbles, as Nobara wraps her arms around him. After so long spent in silence, his own voice is foreign to his ears, rusty and strange at the edges. "Oh my god, oh my god—"
"Okay," Nobara wheezes, slapping him on the back. "That's enough now, fuck, since when did you hug this tight—"
Since I died, Megumi thinks, the words building up behind his teeth. Since I died and you didn't, and I waited for ages to see you again.
He doesn't say it, but he forces himself to relax. He exhales slowly in a weak attempt to calm himself down, leaning back to wipe at his wet eyes as he and Nobara pull apart. His hands still hover at her sides; he'd never admit it, but he doesn't want to be too far away from her, in case he can't come close again.
When Nobara gets a proper look at him, she immediately makes an expression like she's about to throw up. "Eugh, put that away," she says, waving at Megumi's face. "It's weird seeing you cry. Stop it already."
She's still annoying. Megumi still loves her. "I'll hit you," he says, and fully means it. Nobara rolls her eye, and Megumi takes a moment to just stare at her.
He's pleasantly surprised to see that she's this old. Megumi suspects that whoever passes by this place reverts to the age at which they were happiest; he would've half-expected Nobara to be sixteen years old and two-eyed, but instead she looks like she's in her thirties. Not nearly as old as she was the last time Megumi saw her, but certainly well into adulthood. It soothes something in Megumi's heart to see her wearing her eyepatch here.
Nobara puts both her hands on her hips and looks around. "What even is this place?" she says, and glances down at herself. "And how old am I? My joints haven't felt this good in years."
"My god, you're a grandma," Megumi mutters. Nobara stomps on his foot with all the force of her newly-rejuvenated knees, and Megumi has half a mind to shove her onto the tracks.
He takes her on a brief tour of the platform. He explains his theory about the north- and southbound lines to her, and she nods along. He shows her the vending machine, and is delighted to see that her favourite strawberry chocolates have suddenly appeared in stock. In return, Nobara tells him about the world she's just left behind. She died at a hundred and four, which means—Megumi does the math in his head—it's been thirty-six years since his own death. It's somehow both shorter and longer than he thought.
Yuuji's already been widowed for more than half the length of their marriage. Megumi's heart aches.
"All our seniors are gone, too," Nobara says, as she and Megumi finally sit down on one of the benches; she kicks her feet up in a very old-lady manner, and Megumi has to resist the urge to snort. "Maki and Yuuta died ages ago. They didn't come through here?"
Megumi shakes his head. Nobara hums, but neither of them have any idea how this whole afterlife thing works or why Megumi's never seen anyone until her, so they set it aside. Nobara's silent for a moment, and Megumi can feel her eyes on the side of his face. Just as Megumi was drinking her in earlier, he's sure that Nobara, too, is relearning how he looks.
Megumi has seen his reflection in the vending machine glass, so he knows that he himself is frozen somewhere in his early thirties, and he's pretty sure he knows why. It was the period of his life during which everything was truly perfect: he and Yuuji were happily married. They'd been considering adopting children. Curses were steadily growing weaker, to the point where being a sorcerer felt more like a job and less like a death sentence. Their friends and loved ones had settled down, all content with their own lives. And, most importantly, it was before they realised that Yuuji wasn't aging.
And speaking of Yuuji...
He's been the one thing that Nobara hasn't brought up yet, which doesn't bode well. Megumi shifts, drumming his fingers on his knee.
"And Yuuji?" he prompts. Nobara goes still, and something cold settles in Megumi's stomach. "How is he?"
Nobara's mouth twists. She looks like she's trying to come up with a way to tell Megumi something he won't like hearing, and that cold feeling grows colder.
"Well, you know him," she says, carefully studying her nails. "He's an idiot. After you died, he—ugh." She clenches her fist; Megumi watches her knuckles whiten. "I get mad just thinking about it. He left, can you believe that?"
"What?" Megumi says. He...there's no way. Yuuji left? Yuuji?
Nobara nods, her hair bouncing with the movement. "Like, poof," she says. "He just disappeared overnight. He came back for a few funerals, but he went totally missing a few years after you died. I wanted to kill him." She sighs, leaning back against the bench backrest. "It's okay, though. He came back in the end, 'cause of the alien thing."
Megumi blinks.
He heard that wrong, right? Right?
"...Alien thing?"
A sly smile stretches across Nobara's face, and Megumi braces himself for a ride.
So she tells him about the aliens. She tells him about the whole issue with cursed spirits, and about Megumi's successor being sent to die, and about the Ten Shadows apparently being banned, which makes Megumi see red—but apparently everything worked out in the end. She says that they even figured out a way to get rid of curses. Megumi finds it hard to believe that she's not fucking with him, but she swears up and down that she's telling the truth.
But at the end of the story, she still hasn't given him a real update on his husband, so Megumi prods her in the side. "Yuuji?" he asks expectantly, and Nobara makes a disgusted sound.
"You sappy bastard." Nobara flicks his forehead, and Megumi hisses, swatting her hand away. "Why are you even here, huh? Why haven't you gotten on a train already?"
"I'm waiting," Megumi snipes back. The duh, idiot is implied, because he really thought she would've expected this. After all, no one would be surprised at him staying for Yuuji, even if it takes another few hundred years. But...
...But Nobara's smile drops, and Megumi's heart drops with it.
"Shit, did I not...?" Nobara goes quiet for a moment, obviously thinking, and then she lets out a string of swears. "Fuck, I thought I said it. I—Megumi..."
"Said what?" Megumi says sharply. The easy, sun-bright warmth of seeing her again has dimmed, because with this kind of reaction, it's obvious that she has bad news about Yuuji. He clenches his hands in the fabric of his pants. "Nobara, said what?"
Nobara grimaces. "Okay, listen," she says, which is never a good way to start a conversation. "You...have you really been waiting? Like, this whole time? Because—I dunno, I kinda just thought you might've been somewhere else and you just showed up when I did—"
"Yes, I've been here the whole time," Megumi snaps. Of course he's been here. Of course he waited. How could he leave without Yuuji? "Just spit it out already. I know it'll be a long time before he gets here, but—"
"He's not coming, Megumi."
Megumi stares at her. Nobara stares back. A strange fuzzy static starts in Megumi's head—it spreads from his ears to the cavern of his skull, a rush of white noise that drowns everything out.
Slowly, Megumi inches back from Nobara, like putting distance between them will make her take back her words. His legs nudge something behind him; it slides off the bench and thuds to the ground. His book, he realises distantly, the same one he'd put aside before Nobara arrived. Waiting for Godot. How on the fucking nose.
"What do you mean," Megumi says, his voice quiet but so, so loud in the silent station, "he's not coming?"
That can't be right. Yuuji stopped aging, yes, but he wasn't immortal. They'd figured that his aging had simply slowed. Shoko had still been around when they first realised, and she'd given him an estimate of a few hundred years. Three to four hundred if he was lucky; a thousand if he wasn't. Either way, there was an end in sight. That's why—that's why Megumi's here. He's willing to wait as long as he needs to, because once Yuuji's here, it won't matter. They'll spend forever and then some together—but only once Yuuji gets here. So Yuuji has to get here, because if he doesn't, then—
If he doesn't, then...
"He's planning to turn himself into a cursed object," Nobara says softly, and the white noise grows louder. "He said he'll be a failsafe in case anything happens and they need sorcerers again—you know, sorcerers like us."
By the time she stops speaking, Megumi's already started shaking his head. "That doesn't mean he won't come," he says, his tongue a clumsy, stumbling thing. "He—he doesn't have to leave his soul in it, right? He can just infuse it with his cursed energy. That's what Yuuta did with his ring. As long as he doesn't leave his soul—"
"He said that if they ever needed it, someone could eat him," Nobara says. She says it very slowly, enunciating each word like that will make the blow land any softer. "Megumi, come on. What do you think that means?"
It's a stupid question, because she knows that Megumi already knows the answer. If Yuuji is planning for someone to eat him, then it means he must be leaving his soul behind. Eating a cursed object won't do the eater any good unless it incarnates, and to incarnate, the soul of the original sorcerer has to be contained within it. So Yuuji's really planning to...
The first thing Megumi feels is rage.
How could he? How could he? Doesn't he know what this means? Doesn't he know that, by doing this, he's confirmed that they will never see each other again? Megumi reaches up to run both hands through his hair; he has to resist the urge the rip it all out.
Thirty-six years. Thirty-six years he's waited here, comforting himself with thoughts of a future that will never exist. An eternity without him—can Megumi do it? Can he? He could go south, and he'd be with Tsumiki and Nobara and all the rest, but in the back of his mind, wouldn't he always be thinking about that beloved boy of his? His Yuuji, his lovely, wonderful, stupid Yuuji—how could Megumi go on while knowing that he's just in stasis somewhere, waiting for someone who might need him?
I'll be lonely without you, Yuuji had said, and now Megumi's supposed to just deal with the fact that he's left Yuuji alone for what is, essentially, the rest of time. Like he'd ever be capable of doing that. Like the mere thought of it doesn't make him feel like he's dying again, like it doesn't make every organ inside his body seem like it's shrivelling up from preemptive grief. And the horrible truth of it is that, well—is he even surprised?
Of course Yuuji, of all people, would do this. Isn't that why Megumi fell in love with him in the first place? Yuuji with his bleeding heart, so selfless, so good—of course. Of course he would give up his own afterlife for the sake of helping others. Of course.
And yet: Megumi wishes he was selfish.
Just once—just once—couldn't Yuuji have put himself over the world? Couldn't he have decided that he wanted to do something for himself and damn the consequences? And, deep in the back of Megumi's mind, a sickly voice whispers: was his desire to see Megumi again not enough to outweigh his desire to help?
"Oi. Oi." Nobara's snapping her fingers in front of his face. "Get a grip, will you? It's not the end of the world."
Megumi shakes himself out of it, then shoots her a glare. "How is it not—"
"I could be wrong," she says, which is probably the first time she's ever spoken those words. "I mean, we were still trying to figure it out when I died. You know we were never good at that kind of thing."
That's true. When it came to the more academic parts of sorcery, Megumi had always been better than the two of them. Incredible fighters, the both of them, but ask them to write an essay on the mechanics of barriers and they'd wilt. Despite himself, Megumi feels his mouth twitch upward at the thought.
"All I'm saying is, don't start spiralling," Nobara says. She scooches closer to him on the bench. "Like, at least give it some time to sink in first, y'know? Wait a bit."
...She's right. Megumi's mad about it, but she's right. His gut is still a roiling mess, all anger and dread and a vague sense of betrayal, but he should give that some time to settle before he does anything rash. It's Yuuji, after all, who's always jumping into things; Megumi needs to keep a relatively level head. He bites the inside of his cheek and says nothing, which is his form of tacit agreement. Nobara sidles closer and lays her head on his shoulder.
"And," she adds, her voice dipping into something softer, "it doesn't mean he doesn't love you, y'know. I've been to your house. He still keeps all your stuff on the bedside table."
Damn her and how well she knows him; even now, more than three decades after Megumi's death, she can clearly still read his face. And, to his embarrassment, her words do help. Of course he didn't truly doubt Yuuji's love for him, but...
It's not that Yuuji doesn't love him enough to come find him again. Megumi knows that, as always, the issue is more that Yuuji doesn't love himself enough to allow that luxury. Selfless to the point of stupidity.
In the distance, Megumi can hear a familiar metal rattling. The train tracks, he realises; the other train is coming. Nobara's brow furrows, and she sits up to peer down the platform.
"The hell is that?"
"The train," Megumi says automatically. "This one is going north."
"North?" Nobara twists around to peer at the mostly-useless map. Megumi looks at it too, his eyes catching on the next station on the northbound line. Start Anew. "Huh. Okay." She turns back around, but Megumi's eyes stay snagged on that text.
Start anew.
...Wait.
That's right. This whole time, Megumi's been so focused on the idea of going south that he's forgotten that he has options. There are two trains that depart from this platform. If Megumi takes the southbound line like he's been planning, then he'll probably end up in that perfect eternity he's been dreaming about, just minus the most important person. But if he takes the northbound train...
Nobara follows his gaze, and she must realise immediately, because she groans and elbows him. "Oh, come on," she says. "I just told you to wait a bit. Don't tell me you're leaving already."
Megumi bites his cheek. He can hear the train coming; he can see the faint glow of the lights. "Not right now," he says, which is true. As tempted as he is to hop on that train, he should probably think about it first; he doesn't want to act too quickly and end up reincarnating just to find that he was wrong about Yuuji planning to leave his soul behind. And he does want to spend more time with Nobara—this brief conversation was nowhere near enough, not after thirty-six years of separation.
But he could go north. He could.
If Yuuji really is planning to remain in the world indefinitely, then the only way Megumi could ever hope to see him again would be through reincarnation. It's a long shot. There's no guarantee that he'd even be born in the same country as Yuuji, much less that he would get an opportunity to run into him again. And he definitely won't have any of his memories from this life. But...
Yuuji would have his memories. And maybe Megumi's being a hopeless romantic here, but he believes, deep in his heart, that Yuuji would recognise him. Something in him refuses to accept the possibility that he and Yuuji could be alive at the same time and not run into each other. If Megumi manages to reincarnate before Yuuji dies, or if he's able to meet Yuuji's vessel somehow, then...
Maybe.
On the other side of the coin: if Megumi does this, he might be giving up his chance to reunite with Tsumiki. He's grieved her for over fifty years, and god, he wants to see her again—but it's possible that he could still see her again, even if he reincarnates. Who's to say that eternity won't have everyone he's ever loved, in every life he's ever had? Besides, Megumi doesn't even know for sure if Tsumiki would be there if he went south right now. Maybe she chose north, too. Maybe she's already in the world again, and Megumi is still waiting. The truth is, Megumi has no idea where she ended up, and he won't know until he makes his own choice.
Yuuji, though...
Megumi knows where Yuuji will end up once he dies. Or, at the very least, he's got a good idea.
The northbound train pulls into the station. Megumi and Nobara both watch it come to a stop. The doors open; the bright lights inside the carriage wink invitingly.
Megumi doesn't move. But, for the first time since he got here, he considers getting on.