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There is a puddle gathered along the curb from last night’s rain, catching the traffic lights across its surface. Green turns to red, then green again, reflected in trembling bands of colour. The streets are mostly empty. It is late for a weeknight, and this part of town sits too far from the main avenues to stay busy after midnight.
Satoru paces in front of the entrance while a small cluster of smokers watches him with poorly concealed sympathy. Restlessness moves through his body like a draft beneath a door, cold despite the still air.
Megumi is never late.
Except lately, he has been.
Late to practice. Slow to answer messages. Distracted even when he stands directly in front of him. Still, he said he would come, and Megumi does not lie.
His phone buzzes in his hand. Satoru glances down too quickly, hope rising, only to find a reminder about tomorrow’s class waiting on the screen.
“Hey.”
The low rasp of Megumi’s voice brushes against him like a soft caress to his spine. Satoru turns immediately.
Megumi stands a few steps away with his hands buried in the pockets of an oversized coat, grey sweatpants hanging loose around his frame. He does not look dressed for a night out. He looks more like he’s planning to go home, carrying takeout through quiet streets under the glow of convenience store signs.
There is a bruise beneath Megumi’s eye, darkening toward the edge. It’s a fresh one, and Satoru swallows down the unpleasant taste rising in his mouth. He says nothing about tonight’s fight. He does not ask who Megumi fought, whether he won, or whether the blood on his shirt belonged to him or someone else. He does not ask whether Megumi came here looking for distraction, comfort, or merely somewhere to spend the hours before dawn.
Megumi is here, giving him the faintest trace of a smile, and Satoru feels his heartbeat stumble once in his chest. For now, that is enough.
Satoru reaches for his hand, pulling it gently from the warmth of his pocket. There is a brief hesitation before Megumi’s fingers fold between his own. His hands are rough with calluses now, but they still settle perfectly against Satoru’s palm.
“We have a table,” Satoru says. “Come on.”
The doorman recognizes Satoru, doesn’t recognize Megumi, and his gaze lingers for a second. Then, he steps aside, letting them through. There is no line tonight anyway.
The music swallows them the moment they step inside, bass vibrating through the floor beneath Satoru’s shoes. He leads Megumi through the crowd toward the back of the club, where Shoko is already waving them over from the booth.
Nanami sits beside his now officially designated girlfriend, one arm resting along the back of the seat behind her. The conversation they were having slows when Megumi appears beside Satoru, and for a moment, all eyes are on him.
Megumi stiffens almost imperceptibly beneath the weight of their attention. Shoko smiles first. Nanami nods in greeting, and the moment passes before it can settle into awkwardness.
Megumi slides into the booth beside Satoru while he waves down a waiter. A daiquiri for himself. An IPA for Megumi.
Satoru still thinks beer tastes awful, a bitterness that lingers too long on the tongue, but Megumi always orders the same one, and somehow it tastes sweeter on him. Satoru has grown strangely fond of it.
“You’re one of Gojo’s students, right?” Nanami asks. He already knows the answer, but it’s as good as any conversation starter.
Megumi nods once.
“I’ve seen you fight,” Nanami continues. “You’re good.”
A small smile touches Megumi’s mouth then, polite and restrained, but real enough. “Thanks.”
The drinks arrive, already sweating with condensation. Megumi wraps his hand around the glass and takes an easy, long swallow while Shoko watches him over the rim of her drink before flicking a glance toward Satoru.
Satoru pointedly ignores it. He is not Megumi’s guardian, and these days, he barely feels like his teacher either. Whatever he is to Megumi exists without a title, reduced sometimes to nothing more than his name lighting up Megumi’s phone more often than it probably should, and the small, selfish hope that it makes Megumi smile.
“You don’t have classes tomorrow?” Shoko asks.
Megumi shakes his head lightly. “I took a semester off.” Satoru wants to reach for Megumi’s hand, but their arms only rest close together on the seat, not touching. Megumi will go back eventually, Satoru tells himself. Once the debt is gone. Once the easy cash loses its appeal. Maybe once he finally believes there is something in his life that would stay.
Shoko only nods.
Nanami glances sideways at her before a slow smile pulls at the corner of his mouth. “You’re thinking about your own semester off now, aren’t you?”
Shoko shoves his shoulder with a scoff and then tilts her head to look at his girlfriend. “He’s trying to make me sound irresponsible,” she says, pointing accusingly at him. “My grades were impeccable.”
“What did you do during that semester?” Megumi asks.
“No one knows,” Satoru cuts in before she can lie her way out. “To this day, she refuses to tell us. Personally, I think she got swept away by some rich heiress.”
Shoko groans while Nanami’s girlfriend laughs outright.
The tension dissolves after that. The conversation slips easily into old stories and familiar arguments, polished smooth by years of repetition. After two beers, Megumi begins to loosen and the rigid line of his shoulders softens. His replies come easier. Once or twice, Satoru catches him smiling, and warmth blooms low in his chest, unrelated to the alcohol burning through him.
Under the table, Megumi’s hand settles against his thigh. His fingers drift slowly along the inside seam of Satoru’s pants, tracing the stitches with absent concentration, like he was trying to read Braille. Satoru wants to close his eyes. Wants, absurdly, to reduce the entire world to that single point of contact.
He places his hand over Megumi’s, not to stop him, but to hold the moment in place a little longer. To leave the evening marked into his skin and take it back home with him.
Shoko eventually slips out to the bathroom while Nanami lets himself get dragged onto the dance floor by his girlfriend.
Megumi leans into Satoru, features soft and a smile ghosting his lips. Satoru likes Megumi like that, quietly warm beside him. Then Megumi’s mouth brushes the shell of Satoru’s ear. “Let’s go back to my place.”
Satoru swallows. God, he wants to go. And push away the thought that Megumi only ever knows how to shed his clothes. Never the rest of himself. Never his walls.
His eyes sway around the dance floor. He finds Nanami moving with awkward determination beneath the shifting lights, one hand resting at his girlfriend’s waist while she laughs at something he says. He is completely off rhythm, visibly trying anyway, and the sight fills Satoru with a sudden, reckless affection.
“Sure,” Satoru says, smiling as he turns back toward Megumi. “After one dance.”
He reaches for Megumi’s hand and gently tugs him toward the dance floor, overcome by the sudden desire to see those layers shaked down like autumn leaves, or at least soften enough to wrap around them both and keep them warm. So they can share more than skin. Feel more than kisses.
Megumi does not move.
Their hands remain linked between them, but the warmth that had settled around Megumi moments earlier vanishes almost instantly. Satoru watches the nervousness rebuild itself piece by piece across his body: shoulders tightening, jaw setting, fingers twitching faintly inside his own.
Satoru rubs his thumb over Megumi’s knuckles. Over the hands that had hardened by months of fighting, but still feels warm under the cracked skin.
He waits.
Megumi’s lips part once before closing again. Satoru leans closer to hear him over the music, close enough to catch the shifting green of his eyes beneath the kaleodoscope club lights.
“I don’t know how to dance,” Megumi admits finally, with a soft shiver to his voice.
Satoru’s hands slide lightly along Megumi’s arms, tracing the new muscle he seems to rediscover each time he touches him. He holds him closer, chest flush agains his and tries to read his heartbeat. “It wouldn’t be the first thing I teach you,” he murmurs, pressing a brief kiss against his cheek. “Dancing is not that different from sparring anyway. Or making lov—”
Megumi goes rigid under his touch, his muscles locking like a body bracing for impact. Megumi pulls himself free.
“I can’t.” The words land flat and firm between them.
Satoru takes a small step back, around them, the music feels louder now, bodies getting too close, lights stinging too bright.
Megumi can step into a ring without hesitation. He can kiss Satoru breathless against the wall of his apartment, can pull him into bed with steady hands and half-lidded eyes, but here, beneath the shifting lights and music, Megumi can’t.
Satoru does not try again. He can’t either.
Megumi reaches for his jacket draped over the booth.
“It’s getting late.” He says quietly. “Tell the others goodbye for me.”
There is something apologetic in the way he bites the inside of his lip before adding, “You can come over later, if you want.” But there’s still that desire burning in his eyes.
And then he is already leaving.
Satoru watches him disappear through the shifting crowd, slipping between bodies and flashing lights until the club swallows him completely.
He drops back onto the booth, one hand lingering against the cushion beside him as though it might still hold Megumi’s warmth.
A moment later, Shoko appears at his side, already fishing cigarettes from the pocket of her jacket. If she noticed Megumi is gone, she doesn’t say anything.
“I’m going for a smoke,” she says. “You coming?”
Satoru nods and follows her outside.
They end up in the narrow alley behind the club where the noise dulls into a distant pulse through brick walls. Somewhere nearby, a black stray cat startles from the metal staircase and disappears into the dark. Satoru watches it go and tries not to take it as any kind of sign.
Shoko says very little. She smokes slowly, gaze drifting upward as the smoke leaves her mouth in pale streams. Satoru finds himself wondering whether she ever learned how to blow those perfect circles some people can manage. If she is going to ruin her lungs, she might as well do it theatrically.
His phone buzzes inside his pocket. Megumi.
I left the key under the rug.
Satoru stares at the message for a moment before locking his phone again and slipping it back into his coat without answering.
Beside him, Shoko remains comfortably silent.
The night stretches quietly around them, damp pavement reflecting neon lights while the city slowly empties itself toward morning. Satoru suddenly aches for sunrise with a desperation he cannot entirely explain.
Shoko drops her cigarette to the ground and crushes it beneath her heel. Then she steps a little closer, mouth still shut in a thin line but Satoru knows she is waiting for him to talk, spill all the words he kept caged in.
He exhales through his nose.
“Yeah,” he says finally. “I’m fucking around with Megumi.”
Shoko snorts. “Were you seriously trying to hide it?” She says matter-of-factly.
Satoru smiles despite himself. Not because the secret feels lighter shared aloud, he never wanted to hide it, but because hearing it spoken turns it into something real now.
“What I didn’t realize,” Shoko says after a moment, “is that you fell in love with him.”
Satoru turns toward her too quickly and his head hurt. But he stares at her for a few seconds before his gaze falls back to their feet.
“Is that what this is?” he asks quietly.
That sharp, relentless ache beneath everything else.
Megumi is all layers and armor, and Satoru had spent months convincing himself he was slowly peeling them away one by one. But all he keeps finding on him are the bruises, the exhaustion, the scars he brings home from the ring.
And somewhere along the way, without noticing, Satoru realizes he has been the one left exposed instead.
He knows the shape of Megumi’s mouth against his throat. Knows the weight of his body pinning him into worn sheets, the roughness of his hands, the changing line of muscle beneath his skin.
But he still does not know the sound of Megumi’s soul sighing.
“He’s waiting for me,” Satoru says after a while, lifting his phone vaguely between them like evidence. “For sex.” The word feels strangely hollow now. “But all I can think about is... just spending time with him.”
And he can feel how pathetic he sounds under Shoko’s flat look.
“The sex is good, though,” Satoru adds for good mesure.
“I truly did not need to know that.”
Satoru laughs quietly.
Somewhere across the city, he imagines Megumi stretched across his narrow bed in that apartment smelling faintly of old cigarettes and damp walls, staring at the ceiling with his phone abandoned on the nightstand, its screen gone dark. Waiting for Satoru to arrive. Waiting for his body.
And Satoru cannot stop wondering what Megumi would do if he handed him his heart instead.
His head falls back against the brick wall behind him as he looks up toward the narrow crack of sky above the alley.
All he wants is to sway with him, not in a bed but on a dance floor, holding him in his arms and feeling their tired bodies slowly sync to the rhythm of a single heartbeat.
To watch Megumi smile freely. To love him openly enough that the whole world might see it.
Even Megumi.