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Megumi first noticed it on the train home after Shibuya.
The realisation came slowly, settling somewhere beneath his ribs long after the mission had already ended. The carriage swayed gently beneath flickering fluorescent lights, nearly empty with how late it was. Rainwater streaked lazily across the windows, blurring the city outside into hazy ribbons of neon lights. Across from them, a salaryman slept against the glass, his mouth slightly open.
Yuuji sat beside him in unusual silence. His hood was pulled low over damp pink hair, one sleeve darkened near the wrist where the blood still hadn’t been properly washed out. Fortunately, not all of it was his. Still, Megumi tried not to think about that too much.
The train lurched around a corner, and immediately Yuuji’s hand caught briefly against the seat between them to steady himself. His fingers brushed against Megumi’s for the briefest moment, warm and solid, before disappearing just as quickly.
“Sorry,” Yuuji murmured quietly, not looking at him. The apology felt unnecessary but Megumi said nothing in return.
Outside the train windows, rainwater blurred the city into streaks of passing light. The carriage swayed softly beneath them, nearly empty this late at night save for a sleeping salaryman slumped against the far window.
Beside him, Yuuji shoved his hands deeper into the pockets of his hoodie. The train slowed sharply approaching the next station, metal shrieking softly against the tracks. Yuuji shifted beside him with the motion, his shoulder brushing briefly against Megumi’s through damp fabric.
Warmth again, and in a split second, it was gone.
Megumi did not think about it again that night. Which was probably why he noticed, three days later, that Yuuji had started pulling at his sleeves more often than touching him directly.
He thought nothing of it at first. It started with small, barely-there touches. Yuuji did it almost absentmindedly while talking, his fingers catching briefly against the cuff of Megumi’s uniform to get his attention. After a while, he had stopped grabbing at his wrist altogether.
Megumi tries not to think too hard about it.
During training, Yuuji claps Maki on the shoulder after losing a spar. He throws an arm around Panda’s neck while complaining dramatically about bruises. Once, Megumi watches him nearly tackle Nobara into the vending machines outside the dorms after she steals the last canned coffee.
But whenever Yuuji reaches Megumi, the movement always seems to stop halfway. Sleeves instead of wrists. A quick tug at the cuff of his uniform instead of fingers curling around his arm. Even during sparring, warm hands against his wrists linger half a second too long to be accidental and still somehow mean nothing at all.
Something tight twists low in Megumi’s stomach every time the distance appears again, small enough that nobody else would ever notice it. The realisation irritates him enough that, eventually, he stops sleeping properly.
One evening after a mission, the four of them stopped at a convenience store near the station. Nobara disappears instantly toward the drinks aisle while Yuuji wanders after her carrying instant ramen cups balanced badly in one hand.
“You’re gonna drop those,” Megumi said.
“I’m literally not,” Yuuji replied.
One of the cups slips and they both reach for it before it hits the floor. Megumi catches it and Yuuji’s hand closes instinctively around his wrist. It's only for a second but the warmth feels all the more familiar. The contact disappeared so quickly it almost felt imagined.
“Itadori–”
“Sorry,”
Megumi stares at him.
Yuuji steps back half a pace, adjusting the hood of his sweatshirt unnecessarily while avoiding his eyes. Behind them, Nobara made a loud disgusted noise from somewhere near the refrigerators. “You idiots are blocking the aisle.”
Yuuji laughs immediately at that, bright and easy in a way that almost smoothed the moment flat again. But later that night, Megumi curls his hand loosely against his chest before he falls asleep, and for some reason, he can’t quite bring himself to move it.
A few nights later, Megumi finds himself standing barefoot in the dorm kitchen sometime after two in the morning, waiting for water to boil. The room was dim except for the weak light above the stove. The rain patters softly against the windows again.
He hears footsteps approaching before he looks up. Yuuji appears in the doorway wearing an oversized grey hoodie and sweatpants, pink hair messy from sleep. He blinks slowly when he notices Megumi standing there.
“Can’t sleep?”
Megumi shrugs.
Yuuji wanders further into the kitchen with the slow, loose exhaustion of someone still half-asleep. Warmth settles into the room almost immediately after he enters, softening the sharp quiet lingering from the rain outside. Water still drips faintly from the edge of his hood onto the tiled floor. Megumi keeps his eyes fixed on the kettle instead.
“You’re overthinking again,” Yuuji murmurs after a moment.
Megumi barely glances at him. “You say that like you can hear it.”
“Kinda can.” The answer is soft with sleepiness and absentmindedly honest.
Rain taps steadily against the dorm windows. The fluorescent light above the stove flickers once before stabilising again, washing the kitchen in pale gold. Somewhere down the hallway, Panda laughs loudly at something muffled by distance.
Yuuji steps beside him to reach for one of the mugs in the cabinet above the counter, and Megumi stills, abruptly too aware of everything at once. Heat seeps faintly through the sleeves of Yuuji’s hoodie where their arms nearly brush together. Damp rain lingers in his hair beneath the cleaner scent of detergent and cold night air. Yuuji lifts a hand automatically toward Megumi’s shoulder, close enough that Megumi feels himself tense instinctively, before the movement falters at the last second, fingers catching against the loose fabric near his wrist instead.
Something in Megumi’s chest tightens sharply before he can stop it. “Why do you keep doing that?”
Yuuji pauses mid-reach. “Doing what?”
Steam curls softly from the kettle now, blurring briefly against the kitchen light. Megumi stares at it instead of answering. Up close, he can hear the faint hitch of Yuuji’s breathing from sleepiness, steady and warm beside him. Their sleeves are still touching, but barely.
Megumi swallows once. The words rise halfway into his throat before shame crushes them back down again. “Nothing,” Megumi mutters finally. “Forget it.”
Yuuji studies him for a second longer than usual, unreadable in the dim kitchen light. His hand falls away from Megumi’s sleeve completely and he feels the absence of the warmth lingering.
Megumi sleeps badly that night, and the night after that.
By the end of the week, exhaustion settles into him like something physical; heavy behind his eyes, dull beneath his skin. He starts lingering longer in empty classrooms after missions, drinking coffee that goes cold untouched beside him. Anything to keep him distracted while he pretends to not notice whenever Yuuji reaches toward him and stops short again.
“You look awful,” Nobara says flatly the following week.
Morning light spills weakly through the dorm kitchen windows, pale and washed-out against the cluttered countertops and half-finished breakfast plates. Someone left the television running quietly in the common room overnight, the muffled sound bleeding faintly through the walls. Megumi sits hunched over the table with one hand curled around a mug of coffee that has already gone cold. His phone rests face-down near his elbow, untouched for nearly ten minutes now. He barely glances up. “Good morning to you too.”
“No, seriously.” Nobara squints at him from across the table, chopsticks paused halfway to her mouth. “Your eye bags have eye bags.”
Beside her, Yuuji looks up immediately from his bowl of rice, concern etched across his face so quickly it almost looks instinctive. “Wait, really?”
Megumi regrets sitting down for breakfast almost instantly.
“He’s been weird all week,” Nobara continues, entirely unhelpful. “Like, moodier than usual. Which is honestly impressive.”
“I’m sitting right here.”
“And he looks so haunted.”
Yuuji’s chopsticks lower slowly against the rim of his bowl. He leans forward slightly over the table, hoodie sleeves slipping down over his wrists. Sleep still clings to him softly; hair uneven from bed, voice rough around the edges from disuse. “Fushiguro, are you sleeping properly?”
The question should not feel as warm as it does, settling somewhere beneath Megumi’s ribs before he can stop it and he looks up despite himself.
There’s a crease between Yuuji’s brows, and a warmth threads unconsciously through his voice. Yuuji looks at him like his concern belongs wholly to them, uncomplicated and earnest and impossible to deflect cleanly. Megumi feels irrationally exposed beneath it. He looks away, fingers tightening once around the paper coffee cup beside him. “I sleep fine.”
Nobara snorts loudly into her drink. “That was the most obvious lie I’ve ever heard.” She fake gasps and points her chopsticks toward him. “Maybe he’s secretly in love.”
Megumi nearly inhales coffee into his lungs. Heat crawls sharply up the back of his neck as he coughs once into his fist, glaring across the table while Nobara laughs without remorse. Across from him, Yuuji blinks in startled confusion. For a second, he just stares. Then a sheepish laugh escapes him, quiet and awkward around the edges as he rubs the back of his neck. “Kugisaki,” he chides, “don’t bully him first thing in the morning.”
Megumi notices, with sudden horrible clarity, that Yuuji doesn’t look at him again for the rest of breakfast.
Moments later, Yuuji stands abruptly and his chair scrapes loudly against the floor. “I’m gonna head out first,” he says, voice bright in a way that does not quite reach his face. “Gojo-sensei said something about early training.”
Nobara pauses with her chopsticks halfway to her mouth. “That sounds like the kind of excuse Gojo-sensei would make up after forgetting he had plans.”
Yuuji rubs the back of his neck, smiling sheepishly. “Right? But he said it like it was important, so…”
“He says everything like it’s important.”
“That’s true.” Yuuji’s answer is uncharacteristically soft. Morning clings to him in small, unfair details; the uneven fall of his pink hair, the faint sleep-roughness still caught in his voice when he answers Nobara. For one brief second, Yuuji’s eyes meet Megumi’s across the table and something uncertain moves through his expression, too quick to understand. He looks away just quickly, and the door closes behind him a moment later, soft and final. Nobara still sits across from him with her chopsticks raised and Megumi makes the mistake of staring at the door for half a second too long.
Across the table, Nobara goes very still. “Oh,” she says slowly.
Megumi’s gaze snaps back to her. “What?”
Her eyes narrow with sudden, terrifying focus and the corner of her mouth lifts. “Oh.”
“Stop saying that.”
“No, I understand now.”
Megumi pushes back his chair, the legs dragging harshly against the floor. “I’m leaving.”
Nobara leans back, smug and merciless. “Coward.”
Megumi ignores her, but his face burns the entire way down the hall.
He avoids Yuuji for the rest of the day, but not obviously enough for anyone else to call it cowardice (Nobara probably would anyway). He simply takes longer routes back to the dorms, lingers too long after training, disappears into empty corridors whenever he hears Yuuji’s voice around the corner.
It does not help. If anything, it makes him notice Yuuji more.
The problem with trying to avoid someone like Yuuji is that he is everywhere. In the training yard, laughing too loudly with Panda. In the common room, sprawled upside down on the couch with a packet of chips balanced on his chest. In the hallway outside Megumi’s room, knocking lightly against the doorframe.
“Fushiguro?” Yuuji calls, voice muffled through the wood. “You in there?”
Megumi sits very still at his desk. He could pretend to be asleep, or say he’s busy. He could do literally anything other than stare at the door like it has personally betrayed him.
“I brought your hoodie back,” Yuuji adds after a second, softer this time. “The red one. You left it in the common room.”
Megumi closes his eyes and lets out a humourless laugh. Of course he did.
For a moment, he considers not answering. Then he remembers Nobara’s face over breakfast, the sharp knowing tilt of her smile, and decides that hiding in his own room would somehow be worse. “Come in,” he says.
The door opens carefully, and Yuuji steps inside with the hoodie folded clumsily in both hands, the sleeves hanging loose between his fingers. He has changed out of his uniform, hair still damp at the ends from the showers after training. He looks tired, and Megumi almost hates himself for noticing.
“Sorry,” Yuuji says, holding the hoodie out. “I didn’t realise it was yours until Kugisaki said I was using it as a pillow.”
“That sounds like her.” Megumi reaches for the hoodie. Yuuji lets go too quickly, and the fabric drops awkwardly between them, caught more by Megumi’s fingers than properly handed over. For a few seconds, neither of them says anything. The room feels too small around them, filled with the quiet hum of the heater and the faint sound of rain beginning again against the window.
Megumi looks down at the hoodie in his hands. “You keep doing that.” Megumi’s fingers tighten in the fabric. His heartbeat feels strangely loud beneath his ribs, unsteady in a way that makes him want to take the words back immediately. “You keep pulling away,”
Yuuji’s stills. His hand drops from his neck and disappears into the pocket of his sweatshirt, fingers curling into the fabric. It is such a familiar gesture by now that something in Megumi’s chest aches at the sight of it.
“I thought…” Yuuji starts, then stops. His laugh comes out soft and embarrassed, barely a laugh at all. “I thought I was making you uncomfortable.”
Megumi blinks. “What?”
“You kept going quiet,” Yuuji says, still not meeting his gaze. “Whenever I touched you. After missions, or during training, or just..” He gestures vaguely between them, helpless. “I don’t know.”
For one horrible second, Megumi has no idea what to say. Because the answer is so simple and so impossible that it catches uselessly in his throat. Yuuji had noticed him noticing, and misunderstood everything.
“That’s not—” Megumi stops, jaw tightening. He looks away first, because looking at Yuuji makes the words feel too exposed. “That’s not why.”
Yuuji’s eyes lift to him, voice painfully careful. “Then why?”
The rain grows heavier against the window, soft and constant. Megumi can hear it filling the silence between them, steady as breathing. He looks down at the hoodie again, at the place where his fingers have twisted too tightly into the sleeve.
He could avoid this. He is good at avoiding things. He could say it does not matter. He could tell Yuuji to forget it. He could let this settle into another strange, aching silence and pretend, for a while longer, that he does not care.
“Because I didn’t want you to stop.” Megumi’s voice is barely a whisper.
Yuuji goes very still. Megumi’s face burns instantly and he regrets it. He regrets every word. He regrets being born with a mouth and feelings and Nobara in his life.
Then Yuuji says, softly, “Oh.”
Megumi glares at the floor. “Don’t say it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like Kugisaki.”
That startles a laugh out of him. It is quiet, almost disbelieving. Megumi looks up despite himself and finds Yuuji watching him with something unbearably gentle spreading across his face.
“Sorry,” Yuuji says again, but this time the word lands differently.
Megumi exhales through his nose. “You apologise too much.”
“I know.”
“You should stop.”
“I’m trying.”
The corner of Megumi’s mouth almost moves. Slowly, carefully, Yuuji lifts his hand between them. He does not reach all the way. He leaves it there in the quiet space between their bodies, palm open, waiting. Warm hands, and scarred knuckles. Fingers that had brushed his on a half-empty train and ruined him quietly for over a week.
His heart stutters once, hard.
“You don’t have to,” Yuuji says, voice low. “I just… wanted to ask this time.”
Something in Megumi’s chest gives way so suddenly it almost hurts.
He reaches out before he can lose his nerve.
Their fingers touch first. Just barely. A brush of warmth against warmth. Then Yuuji’s hand closes around his, careful and certain all at once, and Megumi realises with a strange, dizzying clarity that this is what he had been missing.
Yuuji’s thumb shifts once against the back of his hand, gentle enough that it should not matter.
Megumi looks down at their joined hands, unable to bring himself to look anywhere else. “This is stupid.”
Yuuji’s laugh is soft. “Yeah.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know.”
“I hate this.”
“No, you don’t.”
Megumi’s fingers curl more securely around Yuuji’s hand. Yuuji’s smile softens into something almost shy. The room is still quiet around them, rain blurring the window glass, Megumi’s forgotten homework spread open across his desk, the returned hoodie crumpled between them like an excuse neither of them needs anymore.
fin