Work Text:
It started small. The green tint in honey eyes was manageable. Fushiguro would come home to him, he would let Itadori touch and kiss and hold until he was satisfied, and then they would spend the rest of their night as normal.
On quiet nights, Fushiguro would read one of his books, nonfiction as his preference normally was, and Itadori would sit next to him—reading manga, scrolling mindlessly through his phone, or sometimes catching up on mission reports he should have done days prior. On louder nights, Fushiguro would tell him about his day, while Itadori had his fill of affection, he would help with dinner and they would chat until they couldn’t hold their eyes open any longer. On those nights, Itadori talked them to sleep or kept mumbling until Fushiguro kissed him to politely shut him up.
Nothing stayed the same forever.
Fushiguro was a very punctual man. If he was late, it was normally the fault of someone else. Most of the time, Kugisaki or Itadori were the culprits, being scolded gently all the way to whatever they were running late for and making sure to apologize when Fushiguro tried to pin the blame on himself like he always did. If he was running late, Itadori was informed far ahead of time. In their line of work, someone being even a few minutes late could mean the worst.
Five minutes passed, then ten. After almost half an hour of not hearing anything from Fushiguro and all his calls going to voicemail, Itadori did the only thing he could think to do. He called Kugisaki. She didn’t answer.
Itadori was two seconds away from throwing his phone at the wall and pulling on his shoes to go find Fushiguro himself when their front door opened.
He was met with the sight of a man who looked like he was barely hanging on. His always slightly unruly hair was even more mussed—like he had dragged his hands through it or maybe trying to tug it out of his skull in frustration—and there were deep, dark circles under his eyes. Fushiguro’s moves were sluggish and slow, as if he was pulling himself through water to get to Itadori. He didn’t say anything and it didn’t seem like he even looked at him as he approached. Fushiguro just reached out to grab Itadori by the hoodie and tug him in close, inky hair tickling his nose when the man nuzzled into his neck.
Itadori held him in silence, moving to press kisses to his face until he cracked the slightest of smiles.
That night was a quiet one, all the way up to Fushiguro finally collapsing in bed and falling asleep nearly as soon as his head hit the pillow.
The incident was written off and Itadori had all but forgotten about it until it happened again.
When he broached the topic in conversation, Fushiguro explained that with exam season coming up for his students, he was pulling double duty after classes to help them with training and studying. It meant anything he had to do for himself was pushed back by hours and it was easy to lose himself in trying to juggle it all. He sounded so guilty about it that Itadori hadn’t let him get an apology out. Only assured him that it was fine—that he was simply worried about him and wanted a little extra communication to make sure he wasn’t dying in an alleyway somewhere. They’d both had a laugh at that, like it wasn’t a very real possibility for either of them, and moved on with their night. Even as Itadori’s chest ached.
Fushiguro did text or call from then on if a student approached him after classes. Itadori didn’t worry as much when he walked through the door late, but it still sucked.
If it wasn’t work for his students or missions keeping Fushiguro from him, it was work he was doing to rebuild the Zenin clan Maki entrusted him with.
Itadori tried to be understanding. Maki had done a good thing for both of them when she wiped out a majority of the clan and Gojo had fought to guarantee Fushiguro that spot. Hesitant as he was to accept it when Gojo was still alive, he seemed to throw himself into the role in their third year. It was around that time when there had been talks about officially demoting the Zenin clan from its status as one of the three major clans. He wasn’t entirely sure how Maki felt about that and he wasn’t really sure what Fushiguro’s personal feelings were about it either, but he started visiting Kyoto on the weekends. Whatever did and whatever was said in political discussions Itadori was not privy to had worked. Though they were much smaller than they once were, the Zenin clan was thriving under Fushiguro’s distant guidance. They certainly weren’t the power they once were, but in an era of mostly peace, that wasn’t all they had to offer.
It was something that Maki and Fushiguro shared and it was something that Gojo left to him. Itadori couldn’t stand in the way of that, no matter how much he wished he could sometimes.
“Megumi?” Itadori questioned, dragging his phone away from his ear to peek at the caller ID, as if he had mistaken it and someone else’s name would be on the screen. “You’re supposed to be at some super important meeting right now, Clan Head Fushiguro. Don’t tell me you’re slacking off to talk to—”
“Yuuji, I don’t have long.” He sounded tired, frustrated. Itadori’s stomach dropped and his palms grew clammy. “Gakuganji is…” he paused to take a deep breath. “He’s being difficult to say the least. Even with Yuta backing me he’s shooting down everything I say today. We’re still trying to come to an agreement. I can ask to continue the discussions tomorrow—”
Itadori shook his head like Fushiguro might be able to see him. “No, it’s okay! We can just reschedule.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. It went on long enough that Itadori pulled his phone away to check if they were still connected. Even after he placed the speaker back to his ear, the silence lingered. Fushiguro was thinking. For a moment, the dread in his veins was replaced by a gentle fondness. He always looked rather cute lost in thought. Fushiguro would insist he didn’t pout while thinking hard about something, but Itadori knew the truth. He could see it clear as day in his mind.
“Are you sure?” Fushiguro asked finally.
“Positive, baby.”
He was far from it. The pit in his stomach threatened to make him lose the very hearty snack he just finished.
“Thank you,” Fushiguro sighed, relieved. “I’ll make it up to you.”
“Don’t worry about it. What’s important to you is important to me,” Itadori hummed, trying to keep his voice from shaking as his leg started to bounce. “Besides, Gakuganji is a di—”
“Yuuji.”
“I know, I know!” He sighed, letting his head thunk back against the back of their couch. His eyes stung. “I’ll see you later.”
“Tonight,” Fushiguro promised.
The line went dead and took Itadori’s peace with it.
At the start of this all, they’d noticed something very quickly. Where Itadori would reach out in his anxiousness—always scared that if Fushiguro slipped too far away he would lose him for good this time, Fushiguro had started to teach himself to pull back. He hadn’t always been that way, and Itadori hadn’t always felt like he needed his constant presence to know he was still with him, but the things that happened to them couldn’t be undone. The effects they had were unavoidable. Itadori learned that no matter what distance he kept between them, Fushiguro was susceptible to danger. It meant that he was always worrying, always wondering where he was and what his brief silences meant not just for Fushiguro but for the two of them. Fushiguro, on the other hand, learned that keeping people close, even as selective as he was, only hurt them. Itadori, Tsumiki, Gojo, Kugisaki, all of them suffered things that were unspeakable even years removed from them.
When Itadori pushed too hard, Fushiguro freaked out and pulled away. When Fushiguro pulled away, Itadori worried even more.
They’d fought a lot over it when they were first figuring out what loving each other would look like for them.
For the most part, they’d reigned it in now. Secure and settled together.
Now, sitting alone in their living room, staring up at the ceiling, Itadori was trying not to cry. The tightness in his chest felt stupid. He was the one who told Fushiguro to cancel their plans. He even confirmed it instead of being honest when he was given a second chance to do so.
Even now, more secure than they’d ever been, Fushiguro liked his space. The problem was, Itadori liked his space too. He got used to being in that space. He hated not being in it. Hated that there were always things to fill the space Itadori left behind by not being around—other people, places, things. His stomach churned at the idea that someone or something else might be a bigger part of Fushiguro’s life than he was. It churned and churned and churned until he was sure he would lose the contents within it and be left with more than one mess to clean up. Bile and a broken heart. What a sickly combination.
He sat there, willing his racing heart to calm long enough that it began to race with frustration instead. Anger.
Itadori was busy too. He had responsibilities he had to take care of and missions were a near constant with how his abilities grew since they graduated. He wasn’t a teacher or some fancy clan head, but he was important. He was worth something. So why the hell did Fushiguro seem so interested in his work and not in making it home to the man who loved him more than anything in the world?
Even as his anger grew, so did the pit of guilt low in his stomach. Conflicting feelings that only served to piss him off further.
He considered going to bed early, just closing his eyes and waiting until the world turned off. Fushiguro wouldn’t blame him. He might even be relieved to come home to a quiet place to decompress.
Instead, he turned on a movie, hoping that would help soothe his soul. Only twenty minutes in, leg still bouncing, he realized he hadn’t picked anything near complex enough to hold all his attention. He reached for his phone, scrolling through videos and posts. It helped at first until the app magically locked onto his state of mind and began showing him video after video of people talking about priorities and attachment styles and things that Itadori felt so deep in his chest it made him ill. That plan was tossed away, landing with a thud, along with his phone, on the cushion Fushiguro should have been sitting on.
He thought of turning on some music, but every song would be about love and it would only make him miss Fushiguro’s presence by his side even more.
Itadori sat in silence.
By the time the front door opened, he’d at least migrated to their kitchen table to pick at some store bought meal he hadn’t bothered to warm up. He didn’t have the stomach for it anyway. He would just stick it back in the fridge after he was done pushing ingredients around with his chopsticks, searching for the answers to his complex feelings within them.
The smell met Itadori before Fushiguro did. Warm, inviting, and mouthwatering.
A large bag full of containers, the clear source of that wonderful smell, was placed between their normal spots at the table. Fushiguro leaned down to steal a kiss when Itadori looked up at him for an explanation.
“I wanted to eat with you,” Fushiguro mumbled against his lips, pulling back to take the sad, dismembered meal away from Itadori and bring it back to the fridge. “I passed by that new place on the walk home—the one we were speculating what they would be serving because the name was confusing—and I noticed they were open, so I stopped in.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
Fushiguro returned the smile that was beginning to place an ache in Itadori’s cheeks. His was always much smaller, but Itadori never minded much.
“I was starving anyway,” he admitted, waving off the gratitude as he began to unpack and place things.
Itadori’s smile fell. “Oh. Right.”
Fushiguro had been searching for somewhere to eat then. It wasn’t fully a gesture of apology for his skipping out on their date. Even as he began to grow wounded again, he felt equally guilt-riddled. Itadori tried to remind himself that he was the one that told Fushiguro to forget about their plans for the night, but it was growing hard to do so.
“Yuuji?” Fushiguro stopped what he was doing, sitting down to place a hand on his knee. His leg was bouncing again. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he lied, putting on a new smile. “I’m just tired. It was a long day without you.”
Why couldn’t he just tell the truth? Fushiguro hadn’t pulled back when the going got a little tough since they were young and dumb. Every piece and part of Itadori, no matter how broken, belonged to him and he cradled every single one like it was the most precious thing he’d ever been gifted. Itadori did much the same for him. Why then, could he not get the words he was saying to ring true?
The smell in the air lost all its appeal; it only made him feel sick.
When Fushiguro offered him the plate he prepared, Itadori shook his head gently. He could see the alarm bells start to go off behind Fushiguro’s concerned gaze.
“You’re not going to eat?”
“I’m not hungry,” Itadori lied again.
He’d been starving for a long while now, but the idea of actually eating anything and giving his knotting insides something to spit right back out was not at all pleasant.
Fushiguro set the plate down on the table with enough force they both jumped. His eyes studied Itadori for a moment too long.
“Okay, seriously. What is your problem?” He scoffed.
“I don’t have any problem,” Itadori bit back.
“There’s obviously something wrong with you,” he insisted. “You’ve been short with me since I got home. Is it a problem with what I ordered? We can get something else delivered.”
“I just had a shitty day, okay?” Itadori argued, trying to still the raging sea of emotion in his chest. “Just eat and then we can go to bed and I’ll be over it by the morning.”
Fushiguro shook his head, stubborn as ever. “I know you, Yuuji. That bullshit doesn’t work on me the same way it does everyone else. What’s the matter?”
“It’s nothing you can fix.”
“Well, of course not,” Fushiguro huffed, sounding more than frustrated. “I can’t fix anything if you won’t—”
Itadori stood so fast the chair he was sitting in tipped over, clattering against the floor in a way he was sure made their downstairs neighbors none too happy. Not that they particularly liked the two of them anyway. It was easy to forget that their footsteps and antics would disrupt others when there was only room to think about how happy they were together in those moments.
“I’m jealous, okay?” Itadori roared. “Jealous. I’m jealous of all the people that get to take up your time and of all the things that you do that keep you from me and all the places you have to go that I can’t follow and I’m jealous of you because you don’t even have time to sit around and miss me—-”
“I always miss you,” Fushiguro rushed out, looking far too scared for a man that was fine only seconds ago. He looked almost comical getting out of his chair and trying to reach for Itadori at the same time. It was rather reminiscent of when he hadn’t yet grown into those long limbs of his yet. Gangly and awkward and so lovely. “Always. Do you understand me? I will never stop missing you, Yuuji. You’re all I think about, whether you’re around or not. Everything I do is for us, to make sure that we can have the kind of life we deserve to have. I don’t want the world to need you the same way they needed Gojo.”
“That’s why you work so hard?” Itadori couldn’t help it, he laughed. It was small and a little frightened around the edges but it was met by slightly cold—always cold—fingers brushing gently along his cheeks.
“If I can play my part well enough, that means you won’t have to clean up after my messes, too,” Fushiguro confirmed.
“You don’t have to do that for me.”
“You’re right, I don’t have to,” he answered, thumbs running soft and smooth against his cheekbones. “I want to.”
Neither one of them shed tears very often anymore. Not during sad movies or hearing a particularly heartwrenching story. Not during weddings or talks of death. Not outside this space—their space—where they were safe and whole. Even then, their tears had long since dried up. That was the cost of being a sorcerer. Loss had been a constant on their journey. When Itadori cried now, hiding his face in the sanctuary of the man in front of him, it wasn’t because of loss. He cried for love. Shattered apart for Fushiguro to put together again with gentle hands.
When his tears stopped soaking into the soft fabric over Fushiguro’s shoulder—discolored and damp now—a hand at the small of his back led them to their usual spots on the couch. Side by side with hardly any space between them, that was their preferred method of sitting together.
Green eyes dragged along his features. Puffy eyes, tear tracks, and splotched skin, yet Fushiguro looked at him as though he was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Itadori still didn’t feel he was worthy of that kind of adoration. Certainly not from someone he loved back tenfold.
“What’s going on, pretty boy?” Fushiguro hummed, pushing pink hair back from his forehead.
“I feel like I’m not a priority anymore, Gumi,” Itadori whispered, shaking apart at the seams. He felt flayed open and far too vulnerable. “You’re so busy. It’s always clan business or grading or missions. I feel like I hardly get to spend any time with you anymore. It's like this is all so routine to you that you’ve forgotten it’s a miracle we even get to have this.”
Fushiguro didn’t speak for a long moment. His green eyes were blown wide, soft lips parted around what Itadori was sure would have been a gasp if he hadn’t stopped himself. Slowly, he watched those pretty features melt into the ugliest expression of guilt he’d ever had the displeasure of seeing. Guilt didn’t belong on a face like Fushiguro’s, and yet, there it was, plain as day.
“You said—”
“I know what I said,” Itadori winced. “I felt like if I didn’t give you the space you asked for, you’d feel smothered and you’d be searching for the first way out of this.”
Lean arms reached out first. Itadori was helpless to do anything but melt into the hug. “I will never leave you. Yuuji, I feel like I can’t breathe when you’re not around. Nothing will ever be more important to me than you, than this. Not sorcery, not somebody else, not the Zenin clan or the school. Nothing.”
There was a sense of guilt that lingered even as the words warmed through his veins like they belonged there, nestled in his heart and throughout him. Guilt that he would even bring something so silly up when he knew what Fushiguro’s answer was. Guilt that he would make himself such a handful on top of what they had already suffered through to make it this far. Admitting they loved each other hadn’t been easy. It was a long, strenuous process full of denial and thinking only of the safety of the other. All the people they had loved had met cruel fates. It was easier, at the beginning, to pretend than to admit and watch it happen again.
Fushiguro worked just as hard to be here. To question him like that was uncalled for.
Soft lips pressed to the scar across his brow, lingering there for what felt like a heavenly eternity.
“I love you.”
“I love you,” Itadori answered, soft and with a smile.
“Do you want to talk about it some more?” Fushiguro pulled away just enough to meet his eyes, expression gooey and so unlike the stern looks he’d first fallen for. It made Itadori feel a little fluttery, like butterflies took up to dancing across his nerves. He felt if he tried to answer now, he’d only giggle, so he shook his head instead. Fushiguro nodded, dragging him in close once more. “I’m going to reheat our takeout. Why don’t you take a shower, change into something more comfortable, and I’ll have dinner and a movie ready by the time you’re done. Does that sound okay?”
Itadori nodded, ear pressed to Fushiguro’s own fluttering heart. He wondered if butterflies lived there too. “Perfect.”
With one last squeeze and far too many kisses, Itadori pulled himself away and toward what promised to be the best shower he’d had in a long while. The grime of the day still clung heavily to him, and though their problem was working toward resolution, the last sneaky tendrils of guilt and anxiety clung to his nerves like a leech. He felt itchy and unsettled and so very loved all at once.
Halfway through his shower, he had to press his burning cheeks to the cool tile and bite on his fist to stifle his giggling.
Itadori Yuuji was going to marry Fushiguro Megumi if it was the last thing he did.