Work Text:
Ground chicken, finely chopped green onions, ginger paste, egg yolks, salt and pepper.
As luck would have it, Megumi finds all the necessary ingredients in the kitchen pantry. Megumi wonders who it is now that keeps it so well-stocked. Before it all, there had always been a surplus of sweets to be found on the shelves and in the corners of cabinets. Now, it is a perfect, calculated balance of sweet and savory. Megumi hates it.
Put all the ingredients in.
It’s odd, doing this in the middle of the night. It’s odder, doing this alone.
Use twice as much ginger.
Megumi isn’t even particularly hungry. But after a few hours of restlessly tossing and turning in bed, he had finally allowed himself to get up and mindlessly roam the halls, and somehow, he had ended up here.
Mix together well and knead it.
It comes to him almost like muscle memory. After everything, it still feels natural, easy, safe to carry out the motions. A part of Megumi is surprised he remembers it at all.
Shape with spoons.
The meatballs aren’t a perfect sphere. Maybe they don’t have to be.
Ah, but he’d forgotten to start the oil. He lets his first formed meatball fall back into the bowl, before turning to find a suitable pot. It’s as he pours the oil and turns on the stove that a voice breaks through the blanket of silence in the kitchen.
“...Fushiguro?”
Megumi stills. He thought he’d been careful enough, silent enough, not to rouse anyone else from their slumber—
“Hello, Itadori,” he greets quietly when he sees the other boy standing a short distance away. The only light on is the one above the stove, and it makes Itadori’s expression difficult to parse out. “Sorry, did I… wake you?”
“No,” Itadori says with a step forward, “no, I just… couldn’t sleep.” Now illuminated by the light, Megumi can see a sheepish smile on Itadori’s face. “My feet took me here, somehow.” That’s a sentiment Megumi can relate to. Itadori peers over the counter. “Are you… making meatballs?”
Megumi glances down at his bowl, as if he’d forgotten what he had just been doing. “Ah… yeah.” He looks up to meet Itadori’s gaze. “Do you want to help?”
Even in the dim lighting, Megumi sees Itadori’s eyes brighten. He nods, his steps quiet as he makes his way over.
For the next few breaths of time, it is silent. It’s not the sort of silence Megumi has come to despise, with suffocating tension or creeping isolation, but the sort of silence Megumi has missed. He has forgotten how nice it is, sometimes, to simply exist. It is a luxury, he has only recently realized, that he can’t take for granted.
At the same time, there is much unsaid in the silence between them. In the chaos and calm and change that followed the events of Shinjuku, they have been unable to find a moment for themselves. It has always been too many other people, too little time, too fleeting a space. Now, it is quiet, it is tangible, it is them. Megumi searches his mind for some way to close the chasm that stretches out in the few feet between them.
“The last time I made meatballs, I thought you were dead.”
Well. That may not have been the best way to break the silence.
Itadori’s hands still over the bowl. A part of Megumi wishes to swallow the words back, but a larger part of Megumi breathes easier with the words off of his chest.
“...oh,” Itadori says quietly after the words settle. “That was a… long time ago.”
“It was,” Megumi agrees. “At the time, Kugisaki called them your legacy.”
Itadori huffs out a laugh. “That’s not a bad legacy at all.”
Megumi watches as Itadori shapes the meatballs, using his hands instead of the spoons Megumi had used. Itadori’s hands are careful, precise in rounding the corners and crumbs of the meatball. His fingers move with a calm surety—after all this time, he still executes it perfectly. It is exactly like before, but nothing like before. Megumi wonders, if he turns the palms of Itadori’s hands up, what calluses and shadows of blood he’d find. Megumi wonders, if he turns the palms of his own hands up, how scarlet they’d be.
Right now, though, they are not scarlet. They are warm, and that will have to be enough.
“Do you regret it?”
The question spills into the silence without Megumi even realizing and pools at their feet. Itadori blinks.
“Regret what?”
“Anything. Everything.”
Itadori gives the question thought before responding despite Megumi’s vagueness. His hands slow, but never stop. He turns a formed meatball over in his hand. “I can’t say for sure,” he admits with a slight shrug. “I…” He trails off. “I mean, of course, I’ve—I’ve wondered. What it would have been like—if I hadn’t… if I hadn’t gotten involved with this all in the beginning.”
“If you hadn’t saved me,” Megumi says for him.
Itadori nods. “You wouldn’t believe me if I said it, but… I can’t imagine it.”
“What?”
“I can’t imagine it,” Itadori repeats. “If I try to think about it—it’s just… blank.” He shakes his head with a smile tracing his lips. “I think… it might be naïve of me to say, but… I think everything happened for a reason. I wish—of course—I wish things went differently. I wish…” His smile turns a little softer, a little sadder. “I wish we could be making meatballs for more people.”
He doesn’t say the names out loud. He doesn’t have to.
“But we aren’t,” Itadori continues softly, “and somehow, it’ll have to be enough.”
Megumi closes his eyes. His memory of the most recent, most devastating events are muddied and unclear when he tries to recollect them—like he’s viewing them from the bottom of an ocean. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t manage to creep into the dreams of his fitful sleep, that doesn’t mean he can pass by a blindfold without flinching, but it means that everything has a dreamy, obscure color to it when Megumi tries to remember. He is aware of the violence by his hand only with a distant, hazy understanding. It is only when he sees a reminder of the havoc he had helped wrought—a news article, a picture, a sound—that it sharpens to a blade. More than tangible moments that Megumi can reach out to grasp, these are flashes and sparks of time that twist at Megumi’s skin—with one exception.
“You said,” Megumi murmurs, “earlier—it would be lonely without me.” This, this, this is the only thing to break through the haze. This had resonated, this had clarity, this, Megumi heard, Megumi felt, even within the murky cloud that had shrouded over his consciousness. And when it had resonated, when Megumi heard, when Megumi felt, he had pushed—pushed and shoved and forced his way through, even if it meant he drowned deeper in the process. “And now?”
Itadori tilts his head to the side. “Now?”
“It’s…” Megumi exhales shakily, closing his eyes again. Moments and flashes of time once again wash over him, but this is a cascade, not a deluge. Names, faces, grins, laughs, people—that now exist only in Megumi’s fractured memory.
“Fushiguro?”
“It’s still lonely,” Megumi finally blurts out. “Even with you here, it’s—it’s still lonely.”
These words, Megumi regrets letting out. He stares at the meatball in his hands, his eyes tracing the flecks of green embedded within. He doesn’t want to see Itadori’s face, doesn’t want to see the hurt he knows must be lingering in the shadowed corners of his expression. When he does eventually look up, there’s an apology on his tongue.
The expression on Itadori’s face gives him pause. It’s not hurt, it’s not anger, it’s not offense, it’s something different. The angles of his face are not hard, not sharp, or pained—it is a soft, almost gentle melancholy that tugs at the corner of his eyes. Megumi’s words dissolve on his tongue.
He is beautiful, even like this—especially like this. Megumi is surprised that this, of everything, is the thought that rises to his mind.
“I know,” is Itadori’s quiet admission. “I…” A soft sigh. “I feel the same, but…” The melancholy lifts, if only for a moment. “It’s easier, with you.”
“Easier?”
“Because—you know. You know… all of it. Everything that’s occurred, we’ve experienced together.” Itadori shakes his head. “I don’t need to explain myself to you. You don’t need to explain yourself to me. We can just… be.” A small smile traces his lips. “Like now.” His gaze drops back to the meatball in his hands. “It’s still lonely, but…”
“But?” Megumi prods when Itadori falls silent.
“But maybe we can be lonely together,” Itadori offers. For the first time that night, Megumi cracks a smile.
“I’d like that,” he murmurs.
They fall into another silence. The oil in the pot Megumi had placed earlier has begun to sputter, so Megumi turns down the heat. As it settles, he drops the first formed meatball in, then another, then another, until the pot is full. A soft sizzle rises from the pot. Megumi turns to see how many are left, and his eyes widen.
“I think we made too many,” Megumi mutters under his breath when he sees how many remain, and Itadori lets out a slight laugh. Years fall off of his expression when he grins, and it is only when joy finds a home in his eyes that he finally looks his age. The past events have forced them, all of them, to age well beyond their years, so it is surprisingly warming to remember that their youth is something that can still be reclaimed.
“We’ll find someone to share it with,” is Itadori’s easy reassurance.
“Kugisaki and the second-years enjoyed them last time,” Megumi remarks as he finds a spatula to roll the meatballs. “Although, I don’t think anyone then was really in the mood for a meal.”
“You think it’ll be better this time?” Itadori asks hesitantly.
“We’ve…” Megumi exhales softly. “We’ve spent enough time grieving. We can’t get stuck here.”
A cycle. Isn’t that what Megumi had called it, all that time ago? He had thought them to be cogs in a never-ending system—the only thing fair about life is how unfair it is to everyone. After all this time, it still rings true. There was nothing to be gained from dwelling on the injustice of their past.
“It doesn’t work unless we move on,” Megumi murmurs, mostly to himself. He looks up to meet Itadori’s curious gaze. “We’ll… we’ll call this a celebratory meal. For… making it through.” He shakes his head. “Enough grieving,” he says firmly.
“Enough grieving,” Itadori agrees after a pause. “Though, won’t they be pretty cold by the time everyone else wakes up?”
Megumi’s lips twist. “That’s… a good point.”
They both stare at the meatballs browning in the pot.
“...midnight might not have been the best time to start this.”
Itadori’s lips twitch at Megumi’s words before he breaks out into a loud laugh. He claps a hand over his mouth shortly after, looking around with wide eyes.
“Do you think I woke anyone up?”
Megumi, who had been temporarily struck silent by seeing such unabashed glee on Itadori’s face, takes a moment to respond.
“I… think we’re okay.”
A grin lingers on Itadori’s face, and seeing it, a smile lingers on Megumi’s face, too. Itadori’s energy has always been contagious, and it appears that his joy is, too.
And Megumi wants to be able to see it—now, and all the midnight rendezvous later.
It’s the very moment that thought strikes that Megumi realizes he doesn’t quite know how many midnight rendezvous he has left with Itadori. He glances to the side where Itadori has begun fishing out the meatballs and putting them in a bowl and thinks of a way to ease into his question.
“Do you think we’ll be able to do this again?”
Itadori tilts his head to the side. “What, making meatballs? Of course!”
“No, I mean…” Megumi hesitates. “What about… after?”
“After…?”
“After we graduate,” Megumi clarifies. “You’ll… be leaving, right? Back to Sendai?”
Itadori frowns. “I don’t have to, do I?”
“Well…” Megumi starts slowly, “no, but I just assumed…”
Itadori hums. “No, I think I’d want to stay here. And teach, maybe.”
Megumi’s eyes widen. “Really?”
Itadori tilts his head to the side. “Is it really so surprising?”
Megumi hesitates before responding. “No, it’s just… I guess I never considered you staying.”
“Why not?”
Because you weren’t supposed to be here, Megumi thinks. This life wasn’t meant for you—I brought you here, and I could never expect you to stay.
Megumi shrugs. “Just a feeling,” he says instead.
“And… you?” Itadori asks hesitantly after a pause. “What are you doing after we graduate?”
“I…” Megumi trails off. He had asked the question in the first place, but he couldn’t answer it himself? His gaze drops, and his cheeks flush with light embarrassment. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it.” I didn’t think I’d be able to think about it.
“That’s okay,” Itadori chirps. “You have time.”
Megumi’s shoulders relax. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “We do.”
Itadori reaches out for a meatball in the silence that follows and takes a bite. A moment later, Megumi does the same.
“It’s good!” Itadori says after swallowing, that familiar grin curving the corners of his eyes. “We’re good at this, huh?”
There’s nothing else Megumi can do in the face of Yuuji’s joy but agree. He nods and takes another bite.
And this, in this moment, lit by the dim kitchen light, with only their breaths in the silence—they are not sorcerers, they are not cogs in a system, they are not meant to be anything—which means that they can simply be. Megumi and Yuuji; nothing more, nothing less.
Megumi and Yuuji; nothing more, nothing less.
Megumi likes it. He wonders if they’ll get moments like these later, beyond the limitations of the small kitchen. Maybe on a nice sunny day, with his shikigami out and a sweet drink to share. Not now—this moment they have now is too precious and fleeting to break with such a question, but soon. Soon, because they have the time for it, and that is time Megumi will never again take for granted.
Between the two of them, they manage to make short work of their meatballs in a contented sort of silence, even given how many they had made. It’s still dark outside, and the drowsiness that had escaped him before is beginning to set into his skin. Based on the way Itadori tries and fails to suppress a yawn, the same is true for him.
“I think I’ll try and catch some shut-eye now,” Itadori mumbles, rubbing at his eyes. He flashes Megumi a small, sleepy grin. “G’night, Fushiguro.”
“Megumi,” Megumi blurts out. Itadori stares at him. “Megumi is… fine.” He can’t explain the intrinsic need to have Itadori call him that rather than the alternative, but when he sees Itadori’s grin curve up, he knows he made the right decision.
“Only if you call me Yuuji.”
“Yuuji,” Megumi agrees softly after a beat of hesitation.
Yuuji’s grin softens. “Good night, Megumi.”
“Good night, Yuuji.”
Megumi watches as Yuuji pads away in the direction of his room, his footfalls drifting into silence. With a soft sigh, Megumi turns to the kitchen countertop. There are still a few ingredients out, some of which Megumi isn’t even sure got out in the first place. Salt, sugar, cinnamon, vanilla. Even as sleep tugs at the corners of his eyes, he moves on autopilot to put the ingredients back in their place—salt and sugar on one side, cinnamon and vanilla on the other. It’s as he grips the vanilla, though, that he hesitates. He stills and bites the inside of his cheek. He slides the bottle of vanilla extract so that it’s snug against the sugar. Somehow, the simple action makes him feel at peace, like a balance of some sort was restored. It’s a silly thought, but it’s still with some sense of satisfaction that he closes the door.
“Good night,” he says to no one in particular, before heading for his own room.
Later that night, he dreams of meatballs and sunshine.