Work Text:
December 22nd.
Megumi woke up at 6:30 in the morning to the sound of his phone alarm blaring beside his pillow. He reached for it automatically, his fingers fumbling for the dismiss button, and when the noise finally stopped, he lay there in the darkness for a long moment, staring up at the ceiling.
The dorm room was cold. The heating system had been acting up for weeks, and no one had bothered to call maintenance. His breath formed small clouds in the air, dissipating slowly as he watched them.
He picked up his phone again. His thumb swiped down, refreshing the message app.
Nothing.
No messages. No missed calls. No little notification bubbles from anyone. Just the time, ticking steadily forward.
6:31.
He stared at the screen for a few more seconds. Then he locked it and set it back down on the nightstand.
"...Whatever."
He got dressed. Dark uniform, neat and precise. He ran a hand through his hair, trying to tame the perpetual spikes, and gave up after a few seconds. Then he headed downstairs.
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The common room was already alive with the sounds of morning.
Yuji was sitting at the table, shoveling rice into his mouth with the enthusiasm of someone who had never been taught table manners. Nobara was beside him, scrolling through her phone while simultaneously complaining about the quality of the cafeteria's miso soup. Maki was leaning against the wall, polishing her naginata with a cloth that had seen better days. Panda was sitting on the floor, taking up far too much space, munching on a rice cracker. Inumaki was curled up in an armchair, his phone in hand, occasionally making soft sounds of acknowledgment at whatever he was reading. Yuta was sitting quietly at the end of the table, a cup of coffee in his hands, looking like he hadn't slept well.
It was a normal morning. A completely, utterly normal morning.
Megumi walked in and grabbed a bowl of rice. He sat down at the table, between Yuji and Yuta, and began to eat.
"Morning, Fushiguro," Yuji said, his mouth full.
"Morning."
Nobara looked up from her phone. "Morning."
Megumi nodded.
Maki didn't look up from her naginata. Panda waved a paw. Inumaki gave a quiet "Shake." Yuta smiled politely.
Nobody said anything else.
Megumi ate slowly, methodically, his eyes drifting to the clock on the wall every few seconds. He wasn't waiting. He was just checking the time. That was all.
6:47.
Maybe they hadn't noticed yet. Maybe they were just tired. Maybe they would remember later.
He didn't care.
Obviously.
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At school, the day proceeded like any other.
Megumi sat through morning classes, his notebook open, his pen moving across the page, his mind somewhere else entirely. Gojo was nowhere to be seen. Apparently he'd been called into an early meeting with the higher-ups, something about a mission report that needed clarification, or a budget issue, or some other bureaucratic nonsense that Megumi didn't care about.
He tried to focus on the lecture. He tried to pay attention to the teacher's voice, the scratch of chalk on the board, the rustle of paper as his classmates took notes. But his mind kept drifting, pulling him back to the same thought over and over again.
Nobody had said anything.
It was fine. It was fine. He didn't need anyone to say anything. He didn't need a party or a present or a stupid song. He didn't need any of it.
He just noticed. That was all.
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Training came and went.
Megumi sparred with Maki, who critiqued his footwork and told him to stop being sloppy. He nodded, adjusted his stance, and said nothing about the date. He trained with Yuji, who was too busy showing off a new move he had been practicing to notice anything was different. He ran drills with Panda, who was more focused on not falling over than on anything Megumi might be feeling.
Nobara was there too, practicing her hammer techniques with a ferocity that suggested she was working through some personal frustration. She didn't look at Megumi. She didn't say anything to him beyond a curt "move" when he got in her way.
Inumaki was quiet, as always. Yuta was quiet too, though his quiet was different. More distracted. Like he was somewhere else entirely.
The morning passed.
Lunch arrived.
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Megumi sat with the others in the cafeteria, eating quietly while they argued about something trivial.
"I'm telling you, the curry here is objectively worse than the curry at the place near my old school," Yuji said, gesturing with his chopsticks.
"Your old school was in the middle of nowhere," Nobara countered. "Of course the curry was better. There was nothing else to eat."
"That doesn't make sense."
"Nothing you say makes sense."
Maki snorted, not looking up from her food. Panda made a sound of agreement. Inumaki nodded. Yuta smiled faintly.
Megumi ate quietly.
He waited.
Nothing.
Nobody said anything.
By 4 PM, Megumi had stopped expecting it.
It wasn't that he wanted a party.
He didn't. He hated parties. He hated the noise, the attention, the forced cheerfulness. He would have been perfectly happy if everyone had just pretended it was a normal day.
But he would have liked someone to say it.
Just once.
Happy birthday.
That was it. Three words. Simple. Easy. Something that took less than a second to say.
But nobody said it.
At 6 PM, Megumi was walking back toward the dorms when he heard footsteps behind him.
"Fushiguro!"
He turned. Yuji was jogging toward him, his breath forming small clouds in the cold air. Nobara was a few steps behind, her hands shoved deep into her coat pockets.
"What?" Megumi asked.
"You doing anything tonight?"
Megumi paused. The question hung in the air between them, and for a brief, hopeful moment, he thought maybe.
"...No."
"Cool. Nobara and I are going out."
"Oh."
"We're gonna hit that new ramen place near the station. You wanna come?"
Megumi looked at him. At the easy, casual smile on Yuji's face. At the way Nobara was already checking her phone, clearly not invested in his answer either way.
"No. I'm tired."
"ohh Okay."
Yuji smiled, completely unbothered.
"See you tomorrow."
"Yeah."
Megumi watched them walk away, their voices fading as they disappeared around the corner. He stood there for a long moment, the cold seeping through his uniform, the winter wind biting at his cheeks.
Then he turned and continued toward his room.
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He sat on his bed.
December 22nd.
He looked at the date on his phone again, as if checking it one more time would change something. It didn't.
He had known it would happen eventually. People forgot things. That was normal. That was human. He wasn't angry.
Not really.
He'd survived worse than being forgotten.
He'd survived the Zen'in clan. He'd survived his father selling him for money. He'd survived watching the person he loved most die in front of him. He'd survived fighting bloodthirsty every day. Hell, he had survived the King of curses.
Being forgotten on his birthday was nothing compared to that.
He put his phone down and picked up a book. Tried to read, but he couldn't concentrate.
The words blurred together, meaningless shapes on a page. He read the same paragraph three times and couldn't remember a single word of it.
He closed the book and stared at the wall.
The thing about abandonment, Megumi had learned, was that it never really went away.
It lived in the back of his mind, a constant, quiet whisper. It told him that people left. People forgot. People didn't care. It told him that he was easy to overlook, easy to dismiss, easy to leave behind.
He had spent years trying to prove it wrong. Years trying to convince himself that Gojo was different. That Yuji and Nobara were different. That the people he had found at Jujutsu High were different.
But here he was. Sixteen years old. Sitting alone in his room on his birthday. Forgotten.
Maybe the whisper was right.
His father had forgotten him first. Toji Fushiguro had never remembered a single birthday, never acknowledged a single milestone, never cared about anything except money and violence. Megumi had learned early that he wasn't worth remembering.
And then Gojo had come. Gojo had saved him. Gojo had promised him that things would be different. They were gojo had made his past birthday memorable and happy, even though he would never admit it in front of the man.
But here he was. Alone. Forgotten.
The whisper grew louder.
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Gojo finally returned at 8:17 PM.
The door to the dorms swung open, and he walked in carrying several shopping bags, his blindfold pushed up into his messy white hair, his grin wide and bright.
"Guess who's back!"
No response.
The common room was mostly empty. Yuji and Nobara were still out. Maki and Panda had retreated to their own rooms. Inumaki and Yuta had disappeared somewhere (hehe InuOkko just kidding). The first-years were in their rooms.
Gojo frowned. He looked around, his eyes scanning the room.
"Where's Megumi?"
Yuji's voice came from the hallway. He must have just gotten back.
"His room."
"Why?"
"He's tired."
Gojo nodded slowly.
"Okay."
He walked away, heading toward his own quarters to drop off the bags.
Then he stopped.
Something felt wrong. He couldn't explain it. It was just a nagging feeling in the back of his mind, a little voice telling him that he was missing something important. He looked around the hallway, as if the answer might be written on the walls.
His eyes landed on the calendar hanging near the entrance.
December 22nd.
Gojo stared.
The smile disappeared from his face. His eyes widened. His grip on the shopping bags loosened.
"...Oh."
He slowly lowered the bags to the floor.
"Oh, shit."
Gojo ran.
He literally ran. He abandoned the bags in the middle of the hallway and sprinted toward Megumi's room, his heart pounding in his chest.
He reached the door and knocked.
No answer.
"Megs?"
Silence.
Gojo opened the door.
Megumi was sitting on his bed, a book open in his lap. He looked up when the door opened, his expression carefully blank.
"...What?"
Gojo stared at him. Then at the calendar on Megumi's desk. Then back at him.
"...Happy birthday."
Megumi froze. For a second, just a second, his face was completely blank. Then he looked back down at his book and turned a page.
"...Thanks."
Gojo immediately knew that wasn't enough. That flat, hollow thanks was not enough. He walked into the room, closing the door behind him.
"Megs."
"I'm fine."
"I know."
Megumi turned another page.
"You don't have to make a big deal about it."
Gojo sat down on the edge of the bed.
"I should've remembered."
Megumi shrugged, his eyes still fixed on the book.
"People forget."
"Not me."
Megumi finally looked at him. His dark eyes were flat, unreadable. But underneath, there was something else. Something small and wounded.
"You did."
That hurt. Gojo nodded, his jaw tightening.
"Yeah."
A pause.
"I did."
Megumi looked away.
"I wasn't waiting."
Gojo didn't argue, because he knew that was a lie.
"You don't have to forgive me immediately," Gojo said quietly.
"I'm not mad."
"I know."
"...Then why are you acting weird?"
"Because I'm disappointed in myself."
Megumi looked down, his fingers curling into the pages of the book.
"I'm used to it," he said quietly. "Being forgotten. It's not new."
Gojo's heart clenched.
"Megumi..."
"When I was little, my father forgot my birthday every year. Every single year. He'd come home drunk and pass out on the couch, and I'd sit in my room, waiting for him to remember. He never did."
Gojo was silent.
Megumi's voice was flat. Clinical. Like he was reading from a report.
"So it's fine. It's not like this is the first time."
Gojo reached out and gently took the book from Megumi's hands. Megumi looked up, startled.
"It's the last time," Gojo said.
"What?"
"It's the last time you'll be forgotten. I promise."
Megumi stared at him.
"You can't promise that."
"I just did."
"You can't control everything."
"I can control this."
Gojo set the book aside and reached into his jacket pocket. Then he paused and looked around.
"Hold on."
He got up, walked out, and returned a moment later with the shopping bags. He sat back down on the bed and began rummaging through one of them.
"I was supposed to give you this this morning."
He pulled out a small wrapped box.
Megumi stared.
"You bought something?"
"Three weeks ago."
"...Then why didn't you..."
"Because I'm an idiot."
Megumi almost smiled. Almost.
Gojo handed him the box.
"Open it."
Megumi hesitated. Then carefully, slowly, he unwrapped it.
Inside was a new sleek black watch. Simple. Practical. Nothing flashy.
Megumi looked at them, his throat tightening.
"...It's nice."
"I remembered you said your old one was broken."
Megumi's fingers traced the rim of the watch.
"You remembered that?"
"Of course I did."
A long silence.
Then Megumi quietly said, "...I thought everyone forgot."
Gojo's expression softened.
"I did."
Megumi looked down.
"But not because you don't matter."
"...I know."
"No."
Gojo gently nudged his shoulder.
"I need you to actually know."
Megumi didn't answer.
Gojo leaned back, clapping his hands together.
"So."
Megumi looked at him.
"What?"
"We have approximately three hours left of December 22nd."
"...Gojo."
"Therefore, we're going out."
"It's almost nine."
"Exactly."
"Everything's closing."
"Then we'll find something that's open."
"I don't want a party."
"Didn't say party."
Megumi narrowed his eyes.
"What are we doing?"
Gojo grinned.
"Whatever birthday boy wants."
Megumi stared at him.
"...Ramen."
"Done."
"And no singing."
"Fine."
"No decorations."
"Fine."
"No giant cake."
"...Small cake?"
"No."
"...Tiny cake?"
"Gojo."
"Fine."
Megumi finally smiled. Small. But real.
Gojo stood up.
"Come on."
Megumi tucked the gloves into his bag. Then he followed Gojo out of the room.
At the door, he stopped.
"...Gojo?"
"Hm?"
"Thanks."
Gojo smiled.
"Happy birthday, Megs."
And this time, Megumi smiled back.
Because maybe his birthday hadn't been forgotten after all.
Maybe it had simply been late.
And I'm too lazy to write the rest, so imagine they enjoyed the rest of the day just as megumi wanted and gojo spoiled him rotten.