Chapter Text
He knocks on Itadori's door when the sky is still dark.
Sleepily, Itadori opens it, dressed in an over-long t-shirt and basketball shorts. "Wha?" Itadori says, yawning.
"I want to talk to you. Can you and Kugisaki meet me on the roof in a bit?"
Itadori's eyes pop open comically wide, awake in an instant. "Fushiguro!"
Megumi looks down at his shoes, the wall, floor, anywhere that isn't up. "...please."
His hands are grasped by warmth compared to his chill. Their obsession with his hands is weird, but he doesn't really mind.
"Of course!" Itadori says, voice warm and soft like a big fuzzy blanket on his stress-weighed heart. "We'll definitely be there. I'll bring Kugisaki out kicking and screaming if I have to."
Megumi nods robotically. The twist in his chest nearly suffocates him with anxiety. This needs to happen, he firmly tells it. No matter how much more of an inconvenience he’s being, he needs to—talk. Actually talk.
Starting now.
The clinic was the first stop before them. Dr. Ieiri is always awake, a chronic insomniac, which makes it easy to sneak in and ask for copies of those plans and medical notes he ripped up before. She doesn't ask, which is even better.
He spends the rest of night before knocking on Itadori’s door cooking. Actually cooking, not just picking and choosing some random low-calorie snacks in the pantry to munch on two or three times a day.
It’s real food, too, so Itadori and Kugisaki have nothing to complain about. Pancakes and eggs and some kind of pre-made puff pastry dough he tries to craft into something edible using the power of internet search engines.
If he thought making meatballs was difficult, then this is impossible.
Gojo finds him in the mess, stressing over leftover basil leaves he found from one of Itadori’s pasta dishes the other night.
“Oooh, is my favorite student cooking for me?” He gasps.
Megumi bats his hand away with a spatula. “No, it’s not for you.”
“My not-anymore-favorite student is cooking for others?” Gojo exclaims with glee. “Real food!?”
Can’t make anyone happy, Megumi thinks with an eyeroll.
“I’m…trying something new,” he explains, fiddling with his apron.
At his feet, his divine dog barks, a chef hat on its furry little head for moral support.
The cabinets are banged open. “No chocolate chips?” Gojo complains at the plain pancakes. A few are burnt but seem cautiously edible.
“Go away!”
Of course, he doesn’t. His idiotic teacher cheers when he finds the whip cream in the back of the fridge and starts dancing in his fluffy slippers despite the fact it’s nearing six AM.
Megumi ignores him and pulls his first quiche creation out of the oven. The color looks nothing like the internet picture, but whatever. It doesn’t smell great either, but neither did anything else so far. His nose is biased.
No matter how hungry he is, food never really smells good. His brain just hates it on principle alone.
Gojo takes one bite and flattens his mouth in the polite way people do when they are severely disappointed with something.
Because Gojo is not polite, he even says it. “Wow! It’s astonishingly mediocre!”
“Thanks, sensei,” Megumi says sarcastically.
Gojo pours a bowl of heavy cream and starts dipping the mediocre quiche in it. Megumi’s stomach nearly throws itself out of his body at the horrifying sight.
“Much better,” Gojo says with satisfaction. His sleep mask is full of wrinkles. “So, who’s the lucky fellow who gets the three-course breakfast? Wooing someone?”
Megumi can’t help but flush a bit at the thought even as he scowls. “No! It’s just something nice for the others. Not like you would know what that is.”
“Oh, I am so wounded. And oh so proud!” Gojo opens his arms wide. “Bring it in!”
Immediately, Megumi goes into a fighting pose. “Don’t you dare come any closer!”
Gojo laughs. “Teasing! I’ll get you next time. So will Yuuji be there?”
“…Yes. We’re going to talk. Kugisaki too.”
Nodding with satisfaction, Gojo hops on the counter and continues sampling. “Okay, these pancakes though? Are pretty good,” Gojo actually compliments. He uses a fork to pull off another piece. “Try some!”
The piece of pancake is held out. Megumi has tried nothing so far—cooking is already a big step, too many smells making his head spin—but, maybe…
Megumi reaches out, pulls the fork out of his teacher’s hand, and tries it.
It’s…good. Not great. But it’s good.
“…Yeah,” Megumi says, honestly surprised.
“They’re so fluffy!” Gojo dumps powdered sugar on one of them, ruining it.
“Itadori said the less you mix the batter, the fluffier it gets.”
Gojo finishes off a third of the pancakes. Megumi despairs at needing to make more. He almost throws his hands up and lets the rest of the food burn, not wanting to deal with it any longer, on edge and anxious and angry and all stuffed up with too many thoughts.
No. No, he can’t stop now. This is something he needs to do, for himself.
The dog nudges the back of his knees, pushing him on, and both his shadow and his teacher keep him company while Megumi mixes until morning rises.
With Gojo enjoying his sugar-ladened trash, it’s easier for him to try the fruit topping and quiche bites (it’s…definitely not the best) and tomato basil puff pastry and another pancake bite as he works. Even if it’s only a small amount, at least he’s eating.
His mind works in a competition system, sometimes; if someone is eating more or worse than him, and he’s eating less or better, it’s okay to eat.
He read a bit about the competitive drive of eating disorders and knows it’s not a healthy way of thinking, but—it helps, now, a safety net to hold when he’s already so far in the deep end.
One day he’ll shut that side of his brain down. Not today.
So when the sun just starts to rise, he has a semi-decent and only mildly-burnt feast laid out on the roof when Itadori and Kugisaki come to meet him.
And there, he bares his soul to them, the first people who have ever wanted to see him for him since his sister.
For the first time, the lead pebbles in his stomach start to digest away.
The best words for Megumi are routine and control. Every time some big change in his life happened, was when problems appeared.
For a jujutsu sorcerer who gets tossed in on-the-fly missions on the regular, this is difficult to manage. Hence the control part. Balance is key.
He keeps bags of preferred snacks on him, easy and quick things he doesn't have to think about for long once he chokes them down. It's energy. It's sustenance. That's all it is. It's harder to convince him some days, but it works more often now.
It becomes easier when his sparring skills make a dramatic improvement. The first time he nearly knocks Itadori on his ass, something clicks in his head, an "oh, that's why" realization. Nutrition has never become more important to him, not just the little calorie numbers.
The others know now and know not to push hard. The talk on the roof was more for his own piece of mind. Megumi doesn’t need coddling or special care—he just wants understanding instead of brute force.
He’s not looking for his friends to become his therapists either. Other than that moment, it hasn’t been talked about since. It’s a support system, which he read about being beneficial.
He’s not some pity case or a total fool. It’s just a habit that he realizes now has…probably gotten a little out of hand.
There’s explanations and reasons he could look up, or go talk to someone professional about, and maybe one day he will do all those things. The thought makes his skin crawl at the moment, though, so long as he continues improving and not backtracking too far, it’s fine.
He’s working on it at his own pace. That’s enough. For now.
Still, it’s hard to switch his thinking. All his little quirks have to be shifted, changed, adjusted. This can be more difficult than others.
For one, his gums remain a mess of sores despite the bigger appetite. Whenever his stomach used to get too upset, he’s used to tearing away his inner cheek skin to cover up the lack of taste on his tongue with iron. Not a lot, just enough.
Now, he keeps ice chips on hand, which turns out to be better because it numbs and leaves behind a cool, refreshing feeling instead of the thick of liquid pennies.
It’s a habit he’s had to kick even more when Itadori and him…uh, actually work up to courage to do something about their shared glances. Turns out, they both are pretty fond of each other. In that way.
Megumi’s going to fight both Gojo and Kugisaki if they say anything.
(“Just call us by our first names at this point,” Kugisaki complains. “Especially if you’re going to be swapping spit with this one.” She thumbs to Itadori, conked out on his lap and drooling spectacularly.
“Ugh.” Megumi twists his mouth. “You have such a way with words…Nobara.”)
Well. Swapping blood is a big no-no. So no more biting.
Itadori—Yuuji—feels them once when they work up the courage to do more than light pecks. “Dude, what’s up with your mouth? You good?” he asks, wiping the back of his mouth with his hand.
“Sorry.” Megumi looks away nervously and reaches for the water on the nightstand.
“No, it’s fine! Just checking in,” Yuuji says with a grin. “It’s not bad. I don’t mind as long as it doesn’t hurt you.”
“Nah. It’s just an old habit.”
“Just a thing?”
“A thing.”
It’s their new system. “Thing” is code. If Megumi wants to elaborate, he can, and Yuuji will listen. If he doesn’t, then that’s fine too.
It’s not used often, but when it is, it helps.
Now, Megumi just swirls some water around, swallows, then pulls Yuuji back in. Some things don’t need to be talked to death. Megumi’s trying to be more open, but not every detail needs to be hemmed and hawed over.
And right now, he just wants to enjoy the moment. Of actually living.
He forgot a time when he had energy, when he wasn’t always tired and wasn’t whippet thin. He actually has muscle growth, a feat which Maki and Nobara made him celebrate.
“Look at these guns!” Nobara had exclaimed as she squeezed his bicep, pulling him back no matter how much he tried to run.
Keeping this problem-thing of his casual, others have found out, is the best way for Megumi to rationalize it in his head. As long as nobody fusses over him, he’s fine. The jokes and comments are fine. They make him feel normal, not an outcast. And they’re never mean spirited.
Food is still a pretty touch and go topic, but signs of progression do help.
At the same time Nobara comments, Yuuji admires. “Looking good, Megumi,” he says, a little spark in his eyes that makes him fluster at both the comment and the name.
They haven’t done more than the bare minimum of what counts as “dating” vs friendship, but it's fine, nice even. Megumi panics a bit at the mere thought of taking off his shirt in front of people. It’s not a vanity thing for him, but he still—doesn’t like to look at himself. That’s okay, though. They have time.
Old habits die slowly, painfully, and never completely.
It’s—never really leaving him, not really. That mentality is still such a huge part of him.
There are still days he doesn’t eat, when he fasts for so long his vision swims and his hands shake. He still doesn’t eat sweets or junk, enjoys salads and rice and light food whenever possible even when at a deficit.
It’s annoying, how his moods shift like the tides. The first time he measures his waist and sees the numbers tick up, he rebounds so violently Gojo nearly snaps at him.
And one day, when Yuuji is fast asleep and Megumi on the in-between, Sukuna had grinned up at him from his cheek and—
Rebound again.
But, even when he thinks rushing to the end by wasting away is the right move to make, that this is the way to strength and success, that he’s sick of dealing with food and all the terrible weight attached to it, there are just as many, if not more, moments that remind him to take it easy.
And he remembers—
Tsumiki would be proud. She’d be happy. And when she wakes up, she’ll see it, too.
So he never stops moving, onwards and onwards.