Chapter Text
megumi feels his eyes droop.
he is not sleepy— he is drained. exhaustion seeping through his veins.
it has been built up, not that he will ever admit it out loud. he sees a white-haired man; old, wears sunglasses and something in him snaps—
he can hear itadori calling out for him, but it’s faint compared to the ringing howling in his ears.
megumi doesn’t know where he’s going, he lets his feet dash away from everyone and everything.
he hits a wall.
megumi’s jaw tightens as his fingernails claws into the palms of his skin.
where are you right now? a voice interrogates him. it sounds familiar, but megumi doesn’t focus on the familiarity.
“mall.” he answers gruffly. megumi is mildly aware his voice is extremely hoarse and— tiny.
he needs to stay strong.
you were in a meeting with okkotsu, hakari, kirara, panda, hajime, and itadori. what next?
what next? why is he being asked that?
megumi doesn’t know. he doesn’t know, and he cannot think straight currently. his thoughts are all jumbled up. he squeezes his eyes shut tightly, feeling blood gush out of his hands.
suddenly he doesn’t have enough air to breathe. his face is oily, he can feel dirt on his hands and how disgusting his hair is.
he lets his right hand fall flat, wiping the blood off his palm on his pants before bringing his shirt up to wipe his face with the insides of his shirt.
the twinge of pain in his hand doesn’t help.
his entire body hurts. not the pain that makes you double over, but just enough so he feels uncomfortable. his stomach growls, making him aware that he hasn’t been eating properly for weeks.
megumi isn’t sure what to do with that information. he’s been too worked up with everything going on in his life— gojo’s sealing, sukuna wreaking havoc because of him summoning mahoraga, kugisaki’s unknown status, his sister’s unknown status—
megumi wipes his face with the inside of his shirt once more. he glances down.
red.
blood from his hands.
he wipes it on his pants once more, his left hand following suit.
he looks up, finding himself staring at a gray wall.
it does nothing to soothe him.
he remembers mahoraga. he remembers sukuna: he remembers the deaths. he remembers inumaki’s severed arm. he remembers how he had his first kill. he remembers how his sister had reprimanded him over killing that girl when she wasn’t a threat to him through his own shadows. he remembers itadori beating himself up over something that isn’t his fault. he remembers telling hakari he is the zen’in clan head just to find out that the clan was decimated by maki the next day. he remembers kamo— noritoshi telling him how kenjaku was the head of the clan now.
he remembers gojo showing up to his door step at the age of 18.
what if he had said no?
megumi shudders. then the zen’ins would’ve taken me, and tsumiki wouldn’t have been happy.
is she happy now?
no.
megumi’s knees gave out on him as he slides to the floor. his eyes burn but he can’t muster the strength to cry.
he feels anger. he feels burning rage towards the world. towards the jujutsu society, towards the bad.
megumi is angry.
he slams his forehead onto the wall in front of him.
he remembers the first special grade curse he had successfully exorcised.
”what a waste of talent.”
“be selfish, megumi.”
“what a joke.” he sneers to no one in particular.
he wants something to blame everything on. someone. he doesn’t care who it is, megumi needs to pin point all the chaos happening around him onto someone.
but all he sees are mirrors.
his teeth clashes together.
megumi is angry, but anger physically drains him. anger does nothing to the current situation at hand, where everyone is looking at him to come up with the plans.
where everyone is looking at megumi fushiguro, 16 years old, the son of an unknown zen’in that had wandered out of his life with tsumiki’s mother.
and he dares lose his composure when everything is at stake?
“fushiguro?”
megumi wipes his face once more before standing up. he can feel itadori’s stare burning through his back before he turns towards him with a stoic expression.
itadori shrinks. “are you okay?”
megumi remembers asking him the same question the day they had the sister school exchange event. the day the special grade curses involved in the shibuya incident plan and the strong sorcerer’s sealing attacked them.
he also remembers how he had failed to ask that question when itadori’s grandfather had died.
the day everything went wrong.
no. everything went wrong the day megumi fushiguro was born.
when his father had named him ‘megumi’ without giving a damn about his gender.
this world is wrong.
everything is wrong.
so why does megumi keep fighting?
he looks up from the floor slowly, analyzing itadori’s figure. his muscles show a clear sign that he is physically stronger than megumi, the tears and rips of his uniform, the dry blood on his sleeves and his fidgeting fingers.
itadori’s scar in between his eyes.
immense self-hatred burns in megumi.
how selfish.
“i’m fine.” he responds, walking past him. “let’s go back.”
before the sister school exchange event had happened, megumi had gently pried itadori to open up because he knows something was wrong.
this time, now on the opposite sides of the conflict: itadori didn’t.
megumi wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or disappointed.
for what was there to talk about anyway?
that the world is unfair?
they’re both aware of that already.
why bother?