Chapter Text
Megumi is brewing coffee when the sunlight starts to slowly sneak through the window.
He's looking away from it, feeling the heat raising on the back of his neck as he leans over the counter to look into the pot, his hand leveling good inches away from the bubbling water to let the heat seep under his palm and help at stirring himself awake. When he blinks, he feels his eyelids lingering, resilient to push back as the heat curling under his palm spreads out to his fingertips.
He’s gotten out of bed two hours earlier, dragging his feet on the floorboards of his room in the darkness as he was fiddling with the collar of his shirt. Gojo’s voice was rough and scratchy in his ear, muffled as if he was talking down to his phone instead of keeping the receiver closer to his mouth. It made it easier for him to hide his yawning, pressing the back of his hand onto his lips and shutting his eyes as he paced while Gojo’s rambling passed from one ear to the other; not entirely oblivious to Megumi’s tiredness, but hardly sympathetic about it nonetheless. Contrary to the stinging flames of annoyance bursting in his chest whenever he hears his voice so early at the break of morning, he appreciates his calling whenever he's away, but there’s a thin line—especially in Gojo’s case—between being attentive and being irritating. There was no reasonable reason for Megumi to wake up at 6am, though there was purpose in Gojo’s bitterness. Nanami calls it selfishness, just a hidden side of his true self that can’t allow him to be alone in the quest of pulling himself on his feet at ungodly hours, dialing either his or Megumi’s number from his endlessly long contact list. Megumi sees it as merely just another toll that Gojo uses to his advantage to stir and jangle his nerves, though he never rejects the calls. It's not absence that influences his moves; after all, Gojo is always away for no longer than a week, only stretching that time frame when the assigned mission proves itself to be more challenging than he’d anticipated—but he thinks there might be absence on Gojo’s side, just a little tang of loneliness that hangs over his eyes every time he wakes up and reaches for the phone, and even though Megumi doesn’t fully believe in his theory, he doesn’t let it go the waste either.
He pushes his shoulders back, craning his head to the side as he presses his waist into the edge of the counter and waits. His fingers press against the cold steel of the spoon, turning it around while he absently watches to coffee brewing, the bitter taste hovering in the air and pulling him out of his sleep-deprived trance. A bird chirps outside settled on the branch dangling in front of the window, into the nest Megumi has been watching it build in the span of five days. His eyes flutter open and he traces his gaze to find it, narrowing them as the beams of sunlight hit the upper side of his face. The bird is not visible from where he’s standing, hidden behind leaves and the blinding light, though as he follows through with the brewing process, he can still hear it singing, the trills flowing slowly to his ears.
He turns off the machine and takes a step back to steer his body towards the cupboard, feeling the muscles in his arm straining with fatigue as he raises it. His mug is the closest one to the edge, its handle turned towards him, and his fingers curl and tighten around it, the cold of the ceramic pinching numbly at his fingertips. He tries not to look at it when he brings his arm back, forces himself to tear his eyes away from his wrist when he bends it slightly to the side as he lets the mug cling to the table. But a single glance is all that costs his attention to remain on it, just the tiniest lines of black curving along his skin. There's always a ticking sound behind his ears as itchiness starts to spread from one side of his right wrist to the other where the name is written into his flesh, stinging and burning him dully, persistently, even when he’s not looking down at it to acknowledge its existence. It's only a shadow of a feeling whenever he chooses to ignore it, but the intensity of it builds up and grows sometimes as if it knows the exact moments when Megumi’s eyes dart down on it for inspection.
Underneath the inked j, Megumi can see his vein pumping blood, pushing the skin above it and making the lines of the last few letters move along with it, slow and steady, barely shifting a few inches up and down. The movement, even though slow and hardly visible, pulls at his senses until he feels the pang of sickness in the back of his throat, slithering quickly to the end of his tongue. He closes his eyes shut, pressing his lips together to crush his teeth against each other and breathe in, swallowing as best as he can while the bile in his throat lingers stubbornly where it had formed. He twists his hand and lets it thud against the table, fingers curling back into his palm until he feels the edges of his nails digging into it, carving thin lines into his skin. He doesn’t let go until he feels the wave of sickness lifting away as suddenly as it came crashing down on him. Until the ringing in his ears dies out and welcomes back the singing of the bird outside.
When he pours the coffee into his mug, his hand clenches so tight around the handle that he can see how much he’s shaking, gritting his teeth, and frowning his brows until the last few drops fall into his drink. He then puts it aside as he fishes a few tissues and wipes the table clean of the few that he’d spilled in the process.
✾
The first time he’s heard the name being spoken outside of his household or the tight group of people that have the leisurely of speaking to him about his mark, Megumi was reading outside, sitting on a bench under the cover of an oak tree, shading his vision and the top of his head from the afternoon sun. The book in his hands was an interesting one, suggested to him by Yuta, which meant it had a little bit too much romance than he can usually handle, but the plot caught up with him soon enough to make him willing to put through for the sake of the, allegedly, heartbreaking ending. His finger hooked itself under the edge of the page when someone called out, the name stabbing through his senses and making him turn cold. His chest felt like it's been pierced by an arrow, and its tip got buried deep into his ribcage, tilting over his lungs as he shifted his body and leaned forwards to look at his side.
Three boys and a girl were sitting on the bench next to him, a few good feet away that he couldn't hear what they were muttering to each other while they looked at another boy jogging towards them, one hand clutching around the strap of the bag threatening to fall off his shoulder. He was wearing sunglasses and a cap, his face shaded in dark colors which made it impossible for Megumi to even attempt at guessing the shape of his head or the shades of his hair—but something, he thought, as he saw him stepping forward; something about him felt familiar.
He couldn't point it out while the boy closed the distance to the other bench, and when he finally halted and the breathy sound of a laugh from the boy’s throat reached him, Megumi turned his head around and flipped the page nervously, the movement causing the edge of it to rip.
“You haven’t answered my call last night, Itadori.” one of the boys said, his tone accusatory as he heard something like a knock on wood, followed by a few hearty giggles and a sigh, which Megumi assumed came from the one bearing the name on his wrist. Something thudded against the surface of their bench, and Megumi tore his eyes away from the page back to them only to watch as he threw his bag on it and gently nudged at the girl’s shoulder to move to the edge so he could sit down himself. Before he started to speak, Megumi was already looking away.
“I had to finish my supplementary assignment. I won’t pass chemistry without having it completed and lacking any mistakes.”
His fingers pressed down, fingertips crumpling the sides. He was gripping so tight that he could feel the pad of his fingers catching a fiery sensation, burning down on his palm until a scrap of the paper started to sting at his skin. A breeze blew through, catching the loose ends of his hair in a swirl over his forehead, and his eyelashes fluttered against the cold wind, pressed tight together as he sunk onto himself and let his wrists rub against the harsh material of his jeans.
“Besides, why would I answer your call?” he heard the boy say, his voice weak against the ringing that slammed across his eardrums, but clear enough to discern from the chaos quickly brewing around his thoughts. “Last time you spent three hours talking to yourself about your new relationship, and I was on the other end just to provide affirmative sounds to your never-ending rambling.”
“Don’t act as if you won’t listen to him anyway. Why do you think he calls you?”
Megumi swallowed, hearing a ticking sound that strummed across his ears as he pried his eyes open. When he looked down, he found that the corners of the pages he’s crumpled in his hands were nearly torn and bent, shaped at a weird angle as he pulled his hand up to release the clench of his fingers from the hardcover of the book. As he closed it, his eyes skimmed back to the bench where the people were fully emerged in their conversation, heads leaning towards one another as they spoke. It was easy to notice him, leaning forward with his arms pinned on his tights and head tilted away from him, looking at the boy standing on his right as he held a phone to his ear and pointed a finger between them. He has taken his cap off, letting it dangle on his calf as he held it with a weak grip of his fingers, and Megumi halted his movements as he picked himself up when he noticed the strange shades of his hair, shining brightly in the sunlight with what seemed to be a vibrant and warm purple. It was so striking that his hand froze over his bag, and the realization of his wrist catching fire came to him slower than usual, letting it curl on his skin absently as if it were nothing but an ant walking along his arm. When he was able to discern it again, the feeling was so sickening that he had to push his back into the bench and breathe, pushing air into his lungs and holding it into his chest until the count of five, just like Tsumiki had taught him to, slowly breathing it all out steadily as he curled his fingers tightly around the straps of his bag and pulled himself on his feet.
As he was trotting away, walking as far from their voices as possible, he couldn't help but feel an unsettling feeling of unease creeping all over him. Something felt wrong, his whole body was burning up, and his wrist was itching so badly, so powerfully that it felt as though someone was cutting right into it. He was walking messily into a wobbly line, legs shaking, fingers gripping the straps over his chest until his knuckles turned white. All he could hear was the soft, weak timbre of the voice he left behind, still haunting his ears; and all he could think of was that his sister was right: his killer would, indeed, find him before he even realizes it.
✾
His life was built around secrets.
After he was born, his father brought him cradled up into a white sheet in their house, stepping over the threshold without him stirring from his sleep and whimpering. It was a stormy night, rain rattling down on the rooftop, and there was no one to witness his entrance into the living room; only the lightning shading glow in the dark space until his father turned on the switch, pulling the sheet further down on his closed eyelids. Tsumiki woke up with a brother sleeping next to her the following morning, and for the first few days of his life, Megumi had no name. Sometimes, he thinks his father might’ve really wanted to keep his whole existence a secret, but what bears more weight is the fact that being welcomed into a darkness of secrecy from birth, Megumi became content enough to chase hopelessly for the light at the end of it.
He was raised for the better part of his early childhood in a traditional house. Amongst his very first few memories, Megumi can recall the wind chipping away at the skin of his cheek as he stands on the wooden terrace outside of his room, his legs folded under him as he closes his eyes and smells the cherry blossoms, their scents filling up the air. The wood under his feet creaked whenever he walked on the floorboards, and any thump near his door or further down the corridor in the middle of the night would pull him out of his sleep, making him straighten up from his bed to wait and see if someone’s shadow passed by his door. His mornings had the taste of toast with strawberry jam which Tsumiki always prepared for him before he came down to the kitchen, and the sweet tang of it still lingers on his tongue sometimes when he wakes up, even though his breakfast tastes less like a carefully prepared meal now and more like black coffee and a slice of bread with cheese on the side.
His father was ever-nonexistent; even in his memories, as well as in the actual passing of time. Tsumiki would say he dropped by sometimes, and would even bring presents that Megumi would lose or misplace or forget about—or not accept in the first place, which would suffice as a reason as to why he has none of the supposed presents to look back onto. The reason for his absence was never clearly disclosed to him, and whether his sister wished to keep him in the dark about it or had no clue regarding it herself wasn’t a topic he ever felt too strongly about in hopes of shedding a light on any answers. His father wasn’t around and his mother’s face was a blank image, with no photos or memories to carve any of her features into his imagination. His own life was a mystery to himself from the moment he was brought into his home, and the day after his mark formed itself on his wrist overnight did nothing to quench this illusion.
Tsumiki had theories about the name, fairytales made out of the latest stories she’d read or movies she’d watched. They were naturally far-fetched from the reality they both know to be true now and at times even ironic in nature, such as the instance in which she convinced him to believe that the name was that of an angel, or a fairy—a spirit that watches over him and signed itself on his skin to make it easier to find Megumi amongst all the other people on Earth. Those few first years of his life, he lived into the bliss of ignorance, gazing down at the mark every time with a graze of a smile on his face and a little pang of excitement in his chest. However, his feelings towards it have changed with time, slowly and tentatively, just like when he’d learned to walk: every shaky step starting to land firmly on the floor, his legs leading him to new places themselves. Every whisper from his classmates during classes, every short remark he’d hear from teachers and other parents as they would chat away while waiting for their children to pack their things in their bags—they were all completely different from what Tsumiki had told him. Things such as “You’re lucky it’s not a name,” or “The mark appeared on her arm last night. Cliff, it says. We'll never go hiking from now on,” were stirring his curiosity as well as his confusion.
The first time his teacher saw the mark on his arm, his eyes lacked any spark of amazement like the one glinting in his sister’s eyes when she saw it. Instead, his face got carved in Megumi’s mind, with all the lines of worry deepened in his forehead and the tight, pursed lips pressing against each other as his hand hovered over his table. The only explanation for it was a low hum from his teacher's chest, followed by a short look into his own eyes, one that struck shivers to run down his spine upon seeing the dark depths into his pupils—an expression Megumi hadn’t understood at the time, but which he can easily pinpoint at nowadays. That vision of pity and sorrow has been following him like a looming shadow ever since.
He'd asked his sister about it when the time was right; when his confusion was over the bounds of his comprehension and when any fairytales which he’d grown up with remained only in the back of his mind, starting quickly to fade into the nothingness which they really were. The thing was though, his sister was nearly as clueless as he was then. There were things written on her face, a shadow of a frown much like the one his teacher wore across his forehead, whenever she’d look down to her or her brother’s wrist, but the only answer that would slip from her tongue would be “I don’t know,” and it was all Megumi would get in response for another few more years.
The years were empty, filled only with even more questions. The books he’d read to understand did a minimal job at aiding his confusion, and the movies he’d watch where the characters would run away from the things their wrists were stained with ended up making him feel more restless.
It was only two months after starting middle school when Tsumiki signed him up for a piano course, saying through her speech of trying to make him interested in it that it would prove to be something that would succeed in taking his mind off of the things that were edging his nerves. He walked into it expecting nothing, though his expectations were soon to be proven wrong. The touch of the piano keys under his fingertips, the notes that would ring in the room as soon as he’d press them, the light sting that he would feel when he’d accidentally trap the pad of his finger in between two keys—they were all mesmerizing and worthy of his full attention.
His piano teacher, a middle-aged woman with pale blonde hair and rings on almost all of her fingers, played for him at the end of the lesson, her fingers dancing gracefully, pinching every key with precision and firmness. Every twist in the melody made his heart ache. His fingers paced on the edge of his knee as he tried absently to imitate the rhythm of her own. When she brought the song to an end, her head tilted towards him, eyes peaking from under the rim of her glasses, and her mouth perked a little to the side in something he’d learn to recognize as the ghost of her smile. “Liebestraum,” was all she said for a while, her hands moving across the keys and then lifting to close the wooden lid over them. “You can learn it, but it’s too soon. If you choose to continue the lectures, I guarantee you’ll know your way around the notes in about two years.”
Two years was a long time—endless, it seemed, from his perspective back then—though he let it brush over him and nodded instead, his cheeks pulling as he smiled.
During all the times she’d grab onto his hands to reposition them on the keys, all the moments in which she’d turn his hand around to help him stretch his fingers to where they needed to be, she’d never mentioned the mark on his wrist. She'd never even gazed down at it; for all Megumi could know, the mark on his wrist was nonexistent to her, and it made the lessons easier to attend, made playing the pieces they’d select together more enjoyable to play when he knew that she wouldn’t bat an eye at the revealing flick of his wrist.
Three years after, he’d memorized Liebestraum, the notes so familiar he could play them on the side of his pillow at night.
On a sunlit morning, as he hurled his backpack over his shoulder and exited the front door to walk to his weekly lecture, Megumi halted as he came face to face with a young man standing only a few feet away from their house’s entrance. He was wearing black and his eyes were hidden behind thick and round sunglasses, white hair falling messily over the rims and standing on ends around his head. As soon as he saw him, the man waved, the flick of his wrist a little too sharp and sudden as he rose his hand from his pocket and flared him a quick smile.
“Good morning, Megumi Fushiguro. You’re alone, kid?” he asked, the tone a little too sweet—too evident of him trying to make it smooth and lacking any lingering or stirring annoyance. Megumi looked him over, his eyes traveling from the crown of his head to the pointy shape of his boots, then pushed his chin out as he answered.
“My sister is inside. It’s just us.” Then with a cautious tone weighing over his tongue, he narrowed his eyes and tightened the grip on his backpack. “Why?”
The man smiled, wide and sheepish—a real smile of sorts, though the light twitch in his mouth as he brought his hand up to weave through his hair signaled a faint strain that was pulsing in the corner of his right cheek.
“Well, I suppose it’s the right time for introductions. You two will be living with me.” his hand fell on his hip, the wide smile dimming down a little as well until only a small upturned line remained painted on his lips. “Explanations will be in order after you’re settled in. Sorry for the short notice, I've just received the memo as well. Came here to help you with your packing.”
He took a few steps forward, hand reaching for the strap hanging over his shoulder though before he could even touch it, Megumi pulled back, his body turning away from him. His grip turned white-tight around it, feeling the material scrapping the back of his palm. The man’s hand stood frozen in the air, still stretched for the expecting contact until he sighed, fingers curling around empty air and arm falling at his side.
“I have a lecture now. You can discuss this with my sister instead.”
He saw the man pursing his lips, pulling them into a lopsided smile that soon had fallen apart as his eyebrows pulled together into a frown. “On a Saturday? What kind of school schedule do you have?”
“It’s not for school.” Megumi sighed, straightening his back and blowing the hair out of his eyes before he started to pace forwards. “It’s a piano lecture,” he said, using it as the ending point of their conversation as he passed him by and ignored the man calling back for him.
The first impression of Gojo Satoru was overwhelmed by the feeling of irritation that the man sparked in him, and truth be told, the irritation had not been deemed with time—only grew in some capacity. In the long run, Megumi can’t deny the benefits that the change has brought along for both him and Tsumiki, be it on the emotional, economic, or even professional side; but living with Gojo proved to be a harsh challenge from the first day, and continued to be one for all the days that followed. He tells himself that he’d learned to adapt to the new lifestyle rather than thrive in it, but in any aspect of itself, living in Gojo’s household was better than living in their own.
He brought friends over a lot of times. Megumi remembers two of his classmates most notably, though the name of one of them had blurred away with time from his memory. There was laughter every time they were around, and the pop of a wine bottle being opened was a typical chime that he would hear around 9pm when they would often lounge in the living room to watch a movie or move about in the kitchen in an attempt to make an edible dinner with the influence of bitter-tasting alcohol on their tongues. Tsumiki was the first to ease up around them; after a few months in which they’d observed the others from the upper floor at times, Tsumiki took the initiative to walk downstairs and inch towards their circle as Gojo poured the drinks into their glasses. They were always welcomed, Gojo had told them. “There’s nothing to fear or worry about. My friends are your friends. Though don’t think about drinking anything we are until you’re eighteen, at the very least.”
The invitation was thus always open, though it took him more than just a few months until he could feel comfortable enough to sink into the couch and slither in a few words whenever he saw fit into their conversation. By then, the other man—whom Megumi noticed Gojo tended to edge closer to every time they would come by, always lightly tugging on his ponytail whenever he wanted to get his attention even though the other would always frown in response—had already stopped coming around. Megumi teased an idea in his mind: he might’ve had enough of Gojo’s attics and reached the point of annoyance without return, but he’d never disclosed his idea to the others. In the back of his mind, he could tell that it wasn’t even true. For all the pushing and pulling the two pressed on each other, tipping one another to the edge, the fondness in their actions was hard to overlook. In the end, he concluded that their friendship had managed to crumble, in one way or another, crushing down from the heights where it once stood, and considering the hard lines in Gojo’s frown when they would watch a movie on any of their following gatherings, and how he would grip the edges of his glass and stare blankly at the tv screen without blinking, sucking in his cheek as he bit on it with his teeth, Megumi never had the heart to ask him what had caused it.
Just after starting high school, Gojo bought him a piano. It was a black, grand piano, with a lid that would raise up towards the bookshelf beside which it was placed. The chair that came with it had a soft texture to its dark-red pillow, softer, it seemed, even than the armchair he usually sat in. It was his birthday when he received it, and Megumi doesn’t remember receiving a better present— doesn’t even think that he could ever receive a better one in the future.
In the years in between, Megumi slowly eased up to Gojo. His other friends were a challenge to get through without feeling overwhelmed, though there was one amongst all that would cause no problem. In hindsight, Megumi couldn’t figure out how he and Gojo could’ve become friends; and the issue is still unresolved even now, years after when the friendship between them, even though questionable at best, is still regarded by both as being at least on the verge of amicable and mutual acceptance. Tsumiki had grown herself; she’d been mature ever since they were too young to fully take care of each other, but the close-knit friendship she’d built with Shoko pushed her into an even more independent and self-preserving attitude.
Life with him hadn’t always been perfect, especially after they found out about the job he had on the side, how he would chase after demonic beings to put an end to the suffering they often cause to anyone they manage to catch in their grasp. Tsumiki never liked hearing about it—at first, they both thought that he was lying, pulling a cheap prank on them for the sake of it. Soon though, after listening to both Shoko and Nanami bringing up the word curses in their conversations, passed between them like it was nothing, like it was a replacement for something as uninteresting as bread, suspicion started to brew in both of their thoughts, partially because both Shoko and Nanami were too mature to play into Gojo’s pranks, and partially because regardless of their level of maturity, siding with Gojo would’ve been something they would hardly do in any given situation. The ‘curse issue’, as he and Tsumiki took upon themselves to call it, had been resolved to the better of their understanding only after Gojo indulged in something he insisted on calling “teaching”. The lessons he passed to them were, he said, based on what he had been taught as well, and even though any sort of academic flare was inexistent, Megumi had managed to grasp onto the main, essential points. He'd learned it mostly through Gojo’s retailing about his missions more than from the theoretical part of it, but both sides had influenced a stubborn curiosity about the subject.
Truth is, from the moment he heard Gojo say “I kill curses for a living.” something piqued his interest. The unknown that was latched around his statement—the curiosity of figuring out what was real and what was not had made him eager for every other new lesson or story against his better judgment and efforts of trying to hide any of his excitement from Gojo’s sharp eyes.
Tsumiki had tried, ever the protective older sibling, to steer his attention away from it, but the nature of the subject seemed to call out to him, to let him grasp its ends by himself and untangle all of its secrets.
Maybe that’s why he was so enchanted by it from the start—Megumi had tried to unravel the secrets surrounding him all his life, of who he really was or who does the name on his wrist belong to; of whether he should avoid or chase after them. Having something covered in a blanket of secrecy and being able to find out more about it every day, the ins and outs of its mysteries seeming endless, made him believe that not everything in his life was meant to be hidden from his knowledge.
However, the questions that had haunted his childhood were, eventually, answered.
On New Year's Eve night, the year before he enrolled in Gojo’s old school, their house was filled with laughter, the clinging of glasses ringing into the back garden as the guests were sipping their champagne while waiting for the first sparks of fireworks to lit up the sky. Inside, the smell of cinnamon rolls and pie gave off a strong and sweet scent that filled the whole room, traveling from the kitchen towards the living room where Nanami and Tsumiki stood, sprawled onto the couch as they silently watched the same movie which they’ve always put on screen for the night for the last three years. The sounds coming from it were dull, letting the notes Megumi was playing from the piano resonate in the rest of the space, filling it up with the slow and melodic pace of the song. The hot chocolate that Gojo stirred in his mug tickled his nostrils, sweetening the lingering taste in his mouth from the last piece of pie that he’s eaten. He leaned against the edge of the piano, one hand cupping his cheek as he looked down at his hands, keeping himself uncharacteristically silent as the song went on.
Megumi flicked his fingers over the keys closest to where Gojo’s mug was dangling, feeling the heat of his drink warming up the tips of his knuckles.
“Would you stop staring?”
The other was still frozen in silence as if he hadn’t realized that Megumi spoke directly to him. It took a few more seconds to make light of what he’d asked, and Gojo cleared his throat as he straightened up, bringing the mug to the edge of his bottom lip and shifting his gaze from Megumi’s hands to his eyes, already seizing the sight of his head. “Staring?”
Megumi huffed, pressing the last notes a little too harshly before he lifted his hands away and sat them on his lap, fingers tightening their hold on his pants. “You make it pretty obvious. The name won’t fade under your gaze even if your eyes are abnormally bright.”
Gojo hummed, his eyes closing as he took a few sips of his drink. “Sorry,” he said when he put his hand down. “Thought you wouldn’t notice.” His head tilted, lips pursed together as he fixed his unblinking gaze onto the far end of the piano. He could hear the words Gojo was about to tell even before he opened his mouth, and Megumi’s body had leaned subconsciously towards him, the breath he took suddenly stilling in the back of his throat. “Do you know what it means?”
The truthful answer to that was no, he didn’t know the exact meaning of it; any legends that might spur its origin, any passed-down-through-generations stories that children hear from their parents or grandparents or cousins whenever their own mark draws itself on their skin were still sucked into a black hole from the depths of his mind. And yet, that was not to say that he didn’t have any clue whatsoever.
There's always the internet, where the information flies from one source to another, adding more additional details which by the looks of it are just written out for shock value. He doesn’t know what is real and what could be a fabrication, and the abundance of information he's got to read off already had managed to creep a strong sense of unease under his skin that softened his will of discovery, making him slowly skid away from the articles popping up on his page. There are movies or books, both as accurately and inaccurately portrayed as possible, but even though there are ways of finding out the answer, something stopped him from looking from the very first start.
Tsumiki says it’s better this way, better to ignore the name on his wrist as best and as long as he can. For Megumi, there’s another purpose in mind—what he doesn't understand is the fear that seems to be born in every human. He's lived believing at first that the name was that of a fairy or angel, and later he's met the rest of the world who shakes in their boots and curses their own marks. In his heart, some of his previous excitement still remained, even after he understood that he should fear it himself. Finding out its real meaning in a world in which people treat it as a taboo and alter the definition for it until they themselves could feel better about its existence on their skin would only mean that Megumi should start viewing it and behaving the same way all the others are.
“I know enough to build a pretty strong image around it,” he said in the end.
Gojo nodded, his eyes flickering down briefly before he looked back up at him. “And what does this image you speak of look like? What do you think it means?”
Megumi hummed, his teeth pressing lightly over the flesh of his bottom lip. His index finger tapped on his knee rhythmically, as if still caught in the heart of the song he’d abruptly ended, then before he spoke, he let his finger hover in the air, standing straight up as he gathered his words.
“I think... people are scared to talk about it as if it’s dangerous even to acknowledge its existence. And whenever they speak of it, they’re either whispering or their faces are... they look scared. Of the unknown which is on their skin or of something that might happen to them, almost as if they’re cursing themselves through it. So, I guess... it’s something similar to regular curses? Just that everyone is actually able to see them and—I guess maybe there’s no way of killing it.”
When he looked back at him, Gojo’s lips were already arched into a soft smile, his pinkie tapping the corner of his cheekbone as he supported the weight of his head into his open hand. He sighed, body pushing upwards until he was standing straight, setting his mug on the wide edge of the piano and crossing his arms over his chest.
“You know a lot about the curses now, don’t you?” he asked, and it wasn't a question that needed a response. Megumi only lightly tilted his head down into a half-nod before Gojo picked up from where he interrupted himself. A flash of light passed over his glasses, and he lowered his head to watch Megumi over its rims. “They’re vile beings. Meant only to kill and be killed. People don’t see them, and the majority don’t even know they exist, yet here they are—roaming every city in Japan and spreading across any country in the world. They're dangerous, yet we don’t have to learn to live with them. People just do it because against everything those curses stand for, their existence is weirdly a part of the normality of life. What appears on our skin,” he said, lifting his hand towards his face as if in a demonstration, even though the words written on his wrist were hidden under the bracelet he’s been unconditionally wearing ever since his circle of friends shortened; “is just another side of normality. A curse, as you’ve said—just that everyone is aware of it as opposed to the curses we fight against. It is...” he stopped, his brows deepening into a frown as he turned his gaze onto the side of his hand. For a moment, a short fraction of a second, Megumi thought he was about to drop the subject at a still-point, rolling his shoulders back and patting him on the hand to ruffle his hair as he would say something along the lines of ‘Forget it’. But when Gojo blew out his breath, a smile instead of a grimace grazed his lips.
“Megumi,” he said suddenly. He lowered his hand on the piano and leaned down until their heads were leveled at the same height, looking at him through the long curves of his eyelashes. Megumi swallowed, feeling nervous as he plucked at the material of his jeans in between his fingers and bit the inner side of his cheek. “You have to know that chasing after a curse is a bad idea.”
He frowned, the edge of his mouth stretching lightly into a grin. “Isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing?”
Despite anything that he would’ve expected to flicker over the other’s expression, he stared back into a blank gaze, the firmness of his frown so striking it almost made his heart drop.
“Not with this curse.” He jolted once he felt his fingers on his wrist, the coldness of his fingertips chilling him to the bone, making the hairs on his arm stand up on ends. It was the first time in many years that someone else touched his mark and the touch felt as unfamiliar as it is unsettling. He didn’t pull his hand away just yet, keeping his jaw clenched tight and eyes on his own as Gojo’s thumb pressed over his pulse point and dragged along the name slowly. “What the mark means is that it gives you the reason for your death.”
Megumi tried to swallow, but the substance didn’t sink down his throat, remaining stuck on the way. His tongue swiped over his lips, feeling them drying up quickly, and when he spoke, his voice was hushed and rough, passing through his vocal cords with audible difficulty. “Itadori Yuji, you mean? This... person—”
“Will kill you.” Gojo ended for him. The skin under his fingertip started to burn, and Megumi snatched his arm back, almost bumping it against his chest as he pushed himself away. He opened his mouth, but Gojo talked over him—even though all the thoughts in his mind were crumbled and piled together, making it hard even to think, without trying to form coherent sentences on top of it. “It can be anything. Car accident, cliff, a name. It could be even under the words of natural death when you’re lucky enough to die warm and wrinkly in your bed. But in any way that you look at it, not even those people can escape this curse, because they’re already marked with their death from the first years of their life. Meeting your fate, whatever it might be, is then not a question of how, but one of when. You can’t know when you’ll meet him; maybe an official meeting would not even be necessary, but” he inhaled sharply, his frown deepening, creasing over the bridge of his nose, “it’s inevitable that you will. And, you have to promise me—promise in the name of your sister if you don’t want to swear on my own name—that when you do, you’ll not try to play a game with your own faith. You won’t do anything stupid, Megumi.”
“If I'll meet them, and it’s true that they’ll...” he said once he regained his voice, licking at his lips and pressing his wrist against his jeans to try and kill off the heat burning his skin around the name; “won’t anything that I'll set out to do be in vain?”
The silence stretched as Gojo looked at him. He couldn’t make himself meet his gaze, focusing instead on the white and black keys in front of him, jumping from one to the other as he tried to make his thoughts come to rest inside his brain.
“It might not be. After all, some people have met the person on their wrist and are still alive years after. Just waiting for something to crack.”
Megumi turned his face towards him, though his eyes stopped on his wrist before they could lift up to Gojo’s face. A chill ran through him, forcing his shoulders to shake, and tentatively, nearly whispering, he said “Is your mark a name, too?”
Gojo laughed, short and airy, almost as if the sound was knocked out of his chest and wheezed through his throat. He twisted his hand around and lifted his palm upside down, his other hand pressing down on the black bracelet where the writing should be. There was something unreadable in his eyes, which Megumi could classify as neither sadness nor sorrow, then the expression faded and his eyes started to glimmer as he blinked down at him.
“The fireworks should pop up any minute now. Let's not make this conversation ruin our night, Megumi. We can be sad tomorrow.”
He lifted his mug of hot chocolate up over his head as if it were a glass of champagne, then stepped around him to walk towards the door leading to the back garden. Megumi’s gaze remained stuck on the spot where he was sitting seconds ago, slowly feeling the bile in his throat starting to ease away as the itchiness on his wrist turned to numbness. When he blinked away, Tsumiki’s eyes caught his own from the couch, her brows furrowed and lips pressed together tightly in concern. Megumi merely lifted his head up to give her a smile, cutting short and weak over his mouth, then set his hands on the keys. His fingers froze, unable to press any note as he tried to remember one of the sheets he’d learned in the past few years, all of them coming together in a mess of black and white notes on paper, drawn one over the other in an impossible harmony.
In the end, Megumi couldn’t make himself play another song for the rest of the night, or the day that followed, or the next few that stretched over weeks, then months. The days blended together, the nights were endless, and the mark on his wrist is still burning, itching, and chewing at his skin even years after.
✾
The only thing on his mind was that he couldn’t believe his bad luck.
He recognized the boy from the moment he set eyes on him. The light shade of his hair, the sharp cut of his jaw, the airy and breathy-sounding laughter—they all belonged to the same person he’d seen on that sunny afternoon in the park and who had been lingering in faded memories that would sometimes shape themselves into nightmares. Asking one of the by-passing students for his name felt more like a confirmation to himself than fishing for information on the missing cursed finger.
Thinking back to the moment he’d sensed the cursed energy on him, Megumi finds it a little ironic. The chill that flared up over his spine, spreading knife edges into his ribs due to its strength overpowering him as the other ran past him was reminiscent of the way in which his body flared up with pain after having met him for the first time, proving him that the marks are no different from breathing curses.
As he walks, he turns his phone in his hands, touching the screen to light it up, finger hovering inches away from the call button and waiting until it fades to black. Then he starts it again, tapping his fingers on the keyboard to input his password and swiping his thumb on the screen again to open up the phone list. A repetitive move, stirred up by the voice in his ear which says “Call him,” as if dialing Gojo’s number would resolve anything about the situation he is already in. One that, arguably so, he thinks, Gojo himself put him in when he’d tasked him to search for Sukuna’s finger. Rationally, he knows calling Gojo would be the safest method in preparing to approach the danger that lies ahead, but the stubbornness of dealing with it by himself puts a secure stop to his intentions, even though the mere thought of it makes his fingers tremble around the phone and his heartbeat to pound hard against his chest. In a way, he knows that his stubbornness is not the only thing pushing him forward on a lonely mission, and the flare of flickering excitement at the bottom of his chest answers him in earnest whenever he thinks about finally being able to cross paths with him again. He needs to, he knows, in order to retrieve the finger; but at the same time, Megumi thinks about the shame he's felt once he locked himself in his dorm after having run away from him only months ago. If there's anything Megumi would wish upon himself would be that he could stand unflinching in front of Itadori when the time comes, betraying no fright in his gaze—and so when he sees the hospital the other enters, Megumi bites onto his cheek so sharply he can taste the iron of the blood on his tongue and controls his expression to form impassive features, feeling his heart hammering as he tries to push his nervosity away.
Itadori arrives in the hallway roughly half an hour later. The confidence he's built in himself before has slowly started to drain out, fingers tapping on his phone impatiently as he watched the staircase like a hawk. The moment he hears his footsteps, he tilts his head to catch a glimpse of the ruffled mess of light hair peaking out from the wall, and his shoulders pull taut again, lips pressed in a tight, unshakable line as he watches his whole frame come into his view. He could hear his teeth grazing against each other, could feel his heartbeat even in the soft pads of his fingertips, could hear it loud as a drum in his ears. But he ignores everything in favor of the burning sensation spreading up from his wrist and the fluttering of his heart that accompanies it, forcing all the hair along his arms to stand on ends. He's about to take a step forward when the other reaches the end of the stairs, but the expression painted on Itadori's face is so striking he takes a few steps back instead, his body turning rigid.
There are no tears running down his cheeks, none that he can see either way; but his appearance is crestfallen, eyes tired and staring blankly ahead as a nurse guides him to a table, papers already laid out on it. Another nurse is waiting, standing beside the table, her hands hugging herself while her mouth pulls into a weak and almost pitiful smile. Megumi can’t hear what’s said, can’t even see Itadori’s face when he hunches over the table and signs the papers the two slip under his face, but by the looks of it, it seems like he's walked into a bigger situation than what he's bargained for.
“That would be all for today,” he hears one of the nurses say, her hand raising up to Itadori’s shoulder to grasp it and pull him slightly away from the table. “If you need anything else, just let us know. We'll make sure that your grandfather will be—”
“Okay. Thank you.”
His tone is dry, cutting roughly on his vocal cords. It sounds as if he hasn’t drunk anything the whole day, and Megumi can feel the ghosting of itchiness he must feel in his own throat. When Itadori stirs to the side, his eyes catch his own in the distance and Megumi's shoulders straighten as the sudden contact makes him shiver. His eyes trace over his face, narrowing when Megumi doesn’t look away. He can see the moment he decides to walk towards him from the hallowing shift in his gaze alone, and Megumi swallows thickly, bracing himself as the boy finally blinks away.
“I’ll call in tomorrow,” Itadori says, turning around to smile at her and raising his hand to gently push her own off his shoulder. The nurse nods and hushes a few more words under her breath before she gathers the papers and takes her leave. With his hands slipping into the pockets of his jeans and his smile fading to a lop-sided frown, Itadori steps in his direction, his eyes fixed somewhere over Megumi’s head. At every step he takes, Megumi's heartbeat pumps electricity throughout his body, a sensation similar to the one he's felt in the park, though stronger now washes over him, making his right hand tremble with the waves of the flames flaring through it. He curls his fingers around his phone to stop its movements, hiding it quickly in his pocket before the other could observe anything.
When Itadori halts in front of him and attempts to say something, Megumi opens his mouth, clearing his throat quickly to wash away any lingering tremor from his voice. “You’re Itadori Yuji, right?”
Itadori's lips quiver in surprise, his mouth remaining open as the words die in his throat. His lips suddenly press against each other tightly for a few seconds until he lets them crack open to blow out a heavy breath and his gaze shifts from behind his shoulder to his eyes, forcing the air Megumi was keeping in his chest to sink all the way to the bottom of his gut.
“Why were you staring at me?”
If he knew what was written on his wrist, the answer would’ve been obvious. But Itadori shouldn’t—mustn’t—know about it.
He clears his throat, shifting from one foot to the other as he struggles to maintain his eye contact. “I was waiting for you. I think you have something I want.”
Itadori's eyes narrowed once again before they widened, his mouth opening wordlessly as he quickly looked him over. “You think I stole something from you?”
“It's not... really like that.” He tightens his hand around the phone firmly to stop the shaking of his fingers altogether before he takes it out of his pocket. “Do you recognize this?”
He quickly opens his device, searching in his gallery for the image of the box he was looking for. Itadori leans forward to inspect it even though the phone is close enough to his face and Megumi leans back almost instinctively. Itadori tilts his head and takes another step towards him, his eyebrows narrowing, and Megumi digs his nails into the pad of his free hand to stop himself from snatching his arm back.
Itadori's eyes start glinting, recognition flashing in his gaze. “Yeah, I know what that is. My friends and I found it. Is it your box?”
“It shouldn’t be anyone’s box,” Megumi says, finally lowering his arm and pushing his hand back into his pocket. “I must take it from you. It's dangerous.”
Itadori starts to grin, his eyebrows lifting over his forehead. “It’s a box. How dangerous could it be?” he straightens back, his arms crossing over his chest. His gaze remains locked on his own, and Megumi can read something in it, closely akin to curiosity as he tilts his head and says, “As a matter of fact, how is it that you know my name but I don’t know yours?”
Megumi's voice cracks when he breathes out a sigh, and he quickly covers it up with a weak cough, hiding his face into the side of his shoulder as he turns away. He can feel his heartbeat picking up its intensity, pushing over his ribcage relentlessly, unwilling to slow down even when his thoughts scream at it to cease away, rumbling against the walls of his head.
Before he turns his head around, he wonders what Gojo would think about it—how he would react when he’ll tell him that the boy on his wrist got his name through such an easy method as simply asking for it. No threat or pressure behind it; just the slightly upper lift of a grin and a dull glimmer in his eyes that sparked intrigue. Somehow, he feels like a similar kind of glimmer is glinting in his own eyes, even though it’s easily blurred away by the layer of widened caution.
“Megumi Fushiguro.” His head turns to him as he says it, and he quietly praises himself for the way in which his voice hadn’t wavered.
“Fushiguro,” Itadori repeats, his eyes narrowing in thought as he seizes him with his gaze. He suddenly feels small under his eyes, shrunken down in size as Itadori steps back and hums low in his throat as if examining his every intake of breath. “You look...” he starts, his voice fading to nothingness as he quiets himself down, then he shakes his head, a grin pulling at his cheek. “No, never mind. Tell me, would you care to explain the danger my friends are in?”
He looks down at Itadori’s crossed arms to take his eyes away from his direct gaze, slowly coming back to his senses when he frowns and asks, “What do you mean?”
“Well, they have it right now. It's not on me.”
“What?” he snaps, his head raising to look at him again, eyes wide. Itadori matches his expression, eyebrows lifting and mouth opening wordlessly as Megumi stares back at him. With the new information delivered to him, he realizes now that the strong curse presence he’d felt before on the grounds of the schoolyard is nowhere to be found, not around Itadori at all except for a small whiff of it, still lingering on his clothes. He takes a step forward, his head leaning down in hopes that the powerful force will curl under his skin like it did last time, but there’s nothing to feel except for the short and cold breaths Itadori blows on his cheek, which is enough to make him push his head away.
“Where are they?”
Itadori looks to the side, an expression matching one of guilt passing across his eyes. “Back at the school, they said they wanted to open it. I don’t understand, why are you so worked up over this?”
Megumi takes a sharp inhale through his teeth as his heart sinks. He thinks about calling Gojo—at least now, at the last minute, despite the talking off he would certainly get after the other will find out about who he’s been talking to—but it’ll be already too late by then. Considering the timing, and the fact that the school will soon be closed, Megumi can count only about an hour before hell breaks, and the chances of reaching the building before Sukuna will be released are closing down to zero quickly.
He can hear their screams, dying off on their tongues as their throats are squeezed and their limbs are bent, blindingly fighting off hands they can’t see, running from shadows that are quickly catching up to them, grasping, scratching, ripping—
“Hey,” a voice calls, and Megumi is pulled out of his own mind when he feels fingers closing around his arm. He looks down, momentarily blinking in confusion, until reality crushes down on him and he snatches his arm away, taking big steps away from Itadori even as the other steps up to chase after him, his hand still hanging in the air, ready to catch Megumi again if need be. “Calm down, okay? You're actually starting to scare me.” He attempts to laugh, though it ends up sounding weird and strangled. “It’s not... a bomb or anything, right?”
Megumi swallows thickly, his eyes shaking as he looks over his face, then closing shut as he speaks. “You won’t believe it if I tell you. But if they open that box, your friends will die.”
Something flashes across Itadori’s eyes, dimming down the lights within until no shimmering glimmer could be seen. His mouth pulls down into a grimace, eyebrows tightening into a heavy frown that makes him look almost as scary as Megumi had imagined him to be.
“I don’t appreciate these kinds of jokes. If you must know, my old man had just kicked the bucket an hour ago, so if you continue to fool around, I will—”
“I’m not fooling around. That’s why I said you won’t believe me if I told you. And anyway, I don’t even have time to tell you, so... thank you. For your help.”
He's about to turn on his heels when his hand grasps his arm again. It's so firm that he can’t shake his grip when he tries to pull away like before, and fear crawls under his skin for a few short seconds before he looks back. Itadori's frown is still carved on his forehead, and there’s doubt written all over his eyes—though along with it, Megumi can see something else, akin to fear or concern, starting to wash over his gaze.
Itadori inhales, his chest raising. His fingers tighten around his arm, and the touch burns his skin even through the layers of his clothing. “Tell me what?”
✾
For someone whose name the universe planned to paint on another person’s skin, Itadori Yuji is proved to be rather brainless.
Megumi should’ve taken note of it from the moment he’d disclosed to him the fact that a curse was nested within the wooden box—a piece of information the other took a little too well and without too many questions which Megumi was half prepared to hear and quick to dismiss. The first impulse rushing through him was to run to the school himself, as if it were something he could deal with without a sorcerer's help; and when Megumi assured him it’ll be him who goes in, Itadori’s voice had risen, his tone cutting sharp as he told him it’ll be foolish to sacrifice himself for someone he’s responsible for.
Megumi hadn’t asked about it. Something tells him it has nothing to do with how things really are by themselves, but how they’re arranged in Itadori’s mind; maybe a little influenced by the recent events of his loss, which Megumi doesn’t know how to or if he should approach.
When he found Itadori in the building with him, his eyes widely chasing the curses, questioning looks quickly pilling up across his expression, Megumi knew that somehow, somewhere on the grounds of the school, Itadori would kill him. Maybe a missed blow he wished to strike against the curse would pass by it and hit him on the head instead, or maybe the influence of shock would drive Itadori to madness as he struggles to break free, mistaking him for a threat that should be eliminated. Megumi had read about cases of people who even though have been trained to kill curses for years, would lose all of their sanity once they were face to face with the curses themselves, tearing into their minds first before reaching to tear at their skin.
Weirdly enough, Itadori looks sane still. Maybe a little too sane, a bit too calm for everything that’s happening all at once around him.
It was not until the end of the fight, just before Itadori jumped between him and the curse in an attempt to save his life, that Megumi genuinely believed he might actually make it through the night alive.
Itadori eating the finger crumbled all of his hopes to the ground. It made him nauseous as well as scared, the fear shivering him to the core and turning his blood cold. When Itadori transformed, slicing the curse to pieces in front of him, something in his chest shifted and pulled hard on his heartstrings, as if the twist of his wrist had his nails sinking and tearing into his own flesh instead of through the curse’s guts. His ears were ringing and his skin was flushed, the warmth settling in and burning him from the inside out. His hands were shaking, trembling dangerously as Itadori’s body turned and he noticed the sharper cut of his jaw, the wider arch of his shoulders, the way his hair was pulled back from his forehead, revealing the sunken and chilling depth of his eyes.
At that moment, he’s never been happier to hear Gojo’s voice and see the teasing tilt of his smile.
He holds the bag Gojo has thrown at him to his chest as he watches them fight, his right shoulder burning with a strain every time he shifts and tries to hug his arms around himself to shield away from the rocks that sometimes fly straight into his direction. By the time Sukuna is defeated and Itadori regains control over his own body once again, hanging limp against Gojo’s shoulder as he squats down and lets him rest on the surface of the roof, the ringing in his ears has dulled down to only an annoying rhythm of repetitive beats. His throat is dry and when he tries to speak, nothing but a weak wheeze passes through his lips. Gojo walks towards him, his hand hovering over his shoulder until he notices the awkward angle it stands at and chooses to lower his palm on the side of his knee instead.
“What did I tell you? You have my number in your contacts for a reason.”
Megumi huffs, his back hunching as he leans forward, wincing as the pain quickly rushes down from his shoulder to the rest of his arm. “It’s funny that’s the first thing you’re worried about.”
“It’s not the only thing I'm worried about. We have to treat your wounds, and your friend there is not in the greatest of conditions either.”
A scoff escapes him, bitter and rough. He closes his eyes, feeling anxiety crawling up in his chest. He’s not even able to lift his gaze to him, and he only mumbles under his breath the words “He’s the exact opposite of a friend to me,” which plunges the both of them into silence.
Gojo's hand stands on his knee, its weight seeming heavier and heavier with every second he decides not to move it away. The silence and avoidance of meeting his gaze must’ve ticked something into his brain if the shaky inhale he hears Gojo take might serve any indication. He sees him leaning down from the corner of his eye, and feels the cold air of his breath ruffling his hair.
“Who is he?” he asks.
Megumi thinks about lying to him—Itadori will be executed either way, due to the official norms of their school. Once he’s infected himself with Sukuna’s curse, he’s signed his own death certificate; Megumi knows this, and something within himself feels a sense of bitter relief when he thinks about it, though a wave of various other emotions washes it entirely away before it could even settle in his chest. Logically, it would be pointless if he gives Itadori another name now. Gojo would find it out by himself later on the same day while planning for his execution to be set into action, and hearing the name now or learning it later would mean nothing in the grand scheme of things, aside from the fact that it’ll be Megumi himself who delivers the blow to him. In hindsight, that way is better than any other.
He lifts his head and looks at him, his gaze open and almost vulnerable against the glow of moonlight raining down on his face. Gojo looks at him as if he already knows what he’s about to say, his lips pressed together and eyes wide.
“Itadori Yuji,” he says, biting the inner side of his cheek as he waits for Gojo to react. His wrist responds to him first, the burning stinging, and rotting all his other senses.
It doesn’t take him too long to snap, his hand tightening around his knee unyieldingly firm before he snatches it away and runs his fingers through his hair. “Megumi, what the hell were you thinking?”
“I know what you’re going to say.” he quickly says, trying to pull Gojo’s attention back on him as he straightens himself up and rushes to explain, even though half of the emotions he’s been experiencing in the last few hours have done nothing but confuse him to the core. “And I know I've done something foolish, but I was running out of time. I thought he’ll have the box but he gave it to his friends, and he followed me—”
“You should’ve called me from the moment you realized who he was,” Gojo says, his tone dangerously sharp. It is enough to shut him up, folding back into himself as the other whipped his head over his shoulder to look where Itadori was laying, then turned his head around and leaned into his face until he was close enough to whisper every word to his ears alone, stressing every letter to pierce it deep into his brain. “I don’t care if the curse would’ve been let out. I don’t care if you wanted to prove yourself to be better or stronger or whatever you thought you would accomplish through this. The moment you knew, you should have called me.”
“You were out of town last time I spoke with you.”
“I still was, but I came as soon as I heard in what mess you’ve put yourself in.”
Megumi draws a breath, his eyes closing shut as he feels it fill his lungs. The ticking sound in his ears is still persistent, loud even though he can no longer hear the rumbling of thrown bricks on the concrete or of chilling, unnatural laughter filling up the nighttime air. “I didn’t want Sukuna to be freed. And I thought if I’ll make it on time, there would be no danger awaiting. Was it really that bad to think the way you taught me—level out danger against opportunity?”
“The danger outdid opportunity here a thousand goddamn times. And look—” he said, turning around to raise his arm in Itadori’s direction, curled in a ball on the ground. “What difference did it make?”
Megumi doesn’t answer and doesn’t plan on answering. Sukuna's curse is freed, and someone will die with certainty, at least as far as they can foresee at the moment. Looking back on it, the mission is close to a complete failure, saved only by the fact that no one has died yet.
Gojo turns from him without awaiting a response, folding his arms across his chest. “It’s a waste now anyways.”
“Don’t,” he says, the word spilling out of his lips without thinking. He leans forwards as if trying to reach out even though Gojo hadn’t moved away from where he’s standing right beside him, and the moment he registers his own movements in his mind, he halts, biting the flesh of his inner cheek as he looks at the back of Gojo’s head.
The other turns, his eyebrows lifted. “Don’t what?”
Megumi blinks, so hard he can feel his eyes straining. There's a hum in the back of his ears, trying to tell him to stop, to rethink, to let go—but his words win quicker against his reluctance. “Don’t kill him.”
He can see the moment Gojo’s expression changes, how the confusion in his eyes switches to bewilderment, then to a flash of anger. His mouth opens, but Megumi speaks before he can, leaning back in as his hands grip around his arms, shoulders raising.
“If you rush to execute him, he’ll have to kill me sooner, right?”
He gives him an opening for an answer, watching as the stern line of Gojo’s mouth twitches into something akin to a lop-sided grimace, tilting his head away with a sigh. “Megumi, no one knows when he would or could do it. Maybe not even himself.”
“Well, in any case, rushing ahead his death will inevitably rush my own,” he says it with clarity, stabbing every word with his tongue, and he knows he’s right—just like Gojo knows it too, in turn. He doesn’t look down at him, keeping his head tilted and eyes pinned somewhere far on the ground below. Megumi can’t tell if it’s on the pile of bricks or on the limp body standing only feet away from them. “And you saw what he did. What he can do. We can use it.”
Gojo's head stirs a bit towards him, a flash of moonlight shading the side of his face into warm silver and blues. “Use what and how?”
“He can overpower Sukuna. It's something no one thought would be possible, or if it were, it would only last for seconds. But he snapped out of it—he spoke to Sukuna himself and took back control of his limbs, even though barely and for a short period of time. But... if we want to get all of the fingers and succeed in ending all possibilities for the curse to break free, we might actually have to fight against it using him.” He points towards Itadori, his eyes lowering from Gojo’s face down to Itadori's exposed back.
Gojo hums from the back of his throat, the muscles in his jaw moving as he bites his cheek and runs his tongue over the rings of his teeth. He clicks his tongue and says “You want me to make him a student, then? To make him your classmate?”
It's not a question he needs to clarify, and Megumi isn’t sure if he wants to hear what his own answer would be. He breathes, in and out, and says through his teeth in a whisper, “We could really use him, Gojo. And I can protect myself; I’ll know when there will be danger because if he wanted to, he would’ve made a move against me by now. He was vulnerable and we were alone, which I realize how stupid it was and you don't have to tell me twice. He kept his calm even when we faced the curse, and... and he ate the finger to protect me.” His throat runs dry and he licks his lips to wet the dryness across them away, swallowing hard before he goes on. When he speaks, his tone is rough, and Gojo’s head tilts a little more towards him, eyes watching him with a hollow glint of unease. “When I'll die, it’ll be an incident. It will not be a premeditated murder.”
“Megumi—”
“And I can run from it for as long as we need. I'll buy the time myself until all fingers are gone.”
Gojo’s mouth purses, his eyes closing shut. His jaw clenches, so tight he can feel the strain in his own muscles, then he lets out a heavy breath, nearly shaky on the end before he turns to look at him. His eyes are uncharacteristically calm and blank, and Megumi feels his blood starting to pump into his ears at the sight of them.
“And then what?”
He swipes his tongue over his bottom lip and arches the edge of his mouth into a loose grin, tired and defeated. “We both know.”
Gojo nods, his head shaking as he looks ahead, toward the city underneath them. His chest raises as he inhales, and Megumi’s shoulders sink low, curling back around himself as Gojo's rough-sounding words fill the silence of the night. “Yeah, you're right. We've known for a while.”
✾
“Itadori,” Gojo says, pushing a hand up on the boy’s shoulder to pull him closer. His grip is tight, rougher than usual, and Megumi can see the tints of white that start to paint the tips of his knuckles. He's holding onto him like he expects the boy to switch up with Sukuna, his grip as much of a safety precaution as it is a wordless warning. He looks at him and he can read the edge of wariness in Gojo’s eyes, eyebrows pinched over the bridge of his nose, but he knows the primal reason for his concern isn’t Sukuna at the moment—it's him. “This will be your room.” He points towards the dorm next to Megumi’s own, his finger hovering in the air above his shoulder while his eyes are still staring at the boy’s face, whose smile grazes on his lips widely as he leans back to look into the room. A pinkish shade is dusted over his cheekbones, and a sharp and fairly deep dimple starts to form above the edge of his mouth.
He turns around to look at him, and Megumi feels his shoulders straining taut, pushing back into the door he is leaning against. “This means we’ll be close to each other, right?”
Sadly, he almost says, but he bites back his words and swallows them deeply, deciding instead to say, “It seems to be that way.”
Itadori’s smile stretches wide over his cheeks, his shoulders raising slightly as he leans forward, one of his legs moving sideways in advance. “That’s great, I can—” he stops as Gojo’s hand tightens around his shoulder, fingertips pressing taut against his shirt. He breaks the gaze he was holding with him to look up at the other, his eyebrows lightly creased and mouth held shut tight.
“Before Megumi can play tour guide for you, I have a few things to discuss with him. Do you mind, Itadori? It'll take only a few minutes.”
“Oh,” he says, pulling away so his eyes could trace back and forth between the two, blinking shortly and confused yet still holding up half a grin. He steps back and puts both of his hands into his pockets before Gojo’s hand lifts up from his shoulder, knuckles still too white. “Yeah, I don’t mind. I'll start arranging my room, you can knock when you’re done.” He says the last bit to him, smiling all too eagerly before he turns around and closes the door behind him.
Megumi leans heavily against the door, his head tilting as he diverts his gaze from the door to Itadori’s room to Gojo, who’s taking a few light, cautious steps towards him.
“What is it?”
He can still hear Gojo’s voice in the back of his head, saying the same things over and over again from last night when he’d called him into his room, pacing since before Megumi got the chance to knock on his door, holding a half-burned cigarette between his fingers and toying with it until the last inches burned to dust on his fingertips. Gojo hardly ever smokes; but when he does, it’s a sign that something weighs heavily on his chest—Megumi doesn’t have to put his imagination to work to figure out what the trigger had been last night. They've spoken about it for hours, anyway. Warnings such as don’t get too close to him, don’t ever allow yourself to be alone with him or if you don’t answer my phone call after three rings, I’m coming for you are still fresh in his mind. He's heard him talk about the importance of calling whenever he feels something is out of place, of how he should restrict himself from training with him or fighting too close to where Itadori would be standing, or even eating something the other might’ve cooked. He's been thrown back and forth between different scenarios, all circling around the possibility of being the victim of a deadly accident or intent, and by the time he’d returned to his dorm, his head was so full of it that sleep was an impossible issue—at least without the nightmares that inevitably would weave themselves into his mind. Having to stand through something similar again, even if just for a few minutes, would be torture, and Megumi is already turning his body towards his opened room, ready to slip into it and shut the door before Gojo could even manage to reach the handle.
“Don’t try to run away,” he says, holding one hand up. “I’m not going to talk about the same things as last night, though you should remember every last bit I said. What I want to say is that I trust you.”
Megumi frowns, his back pushing away from the door as he straightens his position. “Trust me?”
Gojo nods, lowering his hand as he goes on. “Trust you to not give way to temptation,” he smiles, though the sharp look in his eyes as he stares back at him makes his smile a little too false and threatening. “You have a tendency to seek what’s dangerous. Ever since I met you, you were this way, and my guidance towards curses did nothing to smoothen out your curiosity for the unknown. But this is something you should not try and get too intimate about. He is not only dangerous for you, Megumi; he’s lethal for all of us. The fact that he is who he is only makes you his first potential target. And I trust that you’re fully aware of it and won’t abuse your luck.”
He holds his gaze as he nods, his eyes drifting along Gojo’s face in search of any lingering emotions he could read, though besides the seriousness in the arch of his brows and the concern drawn deep in his eyes, there’s nothing else to find. He sighs, eyes closing as he hangs his head. “I told you I'll buy us—myself—time to gather all the fingers. I won’t die easily, Gojo. I know the dangers that hover around me at the moment, but as I said, I don’t think he would want to hurt me on purpose. I trust my own judgment and my abilities to avoid any threat, and you should too.”
He looks back at him, arms crossed over his chest. Gojo's smile tilts into an honest grin as he looks back at him, a burst of silent laughter rumbling in the back of his throat as he steps back. “I already told you I trust you. But you know, you'll have to be the one to tell Tsumiki about it. I won't involve myself in your sibling-related issues."
There's a tease in his words, and Megumi groans as he rolls his eyes. He presses himself back into the door and cracks his eyes open. “I’ll do it eventually.”
“Don’t stall too much. It's a matter of life and death, after all.” His tease drips low, coated back into seriousness, and Megumi sighs again and nods, firmer this time. Gojo steps towards the other door and knocks twice, letting his hand drop at his side as they wait, hearing the few rapid steps Itadori makes from where he was standing to the door. His head peaks out from the gap, looking first at Gojo and then to the place where Megumi is, who holds his gaze on the wall behind Itadori’s head.
“Will I have the tour, now?” he asks, tentatively, then turns his attention back to Gojo when Megumi gives no response.
He hears him sighing, hears the hidden thread of worry in his voice before he says “Yeah. Maki will meet you down in the kitchen area to join you.”
Liking Itadori is an easy task for everyone he comes in contact with. The first older student he meets, Maki, had been instantly drawn towards him from the first few exchanges of words. They found similarities in liking rock music and shared intel about bands Megumi might’ve heard of but never really listened to, and shared a heated argument on the training grounds about whether fighting with a bow and arrow was harder than fighting with a sword. An argument he could easily see Itadori losing as he pointlessly tried to find his way out of it, hanging onto the very claim that you could stab yourself with a sword.
Surprisingly enough, it seemed like an even easier issue to gain Inumaki’s trust. Megumi thinks it had something to do with the way in which he hadn’t questioned the complete lack of speaking and quickly learned that he should read into the repetitive words the other uses for conversational purposes. He prides himself on the fact that Itadori hadn’t managed to grasp all the hidden meanings of his code words, though his confidence flatters quickly once he realizes that it’s been only a few days and Itadori could still tell apart the codes of agreement from the ones of negation, while it took him close to a week to discern any notable difference.
Still, he leans onto the trust Inumaki slowly but steadily had started to build around Itadori as if landing into a safety net. It's comforting—in a slim, feeble way—to know that his intuition was not proven wrong; to be certain still of the fact that Itadori is not a vile criminal waltzing freely into his life and sleeping soundly only feet away from his own room. And yet, by the end of the first day, when the muscles in the back of his legs start to ache from the constant walking around the school grounds and his heartbeat starts to slowly, dizzyingly come back to an even, drowsy rhythm, all he feels is not security or reassurance or even his bottled-up excitement that would occasionally make itself known.
He hears as Itadori moves in the room next to his own, his feet trotting on the wooden floor, the suitcase he brought with him scratching against the hard surface as he moves it to another wall. The door to his bathroom creaks when he opens it and his faucet spills the water into the sink so powerfully that for a brief moment, Megumi thinks it’s coming from behind his own closed bathroom door instead. He counts the minutes and seconds into the silence, from the moment Itadori stepped into his bathroom and until the sound of the switch clicked into his ears as he closed the light, carefully listening in to his footsteps reaching his bed, his body weight sinking into the mattress, the old wood of the bed frame creaking—and all the while he could feel his heart pounding, his fingers trembling and shivers crawling under his skin.
He can protect himself; he thinks; he has to. But as he feels himself shaking, as he tries to even out his breathing from merely hearing Itadori’s footsteps, he decides that escaping his fear of death would be harder than escaping death itself.
✾
“Did he insult you in any way?” Maki asks, her eyes pinned on the side of his face so intently that he can feel his cheekbone burning with heat.
He tilts his head enough to make it easier for his words to be heard as he raises the fork to his lips, muttering through his half-closed mouth a simple and short “No.”
Maki scoffs, the chair squeaking as she leans back into it and crosses her arms over her chest. “Did he hit you?”
Megumi shakes his head, humming loftily as he munches on his omelet and raises one hand for his mug filled with coffee. Maki groans, throwing her head back and leaning down in her chair. Inumaki stirs from his seat, turning towards her with his eyebrows pinched low, creating a few soft creases above the bridge of his nose. He shakes his head once and Maki tilts her own, one of her fingers pointing in his direction as she speaks to him.
“I’ve been trying to figure out why Megumi has a constipated look on his face every time he’s in the vicinity of our new student.”
“I don’t have such a look,” he protests, though it’s a bit too softly, lacking any bite that would determine a certain level of confidence behind his words.
Maki laughs, her head turning to the side. “Want me to give you a mirror? And we’re only talking about him.”
He keeps silent, stabbing his fork into the plate a little harsher than intended, letting the scratch of metal drag on the surface as he cuts another piece. His teeth grind against each other, tongue pressing deep into his left cheek, hidden from Maki’s careful eye inspection and Inumaki’s worried glances that he steals with every short bite of his tuna rolls.
The door behind them opens a few minutes later, feet lightly tapping against the floor and breaking through Maki's inquiry. As soon as he registers the sound coming their way, his teeth scrap against each other so sharply it makes his eyes close shut tightly, feeling more than hearing the cling they made in his mouth. Maki's eyebrows pinch into a frown as soon as she, too, hears it, then her head lifts from his face to look behind him. He knows who it is even before Maki says his name in greeting; before he sets himself down into the chair next to his own and Megumi feels a chilling sensation sparking down from his shoulder to the edge of his wrist, blocking his hand in place, still gripping tightly the curve of his mug.
“Morning,” he says, and by the way in which his breath nearly hits the cut of his jawline, he knows that it was directed to him. He responds by giving a short nod, head tilted towards Itadori, and as he flexes his fingers around the fork, he forces his muscles not to quiver as he guides his hand up.
A glass clings against the table, and Megumi traces his gaze away from his plate to look where Maki’s hand is resting, finger tapping against its side. She spares a glance towards both of them, flashing quickly from one to the other, then clears her throat as she leans against the table to flick her hand in Itadori’s direction and pry his attention towards herself.
“How are your muscles?” she asks.
It was yesterday that Itadori got to grasp the full meaning of what their training is made out of. Megumi had not assisted it throughout, only standing on the sidelines to watch as he threw a few warming-up punches toward one of their wooden dummies, one of which was delivered so powerfully it nearly knocked it whole to the ground. He's heard things about it however because people talk—especially when there’s a new face to build attention around, something that, he knows, is a rarity amongst them. The news of Itadori’s shortcoming arrival and of a new student coming in a few weeks feels as out of place as Megumi felt the moment he saw Itadori pushing through his training, showing more body strength than he was prepared for. Maki had praised his sense of fighting skill, and called it innate, though his impulsivity and lack of coordination are too hard to miss. ‘He has great potential’ she said last evening while eating, her fork pinned between her fingers as she talked with Inumaki. Megumi hummed occasionally, much like he’s done during their shared breakfast not even a few minutes ago, stealing from time to time glances towards the door, anticipating Itadori to burst through at any moment. Luckily for him—or unfortunately, depending on which angle Megumi chooses to focus on—Itadori came down for dinner an hour after they’d raised from the table, having been called by Gojo in his office right after their training has ended.
Itadori sighs beside him, his legs pushing under the table as he stretches his arms back over his head. “My muscles are fine. Unfortunately, though, my mind is a mess.”
The edges of Megumi’s lips raised into a grimace, though he manages to pull it down as soon as it starts to form. He puts one hand over his mouth to hide the twitch of his lips, cooling them down with the end of his fork as he blinks away from the table and pins his attention on the coffee maker machine at the corner of the countertop.
“I don’t know if you’re familiar with them, though I suppose you all are; but Gojo’s lectures can really be draining.”
“Well, none of us have been in your situation before, so it’s obvious that we didn’t have the same experiences,” Maki says as Inumaki nods, humming low as he puts another tuna roll on his tongue. She turns her head and grins, leaning further towards Inumaki while planting both of her arms on the edge of the table. “Megumi here might have had his fill of lectures though, unlike the rest of us. He's known him for much longer than we have, though none of them wants to put a number on those conspicuously secret years.”
“I’d rather not think about it,” Megumi mutters, pressing his knuckles against his lips before he lowers his hand and turns his head around. Itadori is looking at him as he surveys the table with his gaze, his stare making his eyes widen as he meets it. The sudden contact makes it hard for him to look away, and it’s only after Itadori’s eyebrows raise over his forehead and the left side of his smile stretches—weirdly and hesitantly—into a sheepish grin, that he realizes he might’ve been staring back for too long.
“He talked quite a lot about you, actually,” Itadori says out of the blue, his eyes searching across his face before they settled back on his gaze again. He lowered his hands from where they were clasped behind his head, leaning forward with a glint in his eyes, the reluctant grin widening till it could form an honest smile. “Halfway into the meeting, I thought he forgot I was even there. Though to be fair, you were present on the roof that night, so it’s obvious why he would stress the importance of not hurting you again.”
Megumi opened his mouth wordlessly, feeling the corners of his tongue drying up as he closed and opened it again. He cleared his throat, blinking away from his direct gaze to look back into his nearly empty plate and sticking his fork into a slice of cheese. “You didn’t hurt me,” he says in the end, even though the words didn’t pass through his mind filter, being spilled out almost without him noticing.
Itadori huffs. He pulls his chair closer to the table and grabs his fork, leaning forth to reach the plate of tuna rolls from which Inumaki picks his own. “I could’ve,” he said determinately, dropping one roll on his plate and raising his other hand to reach for the sauce. “But I won’t let it happen again. I'll work hard to not be a danger for any of you or for people in general.” he stops, his smile weakening a little as he stares down and says under his breath, “Sir Gojo made it pretty crystal clear.”
Silence hovers over the table as Megumi stops to fiddle with his food and looks instead up at him, tracing his gaze over the determined set of his jaw and the arch of his eyebrows which seem to lightly tilt downside, coming closer together into a frown. His hand grasps the end of his fork with white knuckles that fade into their natural color once he flexes his fingers and starts to dip the tip of the tuna roll into the sauce.
They're pulled out from the quietness as Maki’s fingers start to trim on the table, her tone teasing and incredulous. “Did you just call him sir?”
Itadori looks up at her, stopping himself from munching once he sees the look on her face—her eyebrows raised high on her forehead and her lips trembling as she keeps her mouth ajar, ready to burst into laughter at any second.
He swallows, licking his lips. “I thought I should show some respect towards him. Besides, he scared me a bit after I spoke to him for the first time; I wouldn’t want to upset him.”
Megumi sets his fork down at the same moment in which a loud chuckle was pulled out from Maki’s throat, wiping his hands on a napkin as he leans back and says through cracked, softly smiling lips “You will upset him if he hears you calling him that.” He spares a final glance towards him, letting the edge of his mouth lift into a grin while Itadori’s eyes widen as he looks at him, pushing himself from his chair with his half-empty plate in his hands. He lets Maki’s laughter and Itadori’s confused bundle of words behind him as he places his plate into the sink and takes a bee-line for his dormitory, the grin stubbornly remaining on his lips even after he steps into his bedroom.
✾
The sun is hiding behind the clouds when he walks on the street, and Megumi raises his hand to the hem of his jacket to pull it slightly over his cold cheek. There aren’t many people outdoors, the streets emptied of bustling sounds as the morning hours tickle down to afternoon. The cars that pass him by splash around the rainwater gathered in puddles by the edges of the road, and Megumi can faintly hear the sound of thunder bursting at a distance as the rain moves along the sky.
He's a few last turns away from the store when his phone starts ringing, the vibrations pinching at the skin of his fingertips. He takes it out from his pocket and gazes at the name displayed on the screen for a short few seconds before he answers the call, his hand grasping around the frame and tilting his head down to block any incoming sounds from disturbing his voice.
“Yuta,” he starts, his name spoken softly from his lips as he feels them slightly lifting up into an impulsive grin. “How are you?”
“All is fine, Megumi,” Yuta says on the other end, moving swiftly around in a way that makes air pass over the receiver which partially distorts the sound of his voice. Suddenly he halts, a sigh pushing through his teeth as Megumi hears him settling down, the surface on which he ended up groaning in protest as Yuta leans his weight on it. “You haven’t called or massaged me for quite a few weeks now so I started to grow a little bit concerned. Thought Maki might’ve won you over after all.”
Megumi huffs, his eyes drifting upwards when he hears the roaring sound of thunder breaking above his head. He slightly regrets not picking up his umbrella, the thought quickly flashing through his mind as he resigns himself to haul the edge of his hood over his head. “That won’t happen, don’t worry.”
Maki has a feisty spirit, one that made it hard for him to accommodate with her in the months wherein Megumi worked at settling himself into the new environment. From the beginning, this task had been a painful state of affairs, not because the people at the school are hard to get around with and befriend, but because Megumi himself can’t find his way around new people. It's the thing that stirred restlessness in his chest for weeks before moving to the place he now lives in, but it was a dull kind of feeling, quieted down by the fact that from the start, he had no intention of chasing after friendships. They would come and go, and the connections made between the other students would straighten in time as months and joined missions would go by. But with Yuta, he hadn't even had to try and get close to.
It was he who took Megumi on a tour around the grounds on his first day, patiently and carefully explaining the ins and outs of everything Megumi had signed himself up to. The words spoken through his lips seemed less a warning and more a sort of excited rambling; his eyes glinting as he talked about his most recent missions in an attempt to prepare Megumi for what he’ll have to endure himself in the upcoming future. There was something about him that felt familiar, a sort of jitteriness that was visible in the arched curves of his shoulders or the fumbling of his fingers around the edges of the jacket’s sleeves and the way in which he used to play with the ring on his finger. He knows the feeling of it himself, or at least a shadow of what Yuta must have felt while he was talking. He knows how the excitement would light up in one's chest, how it feels when it warms its way up and settles into the flushed skin of his rosy cheeks. Gojo had called it the blush of an impatient rookie sorcerer, and even though Megumi wouldn’t call himself impatient, a part of him sees the truth behind his words.
Amongst all the other students, it’s Yuta who Megumi feels he can be his whole self around. Even though all the others are nothing but good people who care for him as much as Yuta does, Megumi had always felt a little more comfortable being in the other person’s vicinity. He trusts him, and Yuta is a person worthy of receiving one’s trust and respect. There were times in which he thought that feeling this way was due to the fact that besides Gojo, the only other person on the school grounds who knows about the name is him, though the suspicion of it would soon be elevated whenever he would think about how easy it always felt to rely on him. After the incident in which Yuta was made aware of Megumi’s mark, it was not him but rather Megumi himself who brought it up and acknowledged it; even then, it hadn’t turned into a big deal that would arise unwelcomed questions. It’s the certainty of knowing that his secret is safe with him and that Yuta would never use it against him or cling to it in order to pressure him in any way that has always made it easy for him to feel content knowing that Yuta knows about Itadori Yuji.
“What happened?” he asks soon after a van passes him by, the wheels sinking into a deep puddle that dirties the pavement he’s stepping on. Yuta hums on the other end and lets his voice drag lower until the sound reverberates in something closer to a groan. Megumi's hand tightens on his phone and his steps start to decrease in speed, his smile slowly falling off his lips as Yuta’s voice rings in his ear, the tone hushed and serious.
“When were you going to tell me?”
Megumi swallows, his throat feeling sore and itchy. There's a pounding beat in his chest, so strong and hard to ignore that it almost makes him reach out to clutch his fingers around his clothes. “Tell you what?” he asks, even though he knows there’s no point in denying or running away from the truth. They have an understanding, established the night when Megumi’s frantic knocks on Yuta’s door woke the other from his sleep to stand face to face with the sight of his eyes blood-shot red and hands shaking, his nails digging into his wrist so deep they’ve already cut through the skin. A sudden guilt starts to crawl its way around his conscience, making the edges of his lips twist in a grimace, and before Yuta can attempt to counter his bluff, Megumi says “Sorry. I was going to but everything felt kind of… off since I met him.”
“I don’t blame you. I would’ve expected it to be taking a toll on you.” Yuta says, and he’s moving in his seat, the sound of clothes rustling perturbing the tone of his voice. “But I can listen.”
The words were soothing, and Megumi felt a pang of warmth quickly flashing over his cheeks as he hummed low in the back of his throat and averted his eyes from the road to the other side of the street, as if Yuta were walking right beside him, bearing witness to the slowly-forming blush across his face. It's what he thinks he would like to hear from someone, the reassurance that would make Megumi’s restlessness freeze at a stilling point and would let words spill out of him in waves washing away the anxieties. But it’s not the right time—because Megumi has his anxieties, but his words are not yet formed in his brain. He doesn’t know what to think, and his mind is fully blank and empty of thoughts, filled only with a numbing sense of a pounding heartbeat that shapes the rhythms of his headaches every day.
And so, he says “Thank you for the offer, but I honestly don’t know what to say.” He lets his tongue swipe over his bottom lip, softly breathing. “I can’t tell if he’s a bad person or not and it makes all of it even more confusing. No one at school knows besides Gojo, who is so focused on keeping an eye on him and speaking to him in code-wordings that I don’t even want to step in his space less he’ll spill his monologues over me all over again. And the worst part of it is that I can tell he’s the type of person who clings to someone until they become their friend, and Yuta, everyone has become his friend. There's not one person who doesn't think he's a good guy, and they all think something is wrong with me for continuing to keep my distance.” He stops to take a breath, blowing it out into the side of his hoodie and closing his eyes as he feels the warm air curling its way to his chilled forehead. He clears his throat, releasing the strain of his gripping hand around the phone when he notices how his fingertips are starting to sting at the sides. “When I approached him, I actually felt brave about it. Now it feels like I'm fourteen again, just finding out the depths of my mark's meaning." He doesn't say that she's felt excitement too, or that it still sizzles deep in his chest, hidden away and submerged. He kicks at a pebble on the ground, tone leveling lowly. "Tsumiki would make me move to another state.”
Yuta silently chuckles, his voice seeming far away, then as he starts to talk, his tone becomes louder gradually, easier to understand in the wind. “You seem to actually have a lot of things to say, but I won’t force them out of you if you don’t want to talk about them. We could try to pry into them once I'll be back.”
“When will you be back?” Megumi asks, his feet starting to pick up the pace again as he presses the phone to his ear and listens.
Yuta hums, shifting in his seat. “In a month, give or take a few days. I can’t wait honestly, the weather here is harsh, has been raining hard for three days now. But I hear thunder on your end too, so I guess it’s not any better in Japan either.”
“It’s just today.”
“Lucky you. You have an umbrella on you, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Liar,” Yuta chuckles, shifting again. When he talks, his voice is clearer, and Megumi nearly lets his groan through his teeth. “If you did, I would’ve heard the raindrops on it.”
“It’s not raining yet,” he says, even though he can feel the wind getting colder against his skin and see tiny specks of water starting to fall from the sky and seeping into the ground at his feet.
Yuta hums as if he knows, as if he can see and feel it as well with him, and then says “Where are you heading to, then? I’m sure Gojo wouldn’t like the idea of you wandering alone in the streets right now.”
“It doesn’t really matter. Just because I found him now doesn’t mean I was out of danger before,” he mumbles, the words slurring under his breath. He breathes in and swallows, looking straight ahead. There are two more turns he has to make, so he slows down his pace and tries to fill in more time for their call until he’ll have to hang up on him. “I’m going to buy a wrist holder.”
He saw one for the first time with his own eyes around Maki’s wrist. It was in one his first few days settling in, and Maki at the time seemed to him one of the hardest people to approach—not because she was unpleasant, because Maki has never inspired rudeness about herself; but because she, just like himself, had no desire of approaching others on a whim. The first striking thing about her appearance and the way she held herself was that Maki wore nothing to conceal her wrists. They were bare, not only vulnerable to the eyes of any onlookers but bare in the actual sense of its meaning. Neither one of her wrists had any writings to hide. It was a gradual realization; Megumi hadn’t set out to inspect her arms—he has no particular interest in others' fates, especially when his own is eating at his conscience, luring out his curiosity—but it was hard to avoid the situation from the very start. It's not that his gaze would find itself drifting to her arms, but that Maki’s movements, the wide gestures of her hands that she would make whilst talking or the skillful swings she’d made with her weapons during combat sessions were done so shamelessly, without any ounce of fear, that by the time his first day on the training grounds had come to an end, the only thing he could think of was not the suggestion Maki had given him but the emptiness of her skin.
At first, he thought Maki was special in the sense of being born different than the whole rest of the world, but Yuta shed the first flickers of light onto the truth for him. “She doesn’t want to look at it,” he told him once while Megumi’s gaze lingered on her arm for a bit too long to not be noticeable as she gestured and emphasized her words as usual while being emerged in a conversation with Inumaki a few meters away from where they stood. “And she doesn’t want others to pry in her life. That’s where the wrist holder comes to help.” He grinned at his, lifting up his arm to wave his own wrist in front of his face, white bandages keeping his own writing hidden. “To be honest, it’s an expensive and unnecessary product in my opinion, given that you can hide it fairly easily with a watch or a roll of bandages, but if you want to be sure that it’ll stick on your skin, it’s the most favorable option.”
Yuta hums now on the other line, his lips slightly clicking together once he parts them apart and breathes in before he talks. “I think it’s the right choice,” he says. “But remember, him seeing your wrist is not as important as you trying to keep your distance from him.” There are a couple of moments of silence, stretched considerably as Megumi continues to walk and listens to Yuta's breath through the receiver, muffled more and more as the raindrops start to fall around him in quick succession. “Unless you don’t plan on staying away.”
Megumi pulls his lips straight, his eyebrows creasing over his forehead. He never thought about explicitly doing it—from the very beginning he knew staying away from Itadori wouldn’t be an option considering they’re in the same year and live so close to each other. Though the truth is, even if there would’ve been ways to keep them apart, Megumi would’ve still found himself in his presence. Thus, all of Gojo’s concerns, his lengthy monologues filled with warnings, are not pushed onto him completely in vain—Megumi knows this and has known that his dangerous curiosity of the unknown was not something Gojo had made up to stir him away from harm's way. His fascination with the marks has been alive since the day he received his own, and he kept it alive and evolving for years; to say he wants to run away from Itadori would be as unbelievable as saying that his name would be wiped clean off his skin one day.
Yuta knows it too; whether Gojo had a hand in helping him see the way his brain works or he’s just too transparent in his eyes it’s not important anymore. In any case, Yuta has always been good at reading people without any other aid except for his own intuition.
“It’s not that I made a plan to befriend him,” Megumi says sighing; “I just know I can’t avoid him from now on, and making sure his name can’t be visible would just help me get out of unnecessary conversations.” Before Yuta can respond in any way, Megumi cuts in saying, “I’m here,” his eyes looking through the window of the shop at the woman standing behind the counter, reading something on her desk as she plays with a strand of her hair.
Yuta sucks in his breath, letting the silence hang for a few short moments before he lets the air out through a sigh. “Okay. Make sure you have enough money on you.” Megumi hums in affirmation, his lips pulling into a small smile right before he’s ready to say goodbye. But then, he hears him say “and if anything happens or you want to talk to someone, call me. You know I’ll answer you anytime. I know how fierce Gojo could get and being you, it might be harder for him to conceal his feelings. And I know you might end up going against my word here, but don’t do anything impulsively. However harmless he might seem to you; his name is still on your wrist.”
There’s an itchy and uneasy feeling settling over and within his skin as Megumi ends the call, as he passes through the doors of the shop and walks up to the counter with his phone still securely gripped in his hand.
The woman welcomes him with a smile and closes her book as she gets up from her chair. “What’ll be?” she asks, and Megumi opens his mouth wordlessly, his eyes moving from her face behind her to search the shelves filled with different products.
“A wrist holder, please.” He says, and the woman nods her head, her smile slightly fading. She leans down and opens one of the cupboards behind the counter, taking one package out to place on the empty surface. She takes it out quickly, the object standing limp between her fingers.
“Hold out your hand, if you will,” she says, her hand outstretched upside down as if waiting for Megumi to place his palm on top. He lifts it close, inches away from her skin, feeling the hot tingle of her fingertips on his own shortly before she twists the band around and fixes it around his wrist. It's cold to the touch, and the first contact leaves his skin itching, cold, and shivering. He can hear a faint click going off as she closes the two corners of the band around and locks it in place, the hold tight and unyielding as it cuts through the sensitive patch of his skin where his veins are pounding. “Too tight?” she asks, though he doesn’t have enough time to answer as she continues with, “Is alright, it’s supposed to be like this for the first time until your skin will get used to it. It's trying to stick directly around you, but don’t worry; once it’s done, you won’t feel anything.”
Megumi nods, wordlessly, his eyes drifting down to his wrist. He sees a small dent where the edges are connected, right in the middle of where he knows Itadori’s name should appear, though instead of the familiar sight of the bold and cursive letters, he’s greeted by nothingness—by bare and wiped-clean skin. It's so different and somewhat unsettling to see that Megumi can’t look at it for too long, choosing instead to cast his gaze to the side where a few fashion magazines are stacked one over the other.
The woman takes her hands away and points at the dent of the band. “Place your finger here and make sure all your fingertip is pressed against it.”
Megumi does so, and the material underneath starts to heat up under the pressure, flattening out against his wrist.
“You know how it works, I suppose?” she asks, her hands gripping the sides of her waist as she looks up at him. Megumi gives her half a nod, raising his eyes enough to be able to look at her through his eyelashes.
“I know that after it registers my fingertip, it’ll only respond to it. So only I can take it off.”
The woman smiles, tilting her head to the side. “Yeah. It’s completely secured now.” As she finishes her sentence, a cling rings out from the band, and Megumi feels it shortly vibrating before it soon becomes still. He looks up at her and the woman nods, one of her hands raising and moving up and down to signal him to take his hand away. “It should be done now. The only thing we’re left to do is for you to sign a few papers and you’re off.”
“That’s good,” Megumi mutters, shaking his wrist as the woman turns around. He grabs a hold around the wrist holder with his other hand, fingertips trailing down on the surface where the name should be. He can feel a difference in the textures, his skin being smooth to the touch while the band feels rougher and colder, though visually, there are no distinctive dissimilarities to be made, other than the lines that curve around his wrist from the edges of the device. It looks as if nothing had ever been written on his skin, and Megumi can’t remember the last time something has felt so out of place.
By the time he steps outside, the rain has already started to manifest in full force, raindrops falling heavily from the sky and splashing loudly on the pavement. The air is cold, biting at his cheeks, and he pulls his hoodie all the way up, making sure both sides of his face are protected as he starts to walk on the way back. Two blocks down, however, he halts, his hands curling into fists in his pockets as he stares at the building ahead of him.
He's made plans for this visit for a few days now, trying to gather the courage to actually make the trip, enter the front doors, make his way up the elevator, and knock on her door, even though it would suffice no reply. The water drains down on his clothes and slithers its way over his hair and down on his cheeks, his eyelashes heavy, shading black dots across his vision. The sign above the doors shines bright in red, the word “Hospital” blinking down at him with soft frequency, perturbed by the waves of dense raindrops.
It would be quick, Megumi only has to cross the street to reach her; but something thuds harshly in his chest, preventing him from moving. His legs turn stiff and glue themselves onto the pavement, and the muscles of his thighs feel as if they’re made out of steel, unwilling to budge in any way.
The street is void of any other people in the mid of the heavy rain, leaving him alone in the middle of the sidewalk. His heart is pounding so forcefully that he can hear its rhythm inside of his head, pumping straight through his eardrums and filling his ears with heat.
Not now, he mutters under his breath, his teeth grinding together as he clenches his jaw. He forces his eyes to look away, hanging his head down as he sucks in his breath and drags his feet on the wet ground.
The pounding in his ears carries him all the way home, punching the walls of his head with force. The rain soaking through the locks of his hair is already seeping through his scalp by the time he enters the building, making the back of his head throb with unsettling speed.
He removes his hood when he enters the hallway, wiping the upper side of his face with the back of his palm as he moves forward. The door opposed to his own is shut still, though there are three suitcases standing beside the wall, along with a heavy bag sitting down on the floor and an open umbrella, all soaked through and dripping water around it. Megumi spares a few glances at the sight in front of him then takes hold of the key to his room, when he hears his voice.
“Where have you been?”
His shoulders tense as soon as he hears the first few words, and the question doesn’t fully register in his brain even after he raises his head to look in his direction. Itadori's head is sticking through the gap of his door, one hand gripping the doorknob. He looks at him with a frown on his face, the eyebrows pulled low in a crease across his nose, though there’s light in his pupils—a flicker dancing in his eyes and flickering with something Megumi would mistake for worry if he looks closely enough.
Itadori closes his mouth and pulls his lips taunt, surveying him from the top of his wet hair down to his boots. “You’ll catch a cold. Are you—”
“No!” the word escapes him without intent, spilled through his lips as he sees him taking a step forwards. As soon as he says it, Itadori freezes, his hand around the doorknob gripping it so tightly that his knuckles are starting to turn white. His eyes stare at him widely, lips parted around the words he couldn’t finish, and with a resigned sigh and a slight shake of his head, Itadori looks down at his feet. His face is hidden underneath his hair for a few seconds until he raises his head again and flashes him a quick smile.
“Sorry, I think I might’ve scared you. The new exchange student came today, I was about to go talk to her downstairs. I...” he stops short, his eyes wandering as his voice fades. His lips turn upwards again when he catches Megumi’s gaze, and he says “Take a hot bath and bury yourself in blankets or you’ll get sick.”
He closes the door and walks the other way, his steps light and quick. Megumi watches him, the way his hair slightly flips as he puts his feet down on the ground, and his heart squeezes tight. It takes him more than it’s necessary to open up his door and slip into his room, and by the time he’s locked himself in, the pounding of his headache has traveled down to his chest, compressing and seizing his heart in short and irritable pulsing beats.
✾
The wine tastes bitter on his tongue, and he’s gulping it down slowly while washing away the tang of fish rolls still lingering on his tongue. The music beams around him, throbbing vibrations through his veins whenever the strumming of a guitar pulls the sound out too forcefully loud to be masked away in the room. At his side, Nobara clicks her tongue and lowers her glass on the table with a resounding thump, the table edging to the opposite side when she leans against it.
“That’s where you’re wrong. Romance doesn’t make the movie better; it makes it boring.”
Itadori rolls his eyes, and Megumi watches him over the rim of his glass as he tips his fork in her direction and supports it to his face with his elbow pinned over the surface. His words are swallowed up in Megumi’s ears by another loud chord being played near the microphone, and he shuts his eyes closed as he swallows the wine and lifts the glass from his lips.
It's been one week since Nobara joined their secluded school, seven days of edging torment as Megumi was dragged into the heart of shared conservations about curses, movies, Tokyo, and everything in between. The fact that she and Itadori are able to find so many subjects on which they can build complex arguments about is, in the absence of a better word, quite amazing to witness; though Megumi would rather not plunge himself into their debates. As hard as he tries, however, and as much distance as he can create between himself and the other two, it’s not enough to lure him out of their grasp.
If he could, Megumi would find any opportunity to miss out on any of their night-outs; something that Nobara and Itadori have been doing ever since Nobara's first day of arrival in Tokyo. The ground base of companionship is what he’s heard them call it; a meet-up in cheap restaurants with glasses of wine or juice at their sides, sitting together while the hours of the evening pass by, entertained only by their disagreements and laughter. Considering Itadori’s existence in the equation, Megumi knows he should stay as far away as he possibly can from any opportunity of ‘building up companionship’ amongst their group, but even though he tries, it’s impossible to run away from them forever. It was a joined effort from the two of them that brought all three of them out on this evening. Megumi was jolted out of his work by eager knocking at his door, and upon opening it he came face to face with Nobara's grinning face, her foot quickly sliding in between the door and its frame to stop him from trying to get it closed. She had her arms crossed over her chest, her head tilted back as she met his gaze and held it firmly, her lips pulling into a small yet stiff smile. “You’re coming with us.” she’d said—not a question, and not a request either. It boarded more on the severity of an order, stern and chilling to the bone with an edge of bitterness rolling off her tongue which made Megumi’s muscles harden under his skin. Itadori at least had the decency of looking apologetic, his eyes averting from his own as he leaned against the wall and staring more at the tip of his shoe than at the side-ways glance Megumi had thrown his way for a few short seconds before the realization of having no escape crumbled down on him.
He can still feel the weight pressing down on his shoulders now, sinking his body into the chair as he tries to get through the night. The music is loud, thumping against his eardrums and their chatter is distracting. Every word Itadori gets out is perceived by his ears—not in full, the sentences losing their meaning halfway, slurring to distorted pitches, though he can’t make himself ignorant of them—and it’s this, the knowledge that he can’t push Itadori out of his mind even when he’s purposely trying to, that makes him realize he's already treading on thin ice.
There’s a whisper blowing off across his ear, and Megumi’s hand raises to his hair, fingers curling loosely around the ends of his locks as he blocks his eardrum. His eyes are trained onto the farthest corner of the room where the sound blasts out from the hovering tv screen above the bar, the flashing lights flickering against the wall and painting it in blue and crimson. The air hits the side of his face again, and it’s only with the jab of a finger into his forearm that he registers the air as being a breath whisked out of Nobara's throat. Her fingertip slides off his sleeve before she stabs it into the material again, and Megumi gives himself only a second to take in a barred breath before he turns his head towards hers.
The edge of her grin is sharp, and her eyes bore into his with a flickering glimmer that pulls on Megumi’s anxieties as he clears his throat and asks loftily, “What is it?”
“I said,” she starts, biting into the word as she drags the last vowels on her tongue. “What do you think?”
He frowns, his eyes darting towards the other end of the table where Itadori looks at him through the weight of his eyelashes falling over his cheekbones, a faded smile lingering on his face as he tries to shrink back into his chair. There’s a little twitch in his upper lip when he opens his mouth, blowing out a quick breath before he mouths to him something that seems to say “Sorry,” though with the soft lighting falling over his head, Megumi can’t be certain that he’s able to read off the correct letters from Itadori’s lips. Nobara’s hand slides back on the table with a dull thud, and Megumi feels his chest swelling with a gaping sensation, pushing hard against his stern as he struggles to pry his eyes away from him.
“What are you talking about?” he asks, setting his wine down and leaning back against his chair. The click of her tongue splits the air, and Megumi feels his fingers twitching over the cold glass.
“We were debating, if you failed to notice, whether the sexualization of marks makes a movie plot better or not.”
Megumi cranes his head and pinches his eyebrows into a frown, staring back at her as he says, “What kind of movies are you two watching?”
“The best of the best,” Nobara claims, a grin pulling at the corner of her mouth as her eyes skid back towards Itadori on the other side of the table before turning to gaze back at him. “I’m sure you’ve at least heard of them. To bite your name off?” she asks, raising her eyebrows after a few seconds of silence and tilting her head back, and only through the slowly fading edge of her smile does he realize that what she’d just said had been the title of one of their previously discussed movies. “Don’t tell me you haven’t even heard of it.”
Megumi winces, his hand bawling into a loose fist as he sets it on the table. “I just don’t watch movies in that genre.”
Nobara turns to him, one eyebrow lifted, her lips pressed tight. “What genre are you watching? Not discovery channel, surely?”
“Well,” Megumi starts, his tongue swiping over the row of his upper teeth as he looks away. He clicks his lips together, shrugging his shoulders. “I suppose I watch more non-fiction than anything. I like movies based on real life, not fabrications of reality. They're too unrealistic.”
“They’re interesting. Different. How could you turn your back on a sci-fi adaptation?”
Megumi shrugs again, his lips stretching a little into a downturn frown. His eyebrows pinch in frustration, and it must’ve been obvious, for Nobara shuts her mouth and falls silent, slumping back heavily in her chair with folded arms. “Just not my thing,” he mutters, straightening in his chair to grasp his glass again.
“It doesn’t matter,” Itadori says before he can sip his drink. His hand freezes, glass hovering over his lips, and his eyes turn quickly toward him. He doesn’t notice his stare, however, staring intently down at his plate instead. “I’m not a big fan of sci-fi either, to be honest. Unless it’s really good or really bad.”
“Why would you want to watch a bad one?” Nobara scrunches her nose, though the tightness around her lips seems to soften, the edges lifting slightly into the edge of a grin. “If you’re planning on making us watch a bad movie, then you’ll have to be banned from voting privileges.”
Itadori lets out a short, offended noise which makes Megumi raise his head towards him again, studying his expression for a little while longer. When he realizes the other is avoiding his stare, Megumi looks back at her, finally gulping down the rest of his drink before he asks, “What are you talking about?”
Nobara grins now, with full-stretched lips, and tilts her head in his direction with a pointed look in her eyes. “Well now that everyone is paying attention,” she begins, leaning back to set her elbows on the edge of the table and support her chin on the back of her knuckles, eyelashes batting. “We should discuss the course of action for our movie night. It's happening this Saturday, and you only need to think about what movie you’ll bring into the mix. The snacks will be mostly provided by the host, so unless the short stick falls in your hand, you shouldn't worry your head over it.”
“That—” Itadori says suddenly. They both turn to look at him, and Megumi catches his stare, gaze widening as soon as they lock eyes. It's brisk, and it makes his pulse strum, pumping through his wrist hard, but Itadori looks away even before he could even blink. It has something to do with their last encounter, he supposes; possibly the wariness in his eyes then meant something for Itadori that now forces him to keep himself away. Megumi doesn’t dwell on it too much—the less the other pays attention to him, the better. And yet, when Itadori looks away he feels his heart skipping, almost as if in disappointment, and he scolds himself quickly by reaching for the bottle and pouring down the wine, staring blankly until the glass got filled to the top. “You haven’t asked him if he wants to come.”
“Well, he obviously will. We're in the same year, and the only ones in our year. Movie night bonding is the best type of bonding—that, and a shopping spree, but I haven’t got that much money yet, and I doubt you both have enough yourselves.”
Itadori huffs. “You’re not wrong there, in my case at least. But I'm just saying, maybe Fushiguro wouldn’t like to take part in your movie night bonding.” He looks at him then, eyes tracing to his own with visible hesitation, and Megumi knows, then. It's not this he’s worried about; he’s still thinking about how Megumi flinched away the last time he saw him, how even through the bleak darkness in the hallway, Itadori must’ve recognized the flash of panic in his eyes.
He thinks he’s scared of him, maybe ever since all which has happened on the first night on the high school's roof. And while he’s not entirely wrong, and fear is an emotion that settles in his chest heavily whenever he thinks of or looks at him, the realization leaves his pride a bit wounded.
Though he wouldn’t admit it aloud, Megumi takes comfort in his pride, and so, biting back a scornful remark, he juts out his chin and blinks down at him, eyes hard and impassive.
“I want to come,” he says, impulsively, wanting to show him there’s no trace of fear in his voice. Itadori stares back, his eyebrows lightly raising off his forehead as he examines his expression, and Megumi feels a rush of relief when the other smiles and looks away before he can notice the way in which his hand starts to shake around the leg of his glass.
In the end, Itadori gets the 'short stick' in the form of a losing battle at a brief rock paper scissors game, though judging by his elated grin, it doesn’t seem like he minds the outcome in any way. By the time they go outside, the night has fallen and his hand trembles in the safety of his pocket closed into a fist.
He waits for them at the door, leaning against the banister while he scouts the far-off street with frowning eyes, nibbling at his bottom lip with his teeth. The moonlight doesn’t shine on the ground, hidden behind thick clouds and strong whistling winds, and Megumi shudders as he brings his arms around himself, barely seeing the white fog he exhales as he lets out a sigh.
It doesn’t last long, though the cold seems to stretch his own perception of time. He shifts on his feet when he hears the doors sliding open again and blinks when he feels a strange, watering sensation on the side of his face, his hand raising to touch. An embracing shadow hovers over his head before he can reach it, however, and Megumi tilts his head up at the sound of pattering raindrops to notice he’s sheltered from them by a large umbrella. Someone sniffs beside him, almost as if suppressing a sneeze, and Megumi turns in time to see Itadori squeezing his eyes shut as he eventually lets it out. He wipes under his nose with the back of his hand and stops when he realizes Megumi’s watching him, his shoulders visibly tensing for a short moment of time before he lets them drop in a relaxed slouch and drops his hand at his side.
“At this point, I think you’re doing it deliberately,” he says, grinning, and Megumi stirs to turn around, feeling a cold trail of water slipping down his nape and under his coat. “I used to do this too when I was little. Helped me think.”
Megumi shifts on his feet again, his head turning over his right shoulder to look at the door, impatient, then huffs. “I just didn’t notice it was raining,” he explains and hopes that with the rain being a light, drizzling one, Itadori would take it at face value and not question him further. He hears him shuffling though as if he wants to say something still, and Megumi spies his movements from the corner of his eye with attention, a sizzling sensation of uneasiness filling his chest.
“I think we've started on the wrong foot. And I know what you think,” Itadori says then, not meeting his eye or looking in his direction. Megumi waits, frowning in concentration, his fists tight and heavy hidden under his arms. “But I meant it when I said I’m working hard so I won’t ever hurt any one of you. It's... I can’t promise anything, but you have to trust me. Trust is the only thing I can give you.”
His lips stretch a little in a grimace, and Megumi’s dangerously close to laughing, though he bubbles his irritation down and puts a lid on it, feeling it frizzling in his stomach instead. This feels like a joke, he thinks, and suddenly there’s annoyance layered over his thoughts, numbing everything with anger.
He turns on his heels so briskly that Itadori loses his grip on the umbrella and jolts away, a few drops hitting the top of his head as he angles it towards himself. His eyes blink, confused and surprised, but his lips are held tight in a straight line, waiting for, it seemed, and anticipating whatever Megumi was going to say. He has to breathe in order to calm down his nerves, fingers gripping tight at the sides of his coat, his grimace turning into a snarl.
Before he can say anything, his eyes catch the small flicker of dread in Itadori’s eyes, masked away by his effort to keep his stare blank. His lips move, part wordlessly on the biting remarks ready to spill over his tongue, but in the end, Megumi can’t manage to say anything at all. He straightens back, seeing that he’s been leaning towards him, barely inches away from his face, and the realization of it makes his chest churn, shoulders shaking. He can blame it on the cold, if Itadori asks, though something tells him he won’t believe it.
He clears his throat, eyes pressing shut. “I’m not scared,” he says, as much for Itadori as for himself, leaning back to let out a long sigh. “I’m not scared of you. It's just something I have on my mind.”
The silence stretches, and the rain starts to pick up, the pattering at their feet turning much more insistent. Megumi watches a puddle in the making, his eyes trained on the drops as they splash right into the crack on the asphalt, and listens as Itadori breathes, then sighs, a short and choked laugh pushing through his lips.
“No, of course not. I shouldn’t have assumed—” he halts, and they turn their heads at the same time. His breath stills when their eyes meet, and he can see the other hesitating, his lips closing with a soft click. His hand lifts to run through his hair, shaking the strands off water, then continues rather mournfully. “Gojo says I am to be executed on the spot if anything bad happens. I accept that, with no hesitation. I obviously don’t want it to get that far, but if it does... it’s him, not me. I'll hold him back to the best of my abilities, I promise that. Anything beyond...” he stops, eyes trailing away from his. It’s weird how Megumi feels something akin to pity or regret in his chest, and he decides to push the feeling away as soon as he feels it creeping up to not face its implication.
He blows out a breath, straining his shoulders as he rolls them. Itadori is watching him again; he can feel his stare on the side of his cheek, burning through his skin, unyielding yet trepidatious.
“I told you I’m not scared,” he repeats, trying to convince himself. His jaw clenches, eyes flaring back as if challenging him to disagree; don’t you dare think I'm fragile, his thoughts suffice, and somehow it looks as if Itadori can hear them too, swallowing his words in the back of his throat. “Don't assume otherwise.”
As he looks back at him, Megumi starts to have the faintest impression that he’s pushed too far. His throat tightens and makes itself completely dry. His fingers, still hidden under the warmth of his coat, begin to tremble as he sucks air in through his nose and bites the inner side of his cheek, suddenly tensing up. Itadori spares him another glance across his face, eyebrows pinched low and unsure, but as he blinks, all of it washes away, and when he looks at him again it’s with a soft smile.
“I hope we’ll get along, then, me and you,” he says. His shoulders rise as soon as he hears the doors of the restaurant opening, and he turns away from him to wave in Nobara's direction, his umbrella still securely hovering over both of them. Megumi swallows once more, his fisted hands sinking down in their pockets, and tries to ignore how the itchiness embedded in his wrist makes him want to peel his whole skin off.