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The longer he puts this off, the less time he has. Which makes sense when he stops to think about it for more than two seconds. That’s how time works. But he rarely has even those two seconds these days.
Yuji only exists in the training room or his bed. The days all blur together as they train and sleep and plan and train and sleep and plan. When he’s awake, he thinks of nothing except getting Megumi back and how the fight to get him will go. It permeates into his dreams – his body and consciousness feeling more aligned than they have in years.
Megumi will come home. I will get him back. I will not lose.
There is no room for doubt. Any traitorous whisper otherwise is clipped from the roots and burned until only the husk of what it was remains. A shell of ash that Yuji can crush between his fingers.
He’s been making more trips to the crematorium recently. He doesn’t want to keep coming back, but his mind won’t let him leave.
If Gojo wins then everything is fine. They can forget about the rest and tell themselves they were silly for ever doubting that of course, of course Gojo was going to win.
Everyone will go home and share a meal together and everything will be fine. Yuji will take Megumi to his room and hold him while they sleep and everything will be fine. Then Yuji will press his ear to the other boy’s chest and take Megumi’s hand and put it over his heart to remind them both that they are here, they are real, they are alive and everything will be fine.
But what if Gojo doesn’t win? What happens then? How will you save him? Are you stronger than Gojo? Are you arrogant enough to believe you can do what he can’t? What if Gojo loses?
Just thinking it feels impossible. Even trying to get his brain to imagine what it would look like if Gojo lost just comes back fuzzy. He wouldn’t recognize it even if he was happening right in front of him. Gojo has never lost before. He won’t lose against Meg- against Sukuna. That’s who his fight is with.
This is about Sukuna.
Every time he registers what day it is, he knows he’s running out of time.
It’s a conversation. Not even, really. It’s a single question. One that almost slips out every time he’s in a room with Gojo – alone or not. For all the times he’s almost blurted it out, Yuji still doesn’t know how to go through with it.
How to bring it up. How to ask.
This is the furthest he’s gotten. Standing outside Gojo’s door in the middle of the night. Is this the way he’s supposed to do it? He’s trying to do the proper thing, but is it even proper if he doesn’t get it right? Maybe he should just –
“Yuji, you know I can see you, right?”
Oh. Right. Six Eyes. Can see through walls. Right, right, right.
“Are you gonna come in?”
Before he can talk himself out of it, Yuji opens the door. He greets Gojo with a simple, “Hi.”
It comes out smaller than he’d like. He tries to settle himself, project a confidence he doesn’t feel.
Gojo’s smile is warm even if it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He’s been wearing his blindfold less as they’ve all been training more. The icy, almost glowing, blue of his eyes is still disorienting when you’re the sole object of its focus. “Hey. Can’t sleep either?”
“Not really.” Yuji closes the door behind him. He lingers a few steps inside, not sure if standing or sitting is better. Standing probably. That’s what he’ll do. He’ll stand.
“Something on your mind?”
“No. Not really. Just can’t sleep.”
A boldfaced lie. He doesn’t like lying to Gojo. Especially since his teacher has a knack for always being able to tell when Yuji is keeping secrets. It’s not even that he wants to be lying right now, he just still hasn’t figured it out. Yuji can feel Gojo staring at him but that doesn’t mean he suddenly has all the answers.
“You know being able to see this well is almost as good as being able to read minds?”
Yuji jolts.
“What?”
It makes Gojo chuckle slightly. Yuji can’t remember the last time he heard any of his friends laugh.
“I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I can see that you’re sweating and your heart is beating faster than normal. You’re trying to control your breathing but you’re still trembling. I can’t make you tell me what it is, but I don’t think you’d be here if you didn’t want to tell me already.”
“Well, it’s just …”
He can do this. He can do this. He can absolutely do this.
He can’t do this.
“Nevermind it’s not urgent.”
This isn’t right. It’s happening all out of order. He should go. “Obviously, you’re the strongest, and you’re gonna bring Fushiguro back, and I’ve got plenty of time, and it’s all gonna be fine. Everything will be –”
“What does this have to do with Megumi?”
In an instant, any previous exhaustion is forgotten. Gojo looks like he could take on the world and win. Yuji doesn’t doubt that he could if it meant Megumi coming home.
The intensity of his words freezes Yuji in place. Without realizing it, he’s backed himself into a corner. He has to say something and it might as well be the truth.
Yuji is more perceptive than other people give him credit for. He may not know much about math or science or history, but he’s always just kind of understood other people.
Anything involving Megumi was a sore spot for Gojo. It ate at him. What they had planned. What he had to do.
With the blindfold and everything Gojo can be harder to read than others, but when it comes to Megumi, he might as well have a glass face. Yuji sees a fierce protector, ready to not just save the boy he practically raised, but also something else.
A younger version of himself maybe.
Someone who is sad and afraid but has also gone through this before. And Gojo is still standing here so he must’ve won that time too. Must’ve saved whoever needed his protection when he was a teenager.
Even if Yuji has no idea what to say or how to ask he has to at least try. He can’t leave Gojo like this. And really, Gojo might not let him leave now that he knows it’s about Megumi.
So he has to try.
He takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. Tries to feel the earth beneath him.
He can do this. He can do this.
“I wanted to ask you. Well, since you’re the closest thing to a parent Fushiguro has. I know it probably wouldn’t matter much to him – keeping with tradition and all – but my grandpa would want me to do this the proper way, so I was wondering …”
Yuji allows himself one more breath. One more chance to suck in as much air as possible before it all spills out –
“I would like your blessing to ask your son to marry me.”
There. He did it. It was out in the open now. Yuji wanted to ask Megumi to marry him.
“Someday. In the future. Not right now,” he rushed to clarify. “When it does finally happen, I know we’ll both want you there with us. I’ll ask you to officiate, but he’ll say no.”
The idea of it makes him want to smile, but his body has forgotten how. The muscles around his cheeks and jaw don’t move of their own accord the way they used to.
He lingers in the possibility of what it will be like when smiling is muscle memory again. Of what it will be like when Megumi is home again. Of what it will be like when the two of them can look back on this conversation together and laugh at how nervous Yuji was, since those future versions of them know for certain that everything will be fine.
So, he doesn’t notice right away that Gojo hasn’t said anything yet.
All at once, the silence in the room is suffocating. He’d been so worked up about just asking to begin with that he hadn’t considered what could come next. That Gojo had every right to tell him no.
When Gojo finally does speak, every word comes out deliberate and slow. “I didn’t realize you two were so serious. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I knew there was something going on but I didn’t know it was … Did I miss something? Did Megumi not want me to know?”
Oh.
Right.
See, that was the other thing.
There was always something unsaid between Yuji and Megumi. Touches that lingered longer than strictly necessary. Words laced with significance and double meanings never explicitly spelled out. Gazes that speak to a longing that never left their lips. Wordless nights where they’d fall into each other’s company, then each other’s beds, the sensation of warm breath on cool skin a harbinger of rest that wasn’t fitful.
Always waiting for some mythic right time when things were calm and dreaming didn’t have to mean nightmares.
But there’s never a right time.
Not when there’s curses and monsters and real, true evil in the world that they’re responsible for defeating.
Having things that matter to you as a jujutsu sorcerer is dangerous. Anything that can compromise your judgement in a fight and keep you from making decisions for the greater good is dangerous.
But their whole existence is dangerous.
What’s the point of existing in the danger if you don’t get to exist outside of it?
It’s hard to be certain of anything these days, but Yuji knows that he is through with pretending that Megumi means less to him than he does.
There was no curse that could hurt him more than what being without Megumi was doing to him right now. It made him a shell of himself. All the muscles and organs and the soul that made him him had been scooped out and taken away the second Sukuna swapped.
Megumi is Yuji’s best friend. But he’d stopped being just that a long time ago. Even if neither of them put a word to it, they both knew. Every hope Yuji had for his own future included Megumi by his side. He didn’t want any memories without Megumi in them.
Gojo is still waiting for an explanation. The longer Yuji waited, the more room there was for Gojo to assume that everyone else knew they were something more than friends, but Megumi had wanted to keep it from him specifically. And that couldn’t be further from the truth.
“Well we’re not – I mean,” he thinks for a moment, trying to balance what they are and what they aren’t, “I’m serious about him. We didn’t have much of a chance to talk before … everything. But I think he’s serious about me too. I don’t know how to explain it. He’s a lot better with words than I am.”
Yuji watches Gojo take this in. Parse through what was said and what wasn’t. He seems lost. Or far away. Decidedly not here.
I wish Megumi was here. He would know what to say.
The silence stretches on for several more minutes. It’s the longest he thinks the two of them have ever gone in the same room without saying anything to each other. Yuji tries to respect that this is a lot of new information to process at once. But it’s hard to not feel the need to keep talking to fill the silence.
He tries to focus on anything else besides the growing lump in his throat. Gojo’s eyes seem to be the natural thing to shift his attention to. That far away look is still there, but there’s something else now. Something akin to sea glass or marbles. It catches the light in a way he isn’t used to, almost like …
“I’m sorry if I upset you. I didn’t mean –”
“You didn’t upset me Yuji. I’m fine. I was just thinking.”
“About what?”
“Who,” Gojo corrects, “I was thinking about … someone. You never got to meet him, but I wish you had. He could’ve learned a thing or two from you.”
Yuji wants to probe deeper, but Gojo switches up before he can.
“Before I give you my answer, there are a few things I need to know first.”
“Anything.” Yuji stands up straighter. This part he’s prepared for. Whatever Gojo needs to know in order to prove that he’s serious, Yuji won’t hesitate to tell him.
“First, why are you asking this now?”
Maybe hesitate was too strong of a word. He would answer any and all of Gojo’s questions. But he might have to think about it first.
All the things he’s trying to balance right now make his head spin like a tightrope walker with vertigo. It’s so delicate. Gojo can and will win this fight. But they’ve also had to plan contingency upon contingency to make sure that the world is safe and they contain as much of the damage as possible if Gojo does lose.
All these big plans, but what about the little plans? Plans that wouldn’t matter to anyone but Yuji and Megumi. There could be a world in that.
To Yuji, Megumi is the world condensed into a single person.
And that’s worth preserving just as much as everything else they’re trying to save. Preserving little moments of good and normalcy for the people fighting matters just as much as the big goal.
“I know that there are bigger things on our plate right now than what our lives look like after all this. I just keep thinking that if we’re doing this for everyone then I’m part of that too, right? I want a life after this and I don’t think it’s a bad thing that I want it to be a happy one.”
His voice threatens to break but he won’t let it. Yuji allows himself a breath, a moment to steel his nerves, then continues.
“We’ve made contingency after contingency for how to do right by everyone else, and it would mean a lot if we had a contingency for this too. For us.”
Gojo doesn’t address what Yuji says directly. Only nods impassively, not letting Yuji know if he’s doing well or not, and moves to his next question.
“Do you understand the gravity of what you’re asking for? What marriage entails? It’s a big commitment and one most people your age aren’t even close to thinking about.”
There’s something casual in his tone, but it feels forced.
“If you want to galavant and experiment and act like a regular teenager once the dust settles I can’t blame you,” he continues “And I won’t hold it against you. You can walk out of this room now and neither of us will bring this up again.”
It’s a respectful out, but one Yuji has no intention of taking.
He knows that most people just see who he is on the surface. The joy, the laughter, the cluelessness that he wants them to. But Yuji knows the kind of person he is.
He has a rich inner landscape. He has hopes and dreams and wants for his future. He craves a simple life, surrounded by people he loves. Days full of helping make the world better and ensuring that it’s a safe place for others.
He cares. He cares so deeply about everything and everyone he’s ever met.
“Honestly, I don’t think I’m meant for anything casual. In any aspect of my life. And I don’t plan on actually asking him for a long time.”
The words come out without a second thought. That he will ask, it’s only a matter of time. Yuji sees it all so clearly, he can only hope that certainty extends to how Gojo feels about them too.
“There’s still a lot that needs to happen between now and then. Just – going into all this – it would make me feel better if I knew you believed in us.”
There’s a lightness when Gojo looks at him now. One that used to be so integral to him, but Yuji hasn’t seen in a long time.
A small smirk takes over the older man’s face as he says,“He’s stubborn as hell, ya know. There will be times when he tries to push you away or suffer in silence. You’re never gonna win another argument again. He’ll work himself up inside his own head but say he’s fine even though he needs help.”
“I know all that.”
“And you think you can love him through it?”
“I wouldn’t change a thing about him. I love him – not some idea of who he could be.” Yuji doesn’t hesitate. It spills out of him, like a sunrise over a mountain.
He’s never said out loud that he loves Megumi before, but it’s the truest words that have ever left his lips. Yuji does all he can to show Megumi that he loves him, but saying it. The way it sounds – the way the words feel in his mouth – he never wants to stop. He can’t wait to say I love you to Megumi.
He loves him, he loves him, he loves him, he loves him, he loves –
It takes him a second to realize that he’s so lost in his own head he hadn’t noticed Gojo was staring at him. He feels his face flush under the scrutiny.
“Things feel so big when you’re young,” he muses “I know you don’t see it that way because life hasn’t let you be young. But you are you. You have your whole life ahead of you.”
Then he laughs. It’s small, more of a chuckle really, but it’s honest. “I want to tell you to wait and be patient and not decide your whole future right now. But that’s not fair because I would’ve done the same thing at your age, and I feel just as sure it would’ve been the right choice now as I did then.”
Gojo then stands for the first time, coming to be directly across from Yuji. He looks him in the eyes. Really looks at him in a way that lets him know Gojo sees him in his fullness. He sees all that this means to him, all that he wants.
“Megumi is the closest thing to family I have,” he declares. “I’ve only ever wanted to do right by him. And I know that he wants a future with you as much as you want one with him. Whatever you two decide that looks like for you, you have my blessing in it.”
Yuji feels like he can breathe for the first time in days. Every muscle in his body feels lighter – he might as well be floating. He wants to jump and shout from the rooftops that he is going to be the one to marry Fushiguro Megumi.
“Just promise me this,” Gojo continues, “Go to him. Once this is all over. Don’t waste any time.”
Yuji nods emphatically, “I will.”
“And that you will love and cherish him. That you will stay by his side through good times and bad. Til death do you part.”
Gojo extends an arm, Yuji takes it, clasping a hand around his forearm.
“I promise.”
As soon as the words leave his mouth, Yuji feels a surge of cursed energy flow through him. It’s not painful, like when he’s in a fight. No, it’s more like adrenaline. A warmth that spreads across his skin like sunlight.
A Binding Vow.
The way people explained it, he thought it would hurt. But it settles over him. Bolsters him. This is a Vow he is proud to bear. One he will honor until his last breath. Not keeping it would be a fate worse than death.
Gojo pulls him into a hug and ruffles his hair. “Alright. Now get some rest. I can’t have my future son-in-law slacking during training tomorrow. You’ve got to be able to protect someone very important to me.”
Son-in-law.
It had a nice ring to it. Yuji didn’t really consider himself anyone’s son – a grandson definitely, but not a son. This title suited him much better.
Heart full of all that was yet to come, Yuji bid Gojo goodnight and made his way back to his room. And for the first time since Megumi was taken from him, Yuji sleeps through the night.