Work Text:
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───
Megumi Fushiguro was not suicidal. He wasn’t. He might have had a rough life growing up, but that didn’t automatically make him suicidal. He might have witnessed his sister rot away slowly in that hospital bed until the bad news ultimately came, but that didn’t make him suicidal.
He didn’t want to die.
He might have been on the phone when his dad Satoru died, the noise of that car losing control until it ultimately took his life might haunt his every waking moment, but that doesn’t automatically mean he wanted to die.
He might have these recurring thoughts that constantly yelled at him– convinced him that everything that led up to this was his fault, that he was this curse to those around him and whoever he knew was to leave at some point. It’s why his birth dad left, right?
And sure, he would do anything to make these thoughts go away, but that didn’t mean he wanted to die? Right? He might willingly let the universe take care of it– meaning no matter what it is, as long as the thoughts stop he’d be okay with it. He wasn’t suicidal.
He might want to leave this earth to be at peace, even if peace in this life felt like a foreign feeling– feeling as useless as reaching for the stars as a kid in hopes your hand came back with gold dust from the stars that were millions of miles away, but that didn’t make him suicidal.
People say he looks miserable– Yuuji says he’s worried. Yuuji says he can see it– see how Megumi is barely hanging on anymore, tells him that he can’t risk losing him and that he needs to talk. Tries so hard to get Megumi to talk about what’s going on and tells him how lonely he’d be without his other half– how he just wants nothing more for Megumi to be okay, but… He is okay?
Why wouldn’t he be?
Yuuji tries telling him otherwise.
When Megumi tries to argue that he’s okay, Yuuji only lists reason after reason to counteract Megumi being ‘fine’. He goes on about how Megumi has been more distant, the first worry sign that Yuuji picked up on. His boyfriend might be quiet, but he’d still engage in conversation– even when just the two. But he’s been distant– Suguru has reported such and so have the twins.
Yuuji pretty much brushed that off.
And then he stopped showing up to school. When that took place, Yuuji’s worry only grew further. Megumi was by far one of the biggest nerds he had known– he never missed school unless it was serious. So if he wasn’t showing up, wasn’t that sign enough?
That same day Yuuji contemplated seeing Megumi… And then his parents told him. His parents told him what happened– told him news he never wanted to get. And though he didn’t have the connection with Satoru like Megumi did, the one he refused to admit to no matter how true, he was still close. Hell, that family was pretty much his own.
He had his own two loving parents– ones who of course loved and accepted him for who he was, but since he met Megumi, his family slowly became his own. He saw all of Megumi’s sisters as his own– loving them to death. Especially the twins; the school gossip from them was priceless.
Nonetheless, with the news his parents gave him, he was determined to see Megumi. Which is what he did the following day. When Megumi didn’t show up to school again, he stopped spamming Megumi’s phone with updates and instead spent the whole day figuring out what to do.
***
Megumi had skipped class again– he couldn’t be bothered to care. He couldn’t bother to worry about it. The morning had been just as bad as it had been since Tsumiki was hospitalized. Since then, the cycle had been the same.
Wake up.
Get ready.
School.
Visit Tsumiki with the family.
Go home.
Get unready.
Sleep.
It repeated like that until Tsumiki died. Then it changed.
Wake up.
Get ready.
School.
Visit Tsumiki with the family.
Go home.
Get unready.
Sleep.
Each task held its own elements within it.
Wake up: Text back the group chat with his usual ‘I’m alive’. Reply to the thousands of stupid memes Yuuji sent instead of sleeping.
Get ready: Deal with Satoru being annoying. Listen to him and Suguru openly flirt over breakfast to where all of them lose their appetite. Get rushed out of the house because someone (Satoru) made them late.
School: Classes. Hanging out with Yuuji and Nobara. Figure out what the hell he was going to do when he went home.
Visit Tsumiki with the family: Each person spending time at Tsumiki’s side in hopes she’d wake up. Megumi spending more time there than anyone else and Satoru being the one to stay behind to let him do that.
And then Tsumiki died. So then from that point on, there was no pitstop after school. He was picked up and they all went home. Even after her death, the routine didn’t change any other time.
Go home: Listen to whatever drama the twins had from their day at school. Decide what to eat for dinner (which was almost always something takeout related). Talk to Yuuji while doing homework.
Get unready: Keep talking to Yuuji. Unwind. Get into sleep clothes. Sometimes throwing in a family movie night that Suguru or the twins insisted on in Tsumiki’s name.
Sleep.
And then the worst of it all happened.
When Satoru died, waking up felt like more of a task than ever. It was already hard enough with Tsumiki dying, but with Satoru passing so shortly after and in the circumstances he did? It was hard. The group chat stopped receiving their morning updates. Yuuji started being either left on seen or getting less and less replies to what he’d send in the late hours of the night.
Getting ready was hell in itself. All he wanted to do was flop onto his bed and sleep for what could forever for all he cared. The annoying comments from Satoru never came. The flirting didn’t happen. Breakfast was short-lived. Suguru started having them take public transportation to school– not having the energy to take them to school.
Megumi started zoning out in class– barely taking notes. All he could think about was how eager he was to get home. He started shutting out his friends– outside of his inner friendgroup and within it. Yuuji was barely an exception with time.
Getting home, he did nothing but immediately shut himself in his room. Homework sat on his desk until the late hours of the night when he couldn’t sleep. Dinner was almost always a ‘make whatever you want’ now that Satoru was gone. Sometimes it was takeout, sometimes it was something simple in the house, and on the lucky days Suguru got up they had whatever he made (which always had to be a favorite of Satoru’s). Megumi would never admit it, but when Suguru made an old favorite, even if Megumi would ‘complain’, he enjoyed it more than he’d ever admit.
Family nights stopped happening unless the twins managed to drag themselves, Suguru, and Megs into it. Half of the time, everyone ended up passing out except for Megumi, who would leave them be and go to his own room. He stopped replying to texts with the very rare exception of Yuuji when he just needed an excuse to feel better.
Sleep stopped coming to him with time. Sleep started feeling like a foreign subject and instead he was stuck with his own thoughts for longer than he ever wanted. He was stuck dwelling on all of the events of these last four and a half months.
Dwelling on the fact that his older sister was gone; that the one person who helped him when his biological dad (why even call him that?) left, was gone. That the one person who he had before he met Satoru had died. And his mind tried to tell him it was his fault.
She showed signs of her illness before it got terminal.
Why didn’t you say anything?
If you had, they would have been able to treat it sooner.
She would still be here if you had done something.
And then memories of the day Satoru died flooded his mind. That phone call.
If you had just gone with him, maybe it would have been you instead.
Why didn’t you say yes?
You could have prevented it.
It’s your fault. If you had been there it wouldn’t have happened. If you had said something, she wouldn't have gotten sick. It should have been you. It should have been you. It should have been you. ItshouldhavebeenyouItshouldhavebeenyouIt shouldhave–
He couldn’t take it anymore.
His body was practically on fight or flight when he got up and walked over to his desk. He shoved the contents off of it and immediately went on a search for two things. The notes and an object he had kept hidden for years now. Something barely touched for years.