Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Fushiguro would rather not have this talk.

He hovers out the front of a door in a long line of doors, somewhere on the fourth floor of the university he attends. There are nice, shiny, new buildings on campus, marvellous feats of modern engineering set to inspire students for decades to come. There are old buildings, too, exuding history and life in a way which makes Fushiguro feel small. This building falls into neither of those categories—it's a mediocre staff room put together at some point during the late twentieth century, tucked away in an out-of-sight out-of-mind corner that renders it a low priority candidate for refurbishment.

Fushiguro stares at the nameplate fixed to the particular door he's haunting: Dr Gojo Satoru, Ph.D., it reads. One would think that a university with any respect for its staff would offer Gojo Satoru something more upmarket for his personal consultation room, but apparently space and luxury come at a premium that even internationally renowned scholars can't afford. With any luck, Gojo will be teaching a class in one of those shiny new buildings right now, and Fushiguro will be able to tell himself he tried and put this conversation off for another day.

He knocks. "Gojo? It's me."

"Come in!" The response is immediate. Even through the wall, he sounds as if he's in far too good a mood for a Wednesday afternoon.

Gojo, evidently, is not out teaching a class.

Fushiguro sighs, and pushes open the door.

There's just enough room in here for the necessities; a desk, a chair for Gojo, an armchair for visiting students—Fushiguro takes a seat, resisting the urge to pick at the peeling leather—and a reasonable amount of storage. The grimy window up the back is forced to compete with fluorescent light bulbs to illuminate the room, but it opens up an inch to let some fresh air in, and it provides a nice view of the university's botanic gardens.

Gojo's personal affects take the office from middling to charming. An assortment of bizarre knick-knacks and travel souvenirs are scattered at the edges of the desk. A cork board is nailed into the wall beside his workstation, crowded with post-it notes of varying offensive colours and photocopies of jokes featuring a tangential relationship to science. A Japan Prize certificate hangs on the opposite wall, among a sea of family photos. The award is given less pride of place than a framed photo of Fushiguro as a child; his gap-toothed grin reveals he's missing his two front baby teeth, and he's covered in dirt, wrestling in the front garden with two enormous puppies.

"Megumi! Perfect timing." The office chair, currently turned away from the door, rotates slowly on its wheels until Gojo faces him—not unlike a super villain's grand reveal from one of Itadori's favourite films. "Did you know? I just hung up on the most fascinating call with Toji."

"Toji called you." Now Fushiguro understands that suspicious good mood—Gojo is of a mind to meddle. Fushiguro regrets stepping foot in here. He knew this was a bad idea.

Gojo rests his elbows on his desk and steeples his fingers, tilting his head to stare directly at Fushiguro over the rim of his dark glasses. "He wanted to make sure that your plans to spend time with him over winter break worked with the rest of the family. They do, by the way, though we'll miss your company on new Year's Day. This isn't the fascinating part."

"The suspense is killing me," Fushiguro deadpans. In the back of his mind, alarm bells are ringing. There's only one part of his own recent conversation with Toji that could be considered fascinating. He sincerely hopes Gojo is fixating on something else. Anything else.

"Now, I checked with Suguru, just in case you were playing favourites and leaving me out of the loop, but this was the first he'd ever head this bit of information either. Would you like to confess the secret you've been keeping, or shall I tell you what Toji told me?"

Fushiguro glances about the room for an escape. A printed image depicting a fluffy white cat wearing glasses and a bow tie stares down at him from the cork board. The surrounding text reads:

SCHRÖDINGER'S CAT WALKS INTO A BAR

...AND DOESN'T.

"Sure, I've got something to confess; your humour is a decade out of date." If Fushiguro can't avoid this conversation outright, maybe he can distract Gojo into forgetting about it. "No one is going to laugh if you put Chemistry Cat in your lecture slides."

"Ah, but you see—that's precisely the point." Gojo takes the bait. The office chair creaks in protest as Gojo leans back, looking every bit the smug, self-satisfied menace Fushiguro knows him to be. "None of my students realize I'm doing it on purpose. They're so certain in their conviction that I'm too old and out of touch to know what a meme is. Every semester, without fail, I put Chemistry Cat in my lecture slides. And every semester, without fail, an entire hall of bright young academics will cringe, take pity on me, and force out an awkward chuckle for my benefit—truly believing that I think this is the cutting edge of internet humour. It's the highlight of my day."

"Do any of them ask why Chemistry Cat is showing up in a physics lecture?"

"No! They don't! Their expectations for me are that low!"

"I don't think that's something you should be celebrating."

"Harsh," Gojo pouts. "Don't think I've forgotten that this conversation is supposed to be about you. You and your secret boyfriend. The one Toji says you're determined to spend Christmas day with. Meaning, the one you're so committed to that you're bringing him home to meet your family over the new year."

And there it is. The bombshell, dropped. The elephant in the room. Your boyfriend.

"Were you planning on telling any of us about this boy of yours?" Gojo continues, incredulous. "Or were you going to show up and have us all spontaneously rearrange our holiday plans around seven house guests instead of six?"

Chemistry Cat glowers down at Fushiguro from the cork board. Mocking him, no doubt, for his folly of thinking he could redirect Gojo's attention away from his love life. Fushiguro slouches lower into his seat. "I'd be more than happy to keep having a conversation about the cruel and unusual jokes you play on your students, actually."

"I just don't understand why you felt you had to keep it a secret, that's all. Was it the fact that he's a boy?" Gojo holds up a hand, wiggling his fingers to show off a gold ring. "Suguru and I are married. You were there for it. Surely you didn't think we would react poorly to the news. Did you at least confide in Tsumiki about all this?"

"There's nothing to confide about," Fushiguro snaps, "Because I don't have a boyfriend."

Gojo pauses. He drops his hand. "Come again?"

Fushiguro wishes the crevice of this shitty leather armchair would swallow him whole. "Toji assumed I was seeing a girl on Christmas," he mutters. He's sure his face is turning red. "I panicked. I told him I was seeing a boy instead, but it was a lie. I'm not seeing anyone. There is no secret boyfriend."

"For real?"

"For real."

There's a beat of silence as that information is processed.

Gojo laughs. He laughs long, and loud. He finds it a little bit too funny, actually. One of these days, Fushiguro really is going to punch him.

"Oh, that's hilarious," Gojo wheezes, wiping at the corner of his eye. "Why would you do that? What possessed you?"

"I don't know!" Fushiguro bursts out, throwing his hands in the air. "He was just going on and on about Christmas, and giving the worst dating advice I've ever heard, and making all these assumptions about me as if—stop it, this isn't funny, I'm having a crisis here—as if he knows anything about me at all! And clearly, he doesn't know a thing, because he thought an appropriate topic for some father-son bonding was to discuss when the right moment is for a boy to stick his hand up a girl's shirt during Christmas dinner—will you stop laughing!"

But damn it all, Fushiguro can feel a smile tugging at the edges of his own lips, too. He takes a deep breath to continue his rant, but the exhale comes out sounding more like a breathy chuckle than anything else, and, well. Gojo's glee is a contagious beast, and Fushiguro's stress levels have long since crossed the threshold from anxious straight through to hysterical. So it's actually kind of cathartic to let his head bump back against the wall and have a good long laugh at the mess he's made.

He's willing to admit that it's a little bit funny. Just a little bit.

"Okay," Gojo finally says, after more than one attempt from both of them at calming down. "I've composed myself. Please, continue." He gestures for Fushiguro to go on.

"...It's not even that I don't like girls." Fushiguro pointedly avoids looking at Gojo's face, because he knows Gojo is still working to keep the grin down, and the twist in his expression will be enough to set Fushiguro off again. "It's just that the whole conversation was so unwelcome, and Kugisaki would have thrown hands with him if she heard the way he was talking about women. I could see the whole holiday unfolding before my eyes. I was listening to him speak and all I could think was, I need to nip this in the bud. I need to put a stop to this right now or he's going to ruin New Year's Day by thinking he's funny and hounding me for details about a date I didn't even have."

He sighs, rubbing at his temple. Gojo isn't smiling any more.

"And I was angry," Fushiguro admits, quiet. "I was angry at him, because he didn't even think to ask if it was a girl I was seeing, let alone whether I was seeing anyone at all. I suppose I wanted to... throw it back in his face a bit. That he doesn't know me nearly as well as he thinks he does."

Not in any of the ways that really matter.

"...Are you still comfortable spending time with him over the break?" Gojo's voice is light, but his eyes are deadly serious. "Because if you would rather not see him on New Year's, you can call the whole thing off. Suguru and I will support you, whatever you choose to do."

"I don't mind agreeing to meet with him." As long as Toji understands that's all Fushiguro has agreed to. "Tsumiki will be there as well, which makes things easier. I was planning to come out to him soon anyway, so I suppose it's good that that's over and done with, too. Although if I'd thought about it for half a second more, I probably would have gone about it in a different way."

"The problem is the imaginary boyfriend, then." Gojo pushes himself out of the office chair and starts pacing up and down the length of the room, nose scrunching up, deep in thought. He hunches over to avoid smacking his head into the roof.

"Not really." Fushiguro shrugs, nonchalant. "Toji won't be visiting on Christmas. It's not ideal, but I can make up a story to feed him about what I did that day." Nobara will help him, he thinks—she'll tease him endlessly, of course, but she won't abandon him in his hour of need. "You're the only other person who knows, so as long as you don't tell anyone what I've told you, there's nothing to worry about."

"Well, that might have been a feasible option before." Gojo pauses in his pacing, looking back to Fushiguro. "But I mentioned it earlier, didn't I? I've already called Suguru and told him what Toji told me."

"...What."

"Suguru was at home with Mimiko and Nanako," Gojo continues, "So they might have overheard the conversation." He pivots on his foot to pace back in the other direction.

"You can't be serious," Fushiguro says faintly. There is an inevitable conclusion to this line of thought, looming over Fushiguro like a tidal wave. He staunchly refuses to process the implications.

"And if they heard correctly, they would have texted Tsumiki to find out more. Because you tell Tsumiki everything."

The implications process themselves anyway. Fushiguro dives for his backpack and heaves it off the floor, fishing frantically through the main pocket for his phone.

"Of course, Tsumiki wouldn't know anything about a boyfriend that didn't exist until half an hour ago. Which means if they couldn't get the details out of her, they would have gone straight to the source!" Gojo whirls around to face Fushiguro. "Have the girls messaged you at all today?"

"No." Fushiguro pulls the phone out from the bottom of his backpack. Some of the bag's contents spill onto the carpet in his haste—a jumper, a few textbooks. He barely notices them.

"Perfect!" Gojo claps his hands, eyes bright. "We can go with plan A, then."

"I turned my phone off completely so Toji couldn't call me again," Fushiguro says flatly. "I wouldn't have received any of their messages either."

"Ah." Gojo visibly deflates.

Fushiguro holds down the power button to reboot the phone, staring down at the black screen and seeing his own pinched expression looking back. Even he can tell he looks tired. Itadori is right—he should probably be taking better care of himself. Maybe he'll go to bed earlier tonight.

The phone glows, finally awake. Fushiguro grips it a little tighter as the screen lights up with the phone's logo, and then makes a conscious effort to relax his fingers. It's probably fine. Geto is probably the only other person who knows. There's no way his whole family is expecting him to bring a significant other along for winter break. Right? After all, it would take some really incredible bad luck for his sisters to have overheard enough of the conversation to—

From: Mimiko
i know ur getting these. open ur messages coward

From: Nanako
genuinely CANNOT believe this!!!! tell me his name!!!1!!

From: Tsumiki
I'm so so happy for you, Megumi! I can't wait to meet him 💖

Fushiguro looks up at Gojo. "I'm gonna kill you."

"Now, now, Megumi. Let's not be hasty." Gojo's voice is pleasant. "You can put that option down as plan D."

"What am I supposed to do?" Fushiguro hisses. "It's not as if I can just... conjure a boyfriend out of thin air!"

"How about plan B: tell everyone you had a bitter, messy, spectacular break up the day before you were supposed to bring him to meet everyone. Truly a fight for the history books. Then not only do you have a plausible excuse to come home alone, you also get special treatment from the family because they'll feel sorry for you. I'd call that a win-win scenario!"

Fushiguro is already shaking his head before Gojo finishes explaining. "There's no way that would work. Even if I somehow managed to fool Mimiko, Nanako, and Geto, Tsumiki would take one look at me and know the truth. Not only would I be caught in the most embarrassing lie of my life, I'd be caught trying to cover it up in the most embarrassing way—"

His phone's text tone pierces through the small office space, twice in rapid succession. Fushiguro flinches, startled out of his skin by the sound.

Nanako
i wasnt joking tell me his name right now. i NEED to stalk his social media

Nanako
gotta figure out whether hes good enough for you uwu

Fushiguro reaches blindly for the source of it and jams his finger down on the power button until the phone is completely off again. He looks up at the ceiling as he does it. Anything to avoid reading the text. Whatever his sisters are saying, he doesn't want to see it.

Gojo's composure buckles, his mouth contorting into awkward lines. And Fushiguro knows, he knows that Gojo is trying not to laugh at him.

"Don't you dare start that again," Fushiguro warns him, pointing a finger. "I mean it this time. If you laugh, I'm telling all your students that you use old memes deliberately to screw with them."

"You wouldn't."

"I'm not in a joking mood right now. You know I would."

And Gojo must know it, because the threat promptly wipes his face clean of any trace of humour aimed at Fushiguro's expense. Fushiguro allows himself a moment of satisfaction, and files the moment away in a mental folder labelled leverage over Gojo.

"Well," Gojo stretches out the word, "If you don't want to stage a pretend breakup, you could always do the opposite. Explain the situation to someone. Get them on board. Bring them home and show them off to everyone. Take them to meet Toji, even. That's indisputable proof."

"I'd rather hear about plan C."

"This is plan C."

Fushiguro blinks rapidly. "Did you miss the part where I mentioned I'm a hopeless actor?"

"But you wouldn't have any trouble if it was someone you already knew well, though, would you? Why don't you ask one of your friends? Inumaki, perhaps? Yoshino? Or Panda? Or Itadori?"

"What?" Fushiguro's head snaps up. "No. Absolutely not. I'm not asking Itadori."

"Why not?" Gojo asks, the picture of innocence.

"Because—"

Fushiguro stops short. He suddenly sees, with perfect clarity, the trap laid before him. There's no way to answer to that question which puts him in a good light, not when—

"I'm not asking him," is all Fushiguro says, with finality.

There's only one thing more mortifying than Gojo finding out about Fushiguro's stupid impulse to come out to Toji by lying about his relationship status; that would be Gojo finding out about Fushiguro's pathetic unrequited crush on his best friend, right after suggesting that Fushiguro should pretend to date said best friend in front of his family for the better part of two weeks.

"I think it could be good for you," Gojo insists all the same. "At the very least, it would save you from your inconvenient slip of the tongue on the phone with Toji. You wouldn't have any trouble convincing people you were in a relationship if you brought home someone you were already close to."

Fushiguro does not like the way Gojo says close to. Not one bit.

"Do you know what I think?" Fushiguro asks. "I think I'll settle for plan D after all."

He grabs a cushion from the armchair and hurls it at Gojo with all his strength. Gojo's squawk of protest is muffled by fabric as the pillow hits him square in the face. Gojo catches the cushion before it falls to the ground, ready to retaliate, but the door to the office creaks open before he gets the chance.

"Sorry—am I… interrupting?"

The student at the door somehow manages to pull off the incredible feat of appearing even more exhausted than Fushiguro feels. He looks between Gojo, the cushion held high over Gojo's head in striking position, Fushiguro guarding himself with his arms, and—for the briefest of moments—the framed photo of Fushiguro and his puppies on the wall.

"Okkotsu!" Gojo beams, his dark glasses askew from the force of Fushiguro's throw earlier. "What a surprise!"

"I did knock, I'm pretty sure?" Okkotsu taps his fingertips together lightly, a nervous habit. "I was waiting in the hall for a while."

"You're not interrupting anything." Fushiguro starts to pack his belongings back into his school bag. "I was just leaving."

"Look, Okkotsu! I found a new one." Gojo points to the cork board. "Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar—and doesn't!"

Okkotsu offers a half-hearted chuckle, a long-suffering look on his face. "Oh. That, uh… that's a good one, Sensei. I was actually wondering if you had time to clarify a question on the assignment for me, though?"

"Yes, yes. Of course. Take a seat."

Fushiguro rolls his eyes as he walks to the door. "See you later, Gojo."

"Ask him, Megumi. You know you want to~ "

Fushiguro doesn't slam the door on his way out, but he comes close to it, cutting off Gojo's lilting tease. He sighs, leaning back against the wall, dragging a hand down his face.

"...there's no way in hell I'm asking him," Fushiguro mutters to the empty hallway. "Definitely not."

"Hey, Fushiguro?" Itadori says later that evening. "Is there something you want to ask me?"

Fushiguro closes his eyes and allows himself a moment of silence to mourn his rapidly crumbling resolve.

"...What gives you that idea?"

He's sitting at the kitchen table in their shared living quarters, a three-bedroom flat in an independent apartment building, not unreasonably far from their university. The space is underwhelming in the way that student rentals so often are; cramped, old, in dire need of maintenance. It's cluttered with mismatched furniture and at least three different people's ideas about what constitutes good interior decor. It is made barely tolerable by the dirt cheap rent and the proximity to public transport. It is made his heart and home by the company he shares it with. Fushiguro wouldn't change it for the world.

"I dunno," Itadori raises his voice over the sizzle of stir fry on the cook top. "You keep glancing over like you're about to say something, but then you bury your head in your studies again."

Fushiguro hums non-committally in reply, pen scratching on paper as he tries to come up with an appropriately casual and platonic response.

"And, you have that look on your face—the one you wear when you're thinking hard about something."

"I don't have a look."

"You do! You definitely do. Your nose scrunches up, it's cute."

Cute. Oh, god. So much for getting more sleep this evening. Fushiguro is going to be replaying this moment in his head for hours yet.

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," Itadori continues, tipping some large, floppy bok choy leaves into the wok and tossing them through the mix. "But, y'know. If you do want to. I'm happy to listen. Also, dinner is gonna be ready in about two minutes."

Fushiguro's life would be a whole lot easier if Itadori was half as dense as people assume him to be. He almost wishes he could resent Itadori's uncanny ability to see through him like glass regardless of whether Fushiguro actually wants to be seen, but all he can muster is a blooming sense of warmth in his chest; touched that Itadori cares enough to offer, that he knows him well enough not to push.

"Should I clear the table?" Fushiguro sets down his pen.

"Nah, don't worry about it." Itadori waves dismissively. "Leave your homework set up, we can eat on the couch."

Fushiguro makes his way over to the kitchenette and starts ferreting through their draws for the appropriate bowls and cutlery, setting them down on the bench so Itadori can portion out the food. "I'm giving the chopsticks that don't match to Kugisaki," he announces, "Because she's not here to protest the decision."

"Ohhhh, that's what I forgot when I went shopping," Itadori winces. "Extra chopsticks."

"Get them when the sales are on in the new year, we're all going home for winter break soon anyway." Three bowls, one from himself, one for Itadori, and one for Kugisaki; Fushiguro tears off a square of paper towel to serve as a napkin for her and folds it into the shape of a wolf's head with deft, practised movements, setting the chopsticks neatly down on top of it. He puts a plate on top the top of the bowl to stop her food going cold too quick, then carries his own meal over to the corner of the apartment designated their lounge room. Springs squeak as he settles down cross-legged on the right side of the couch. "Thanks for the food."

Itadori takes his usual spot on Fushiguro's left, curled against the far side with his knees tucked up and his bowl wobbling precariously on the armrest. They eat in comfortable silence for a while, and Fushiguro basks in the flavour of the meal; he's asked Itadori to teach him how to make this dish a couple of times, but he can never get it to taste quite the same.

It's nice, keeping each other company like this.

They've never talked about it, but—in all the time they've been roommates, Itadori has never once made a move, never once responded to the subtle hints Fushiguro tried to throw his way. Fushiguro can read between the lines. He's weighed his options, done the math. A lifetime of friendship with the best person he's ever known is always going to hurt less than the gentleness with which Itadori would turn him down if he figured out the truth. This steady companionship, the equilibrium they've reached, it's always going to be easier to live with than the awkward, insurmountable distance that would grow between them in the wake of a confession.

Fushiguro has long since made his peace with the fact that Itadori doesn't feel the same way about him. It's selfish, in the end; he wants as much as Itadori is willing to give him, and they cannot keep this casual closeness once Itadori realizes that Fushiguro aches for it to mean something more. So if friends is all Itadori sees, then friends is what they'll be.

He's made his peace with it. It's enough, for him.

He thinks about reaching for the TV remote and flicking through the channels until he stumbles across something entertaining, if only to stop himself dwelling on what he can't have. But instead he says;

"I came out to my dad today."

"Really? That's a big deal!" Itadori says earnestly, eyebrows shooting up in surprise. He puts his meal aside for the moment and turns to face Fushiguro properly. "How did it go?"

"It went pretty okay, all things considered." Fushiguro gathers another bite onto his chopsticks, scooping them through the food. How does bok choy end up so tiny after it's cooked? "He didn't seem to hate the idea of it. He was just shocked, I think. Not expecting it. He'll come around."

"Wait, hold on—which of your two dads are you talking about?" Itadori's brow furrows in confusion.

"The third one, actually. I meant my biological father, Toji. Not my adoptive parents."

"Oh. That guy."

Fushiguro snorts. "Yeah. That guy."

It's rare to see Itadori openly dislike anyone, but what little Fushiguro has told him about how he ended up in Gojo and Geto's care has resulted in Toji earning a place firmly at the top of Itadori's Shortlist Of Unforgivable People.

"Well, I'm glad to hear it went okay for you, even if it might take him some time to get used to it." Itadori's smile is a sweet, warm comfort. He picks up his bowl again and resumes eating. "Is that what you've been wanting to talk about?"

"Sort of, but—not exactly. I should probably start from the beginning." Fushiguro scoops up the last bite of his food, if only to give him time to order his thoughts. There's something like nerves churning in his stomach—which is silly, because telling Itadori about what he's doing over the break isn't the same thing as asking Itadori to get involved. He's not asking Itadori anything. He's just filling in a good friend about the bizarre situation he's found himself in. It's a very entertaining story. There's no reason to get worked up over it at all.

He can't believe he's actually doing this.

"Okay, so," he starts, "Normally I spend winter break back at home, and see in the new year with Gojo and Geto and my sisters. But this year Toji asked if Tsumiki and I would be willing to spend New Year's Day with him instead of Gojo and Geto. We could celebrate it together, he said. Like a real family."

"Oh, so now he wants to be a real family." Itadori rolls his eyes, his voice dry and unimpressed.

"Yeah, that was my response, too," Fushiguro grimaces. "But I talked it over with Tsumiki, a lot, and we decided that we would… give him a chance, I guess. Not to be a—a father figure, we both agree it's way too late for that. But to be… not nothing. It's complicated. I couldn't leave Tsumiki to face him on her own, at any rate."

"You're really kind, Fushiguro, the way you're always thinking of others like that." Compliments always come easy from Itadori—sometimes Fushiguro doesn't know what to do with the weight of all the affection he shares so freely.

"I mean—I'm doing it for myself, too. I'm the one he's actually related to." Fushiguro looks away. He holds Itadori's praise close to his chest, a precious, glowing gift.

"Anyway, Toji called me today to work out the details. At first he was talking about having Tsumiki and I stay with him for the whole winter break. Fried chicken on Christmas together and everything. But that felt like too much, so I told him I needed to spend at least some of the holidays with Gojo and Geto, and that I was busy on Christmas. To which he said, 'oh, you have a date with a girl, don't you?', and to make a long story short—"

Fushiguro takes a deep breath.

"—I told him, no. I'm not spending time with a girlfriend for Christmas. I'm taking my boyfriend on a date."

Itadori stills.

"You have a boyfriend?" he asks carefully.

"No, I do not." Fushiguro buries his head in his hands, resting his elbows on his knees. Beside him, he hears Itadori say, "Oh." And then Itadori puts two and two together to realize that this is a lie Fushiguro will inevitably be caught out on the moment Toji asks anyone what Fushiguro did over Christmas, and he says, "Oh. Wow. You really messed up there, huh?"

"That's not the worst of it," Fushiguro groans. "There's more."

"There's more?"

"There's more," Fushiguro confirms, pulling himself back upright. He opens his eyes to see Itadori on the edge of his seat, absolutely enthralled by this series of unfortunate events.

"I get off the phone and I head straight to Gojo's office," he continues, warming up to his role of storyteller, "Planning to fill him in on what I organized with Toji. Except Gojo already knows all about it, because in the time it took me to trek across campus in the cold, Toji called Gojo and told him everything. Including the reason why I was 'busy' on Christmas day."

"No!" Itadori gasps, in the exaggerated way people do when they're taking part in the very juiciest of gossip.

"Would you like to know what Gojo did next?"

"Please. What did he do next?"

"Gojo went ahead and called Geto to ask if he was aware I had a boyfriend. And then, Mimiko and Nanako—my siblings from Geto's side of the family—they must have overheard the phone call somehow because they found out, too. And then, Mimiko and Nanako let it slip to Tsumiki that I have a date I'd been keeping secret from everybody."

Itadori looks as if the second hand embarrassment is enough to send him fleeing from the room. "Stop! You can't be serious right now!"

Fushiguro counts it out on his fingers. "I have no less than three sisters, two parents, and one unfortunate blood relation all expecting me to come home and step onto the front porch arm in arm with a boyfriend I don't have. A boyfriend I'm apparently so serious about that I've decided it's time for him to not only meet my family, but to be dragged into the whole very personal mess with Toji, too."

"...Holy shit," Itadori breathes, staring into the middle distance and running a hand through his hair as he wraps his head around the whole story. "What are you even going to do?"

"I have absolutely no idea," Fushiguro answers honestly.

"I'm guessing coming clean is out of the question."

Fushiguro pulls a face. "I wish it was. Unfortunately, I might actually have to tell the truth. I don't really see another option."

Itadori shifts closer to pat the top of Fushiguro's head in sympathy. "There, there. I'm sure you'll survive."

"They're going to be merciless," Fushiguro grumps, leaning into the touch. "None of them are ever going to let me live this down."

Itadori nods sagely. "True. But unless someone confesses their undying love for you out of the blue within the next two days before you leave, I don't know how you could keep your family in the dark about this."

"Gojo did actually suggest something like that. Recruiting a fake date for the holiday season." Fushiguro feels this conversation is starting to veer towards dangerous waters. But at the same time, Itadori hasn't moved his hand away yet—having graduated from patting Fushiguro's head to playing with his hair—and Fushiguro is quite enjoying himself here on the couch, so he's torn over whether to extricate himself or not.

"Ha! That's so like him. Can you imagine the chaos it would cause?"

"I'm not sure who would have it worse," Fushiguro muses. "My family, scrambling to wrap their heads around the fact that I really do have a partner, or the poor human sacrifice I put in from of them to play the role."

"Are you kidding? your family, obviously. Your fake date would be having the time of their life. Oh, imagine the look on Toji's face..."

Fushiguro has been so focused on how mortifying the whole situation is for him personally that he's only just now realizing what a golden opportunity this is, to pull off the greatest long con in the short history of the Gojo-Geto-Fushiguro household. Possibly it has something to do with being raised the middle child in a family full of troublemakers, but—the temptation to mess with them all has a gravitational pull. It's almost enough to make him willing to go through with the whole fake-dating thing.

He looks over at Itadori, ready to interject with something along those lines, and—

He can't say it.

Itadori is smiling as he talks. The amber glow of the lamplight makes him soft and safe and home. His fingers wind themselves absentmindedly through the roots of Fushiguro's hair, one of a thousand little intimacies he's only allowed to have as long as it means nothing to the both of them, and Fushiguro isn't brave enough to take the risk. Gojo had asked—why not Itadori?—and here is the answer, in the air and in his smile and in the comfortable back and forth of their conversation, because—

Because if it was Itadori, Fushiguro wouldn't be pretending, not really. Not entirely.

Because when the game is over and the ruse is done, Itadori will walk away without a second thought, and that might break Fushiguro's heart more than anything.

He can't say it. He looks down at his hands as the familiar sense of wistful acceptance washes over him, and reminds himself one more time that if he could just keep things the way they've always been, that would satisfy him.

"Oh, I get it now," Itadori teases as Fushiguro looks away again, pulling his hand back to poke Fushiguro's shoulder. "You've been glancing my way all night because you're hoping I'll swoop in like a knight in shining armour and pretend to be your boyfriend for the holidays."

Boyfriend?

Wait—

"Uh," Fushiguro says—the only thing he's capable of saying at all—because yes, actually, that's exactly what he had been doing, only he never had any intention of actually bringing it up—

Itadori freezes in place. "Hold on, I was just—just, have you actually been—"

Every second Fushiguro wastes sitting in stunned silence only serves to incriminate him further, but he's too busy short circuiting to even try and salvage his dignity. This can't be happening, Fushiguro thinks, for what feels like the millionth time today, and at the same time: of course it's happening. He's has been on such an incredible streak of bad luck that really, he should have seen this coming.

"Wait wait wait wait wait." Itadori shuffles back towards the armchair of the couch, waving his hands in the space between Fushiguro and himself. "I'm sorry, let me just—walk this conversation back a few steps, because I need to be one hundred percent certain." He closes his eyes for a moment and exhales, like he's collecting himself, or maybe gathering courage.

"Are you asking me to be your fake boyfriend for Christmas?"

Fushiguro stares back, helpless.

He should say no. He knows he should say no before he even opens his mouth to answer. He thinks of how he will be miserable when it ends. He thinks of how the way things have always been will never be enough to satisfy him again after this. He thinks of how he can't uncross this line once he crosses it, can't walk back the ways in which it will change their relationship. He thinks of holding hands and mistletoe and snowfall and Itadori by his side through all of it, fitting picture perfect into his life and his family as if he's always belonged there. It occurs to him that he has never been very good at saying no to Itadori.

He thinks this might be the stupidest idea he's ever had.

He thinks this might be the closest he's ever going to get to what he wants.

He says:

"Yes. I'm asking. Will you be my boyfriend for Christmas?"

Itadori's face splits into a wide, bright smile. "Sure," he grins, like it's easy, like it's nothing. "Let's do it."

Kugisaki chooses this moment to crash through the door of their apartment.

"I'm home!" Kugisaki shrugs off a fashionable coat speckled with snow, and hangs it on a hook by the door. She waits, expectant, and upon realizing that no response is forthcoming she clears her throat, repeating a little more forcefully; "I'm home!"

"Oh! Welcome back!" Itadori tears his eyes away from Fushiguro to address her with a wave. Fushiguro echoes him on delay, running on autopilot as his mind catches up to what he's agreed to. Kugisaki looks over the two of them, something sharp and suddenly calculating in her gaze.

"I'll grab dinner in a minute," she informs them in lieu of pursuing her suspicions, turning the heater up a few degrees. There's a note of pride in her voice as she adds, "Maki bought me new nail polish, because she's the best girlfriend ever, and I've been desperate to try it the whole way home."

"Let me see!" Itadori turns right around in his seat to get a better look, leaning over the back of the couch. "What colour is it?"

Fushiguro, through all this, is still staring at Itadori. It doesn't quite feel real. Holding hands and mistletoe and snowfall and fairy lights and hot cocoa and warm hugs and—

All of a sudden, Kugisaki is glaring down at him from above. "Fu-shi-gu-ro. You're in my spot."

It's enough to jolt him out of his daze. He makes a show of being more offended and inconvenienced by her demand than he really feels, but he moves to the middle so that she can take her usual place on his right. They set about performing the magician's act of squishing three people into a couch made for two, all pointy-elbows and snappy-remarks and jostling-for-room and shoulders pressed against shoulders until they settle into something approaching comfortable. If it were anyone else, Fushiguro wouldn't tolerate the invasion of his personal space, but he can't bring himself to mind it at all when it's Itadori and Kugisaki.

(It quietens something restless and nameless in him, to have them both close by like this, content and safe from harm.)

(That's irrational, obviously. And embarrassing. He wouldn't be caught dead admitting it out loud.)

"You are suspiciously untalkative, Fushiguro." Kugisaki raises an eyebrow without looking his way, twisting the lid on her bottle of nail polish. "Spit it out. What happened while I was gone?"

She balances the open bottle on Fushiguro's thigh and begins to coat her fingernails in a deep, rich shade of rose red. Fushiguro instinctively reaches out to brace the little bottle with his fingers before it topples, long since accustomed to Kugisaki's habits.

"I'm gonna be Fushiguro's boyfriend!" Itadori sings happily. Fushiguro wheezes. The nail polish nearly tips. That's going to take some getting used to.

Kugisaki halts mid-brushstroke. She straightens up in her seat, staring at the two of them with wide eyes.

"Don't get the wrong idea," Fushiguro sighs, tired. He can't stand the way she's looking between them, as if some kind of Christmas miracle is playing out before her eyes. "It's only for two weeks. I just needed a cover story, that's all."

"Aw, come on, Fushiguro!" Itadori laughs. "We'll never convince anyone it's the real deal if you're gonna be like that."

Kugisaki fixes Fushiguro with a look, then. It is a look which manages to convey several things all at once without her ever having to open her mouth.

It's not quite a look of pity. But it's not far off from one, either.

Fushiguro gives her a look of his own. He hopes his look says: Stop that.

"I think you'd better start from the top—" Kugisaki resumes her nail painting efforts, her voice mild in a way that implies she's making a deliberate effort to be calm about this,"—and explain to me what exactly is going on, here."

"I don't want to have to tell it all over again." She won't let him off the hook, Fushiguro is sure, but he feels the need to put up some form of token resistance—mostly because he's spent the last ten months, at least, turning to Kugisaki whenever he needed to vent about his crush, and he's certain she's going to judge him for the poor life choices he has made today.

"Too bad," Kugisaki says sweetly, with a flick of her miniature nail painting brush.

Fushiguro knows there's no denying her when she's like this, so he launches into yet another retelling of the entire sordid affair. Itadori is just as invested the second time around, wide eyed and incredulous and reacting at all the right moments. Kugisaki, however, is silent while he speaks. It's almost definitely a bad sign.

"And that's the whole story," he finishes. "Itadori has agreed to… be my proof, so to speak, so we'll be spending the holidays together this year."

Kugisaki sits still for a moment, eyes narrowed, a look of deep, heavy contemplation on her face. For one terrible moment Fushiguro is convinced she's going to rat him out here and now on the couch. She doesn't do that. Instead she whips out her phone, careful to keep her freshly set polish from smearing, and starts typing rapidly.

"What are you doing." Fushiguro doesn't say it like a question.

"Organizing bets." There's a smile on her lips, knife-sharp and cunning.

"What for?" Itadori asks, suspicious.

"Oh, nothing you need to concern yourselves with." Kugisaki's voice is breezy and light. "I'm just curious how long it will take the two of you to realize what's blindingly obvious to the rest of us, that all this time you've actually been madly in—"

"Oh, my god, stop." Fushiguro moves to bat the phone out of her grasp, making sure raise the nail polish in his other hand high out of harm's way—he's not so petty that he'll ruin her gift over something like this—while at the same time Itadori wails, "It's not like that, Kugisaki."

Which is fine.

It's not as if Fushiguro needs the reminder. He can pretend the fresh rejection doesn't sting.

Or—he can try to, but it's difficult to hide much of anything from Kugisaki when she's sitting right here next to him. Her eyes dart to his face before he has a chance to smooth over the cracks in his composure, and then to Itadori behind him, and for a brief moment her expression is torn between incredible frustration and a genuine flash of guilt. She places her phone back in her bag.

"Enough about you, then," she says after a long pause, in a magnanimous display of mercy. Fushiguro wonders if he does a good job of disguising the way his shoulders sag in relief. Kugisaki extends her hand across Fushiguro's lap so Itadori can admire the polish up close and coo over the colour. "We can talk about me instead. Was my date with Maki divine? Yes. Did I decline to eat at her place because I knew Itadori was cooking tonight? Also yes. If you didn't save food for me, prepare to die."

"I got hungry," Itadori says, turning her palm this way and that to watch the tone of the lacquer shift subtly in the light, "So I ate your serve."

There's a moment where Kugisaki's fingers twitch, as if she's actually considering violence. Fushiguro sympathies—frankly, if he had been denied his fair share of that stir fry, he'd be prepared to riot, too. Then Kugisaki catches sight of the mischievous glint in Itadori's eyes, and she snatches her hand back, stalking over to the kitchen bench to double check. Her food is untouched, of course, the bowl piled high with beef and vegetables all coated in the most delicious smelling sauce.

"The grim reaper will have to wait another day then, I suppose. Shame." She moves to gather up everything they laid out for her, until her fingers touch the chopsticks.

"Hey!" she yells, a flare of sudden sharp aggression, pointing the chopsticks between the two of them—one thin and long, the other snapped clean in two halfway to the tip. They never did find the other piece. "Which one of you gave me the pair that doesn't match?"

Perhaps the grim reaper won't have to wait after all. Itadori points wordlessly to Fushiguro, who had anticipated the lack of solidarity and finds himself affronted by it regardless.

"Look, though," Fushiguro grabs Itadori's hand and directs his pointing finger back to the bench. "I folded your napkin up all nice."

Kugisaki does look, and for a moment her aggression vanishes. "Oh, it's one of your dogs!" She gasps, eyes sparkling with delight—until she shakes her head, anger rebounding like a flipped switch, and turns back to Fushiguro.

"Don't think you can distract me with cheap tricks," she growls, but Fushiguro has already begun his great escape, taking advantage of her momentary lapse in focus to make a mad dash for his bedroom door. He slips around it before Kugisaki can give chase, twists the lock to the sound of Itadori's raucous laughter, and stands alone in the dark for a moment, his friends' raised voices making their way through the wall.

"You can use my chopsticks, if you don't mind rinsing them clean," Itadori offers, ever the bleeding heart. "I'm done eating."

"Wash your own dishes," Kugisaki snaps back. They quiet down after that, though, the dialogue turning muffled and indistinct, and Fushiguro gives up on listening in.

He looks around his room, eyes adjusting rapidly to the lack of light, and makes his way over to sit on his bed through memory more than sight. This is what he needs—some time on his own, in a space that's only his, to figure out exactly how he feels about everything that's happened to him over the last half a day. No knowing looks from Gojo, no matchmaking attempts from Kugisaki, no prying eyes and expectations from the handful of relatives who never should have found out about this in the first place.

He grabs his phone to plug it into the charger for the night and is immediately greeted by the texts he had ignored from Nanako earlier today, still sitting on his unopened lock screen like a landmine half buried in the dirt.

All right, then. Apparently, no prying eyes is too much to ask, even when he's sitting by himself in his own bedroom with the lights out and the door locked. At least the texts aren't as bad as he thought they would be. They're actually kind of sweet, in a vaguely threatening sort of way.

Nanako
i wasnt joking tell me his name right now. i NEED to stalk his social media

Nanako
gotta figure out whether hes good enough for you uwu

He unlocks his phone and types out a reply. Deletes it. Types it out again. His finger hovers over the send button for a good fifteen seconds. Don't think about it, he tells himself. Just press the button.

He backs out of the message window, losing his nerve. Better check with Itadori first. Just in case he changed his mind, or something.

Fushiguro
okay, point of no return: I'm about to message my sister

Fushiguro
u sure you wanna do this?
bc if you bail on me after ive told her about u
I'm gonna have a lot of explaining to do

Itadori
Yes!!!!!!!!!!! im sure!!!!

Itadori has set the emoji to ❤️

Itadori
❤️

There's not a lot of room for ambiguity in that, is there? Not a lot of room for doubt. They're really doing this. He's not sure if he's terrified or giddy with excitement. He's definitely still in shock. Any minute now he expects reality to come crashing back in, for his heart to catch up with his brain and finally remember that he's entertaining a dream doomed to turn to ashes in his mouth when he wakes.

He tries to tell himself it's only temporary. He tries to remind himself that Itadori is doing this as a friend, as a favour, nothing more. He tries to focus on the words—it's not like that, Kugisaki. Because it's not. And he fails at all of it, fails miserably and hopelessly to convince himself of any of it. Fushiguro has always wanted as much as Itadori is willing to give him, after all. Even if it's not forever. Even if it's not real the way he wants it to be.

If Itadori is willing to give him this, Fushiguro can't refuse it. He'll let himself be selfish, for just a little longer.

Fushiguro gives the heart Itadori sent him a thumbs-up react before navigating back to Nanako's profile. And then, he figures he might as well rip the band-aid off in one go, copying and pasting his response into the family group chat. He hesitates for a moment more, then—hits send, promptly shoves his phone under his pillow, and buries himself beneath the blankets. That's it. They're committed now.

No going back.

Megumi
his name is itadori yuuji

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