Work Text:
Yuuji isn’t sure what to expect when Fushiguro tumbles over immediately after exorcizing a curse.
He’s on his feet as soon as he notices the other boy topple over, but Kugisaki, who was closer to begin with, makes it to Fushiguro's side first. She stares at his still body as Yuuji rushes over. Yuuji gets the sense that he should get her away from Fushiguro’s body when Kugisaki nudges his apparently sleeping form with her foot, but he doesn’t realize quite how dire the situation is for Fushiguro until he notices Kugisaki lifting her hand.
“Wait, Kugisa—”
A resounding slap echoes through the room. Yuuji gawks.
He isn’t sure what he expected after Fushiguro tumbled over immediately after exorcizing a curse—but it wasn’t this.
If Yuuji strains his ears, he can still hear the faint echo of the slap ringing in the halls. Megumi’s body remains perfectly still. It’s only when Kugisaki lifts her hand again that Yuuji snaps back to himself, this time reacting fast enough to halt Kugisaki’s hand before it can meet Megumi’s skin again. She swings him an unimpressed look.
“What?” she asks, her hand still straining against the grip Yuuji has on her wrist.
“Don’t—don’t slap him!” Yuuji says, aghast that he even needs to clarify.
Kugisaki squints at him. “Why not?” she asks. “It worked with you before, didn’t it?”
Yuuji’s mouth opens, then closes. He can’t exactly rebut the statement—he had actually fallen unconscious as the result of an exorcism once only to be awakened by a sharp stinging on his cheek, but something about using the same method on Fushiguro makes Yuuji frown.
“Well,” Yuuji says lamely after a pause that stretches too long. “Still, you don’t have to—”
A quiet groan interrupts the two of them. Yuuji turns immediately to find Fushiguro sitting up, one hand pressed against the ground and one held against his head. His jaw drops. He glances at Kugisaki, who only smiles smugly in return, before his gaze darts back to Fushiguro—Fushiguro, who is now squinting blearily at Kugisaki.
“Kugisaki?” he mumbles, and Yuuji squashes down the surprise that unfurls in his gut at Kugisaki being the first to be acknowledged. Kugisaki was physically closer to Fushiguro in the moment, after all, so it would only be another moment before he’d turn his head and see Yuuji and smile in that subtle way of his—not even necessarily an upturn of his lips, but a relaxing of his features, just enough for Yuuji to recognize as a Fushiguro-specific smile.
“Hey,” is Kugisaki’s greeting. “You feeling fine?”
“Head hurts,” is Fushiguro’s quiet response, but he finally lets his hand drop from his forehead. “Only a bit, though.” His hand moves to his cheek. He frowns. “Did you slap me?”
“Maybe,” Kugisaki says with a shameless shrug. Fushiguro’s frown deepens.
Yuuji can’t keep himself quiet for much longer. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he blurts out, and finally, finally, Fushiguro’s gaze swings towards him.
Yuuji doesn’t see a softening of features—there’s no Fushiguro-specific smile to be found, not in the cold edges and hard angles of his expression. Yuuji stiffens. He’s no stranger to that expression, but directed towards him—
“You…” Fushiguro starts slowly, and the hair on Yuuji’s arm raises at his low tone. “You’re… Sukuna’s vessel.”
Yuuji wonders for a brief second if he’s been the one slapped with the way Fushiguro’s words tunnel into his gut and burn in his throat. He swallows. Even Kugisaki, next to him, has her brows drawn together in confusion.
“What?” Yuuji asks, and his voice is small, even to his own ears. “No, I’m not—” He cuts himself off. He couldn’t say he wasn’t Sukuna’s vessel, right?
“Don’t take another step closer,” Fushiguro warns when Yuuji tries doing exactly that. Yuuji’s feet still. Megumi’s wary gaze doesn’t falter, though, and when he begins to raise shaky hands in a manner very familiar to Yuuji, Yuuji’s blood runs cold.
“Wait, wait, no—”
“With this treasure, I summon—”
“This is certainly strange,” Gojo muses, a hand on his chin. “Alright, Megumi, can you name the people I point at? Starting with, of course,” he continues with a blinding grin, “your favorite teacher!” He pokes a finger into his own cheek.
Fushiguro’s face twitches in a half sneer. “Gojo-sensei,” he says flatly. “The most annoying person I know.”
Gojo squawks, but quickly recovers. “You must have just forgotten how amazing I am,” he dismisses, before pointing at the healer watching the interaction play out. “And her?”
“Ieiri-san.”
“What about her?”
“Kugisaki.”
“Hmm, and him?”
“Ijichi-san.”
“Ah, you’re so close to a full score, Megumi-chan! And finally, what about him?”
“...Sukuna’s vessel.” In the silence that follows his answer, Fushiguro pulls his eyes from Yuuji’s stricken gaze to meet Gojo’s indiscernible gaze through the blindfold. “Is he not?”
Gojo hums overly loud in lieu of a response. “Interesting,” he declares. “Very interesting. And strange. Bizarre, you might even call it!”
“Gojo-sensei,” Yuuji blurts out before Gojo can continue listing synonyms. “What’s happened to him?”
Fushiguro looks annoyed at the question, but he glances at Gojo too, listening to the sorcerer’s answer.
“Hard to say,” is Gojo’s breezy response. “Megumi’s cursed energy is all in fine order, as verified by our expert doctor,” he explains, nodding in Ieiri’s direction, “and his memory is all in working order… except when it comes to you, Yuuji-kun.” Yuuji blinks. “It seems to be a very specific case of selective memory loss. He remembers Sukuna, but not you… it’s the curse’s fault, I assume.”
Yuuji taps his fingers on his thigh from his seat near the wall. “So…” He hesitates. “The… cure?”
“I couldn’t say,” Gojo admits. “Only time will tell, really.”
Yuuji bites the inside of his cheek. “So he could… never remember me again?”
“Have a little more faith in Megumi-chan,” is Gojo’s advice, accompanied by a solemn pat on his shoulder. “Come on, come on. Introduce yourself again. You’re getting another chance at a first impression, here!”
Yuuji’s gaze swivels to Fushiguro, still watching them warily. He seems wholly unimpressed with Yuuji already, and Yuuji’s pretty sure it’s a few hours too late to make a first impression, but with a large inhale, he does his best to grin at Fushiguro.
“My name is Yuuji Itadori, and I’m into—” At Fushiguro’s bewildered expression, he cuts himself off. “Err, never mind. It’s nice to meet you… Fushiguro.” When the succeeding silence stretches thin, Yuuji blurts out before he can bite his tongue, “you can call me Yuuji, by the way.”
Kugisaki sends him an unimpressed look. On the other side of the room, Gojo unsuccessfully hides a snort. Yuuji winces.
“I… think I’ll stick to Itadori.”
Yuuji deflates at Fushiguro’s response. It was worth a shot, at least, he supposes.
“But it’s nice… to meet you, Itadori.”
Yuuji brightens. “Yeah!” He scratches his cheek with a finger. “I’ve got the room right next to you. If you ever need anything, or you want to… talk, or anything, you can always come by!”
Fushiguro looks at him strangely, like he’s a puzzle Fushiguro can’t quite figure out. Yuuji does his best to resist fidgeting under the scrutiny.
“Alright, Itadori.”
Their interactions don’t get any less awkward following the clumsy introductions—if anything, it gets worse. It’s clear that neither of them know how to properly talk to each other, not anymore, and it makes Itadori horribly nostalgic for the late nights he’d spend in Fushiguro’s room or vice versa, talking about everything and nothing under the sun. It’s to the point that Yuuji can’t even tell which of them is more actively avoiding the other—he supposes it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things when the end result of empty spaces and quiet hallways is the same.
Kugisaki’s bothered by the friction, too, Yuuji can tell. Unlike most of her problems, though, this isn’t exactly something she can fix with her trusty tools, and so she’s started distancing herself from the both of them, choosing to spend more time with the second years—she’s never outwardly hostile to Yuuji, but the pitying glances he can feel on the back of his head any time they cross paths always makes Yuuji frown.
Yuuji could do the same, in theory—pull himself away from the magnetic draw of the hallway connecting their rooms together, letting the thread between them snap and fray, but even in theory, the thought is so appalling to him that he dismisses it a second after he thinks about it.
Which is how, he supposes, he finds himself running into Fushiguro in the kitchen. He had only meant to come down for a light evening snack, but when he sees a familiar head of spiky hair, all thoughts of food leave his mind immediately.
“Hello,” is how he announces his presence, expecting but still wincing at Fushiguro’s subsequent flinch at Yuuji’s voice. When Fushiguro turns, his expression is guarded, but he still nods in Yuuji’s direction.
“Hi,” he murmurs back in greeting before turning to his work. Yuuji slowly pads around the counter to watch Fushiguro, eyes widening when he sees what the other boy is making.
“Meatballs?”
Fushiguro hums in acknowledgement. Yuuji coughs.
“I thought you wouldn’t…” He trails off, before clearing his throat and starting again. “Do you remember me teaching you how to make those?”
Fushiguro finally lifts his eyes up to meet Itadori’s. “You taught me?” he asks, and the casual confusion in his voice twists something in Yuuji’s gut. “I thought it was Gojo,” he mumbles to himself, but it’s still loud enough for Yuuji to hear.
“No, that was… me.”
Fushiguro blinks slowly. “Hm.”
And there was that awkwardness roaring its ugly head. Yuuji coughs again. “Can I… help?”
“With the meatballs?”
“Yeah,” Yuuji confirms. He fidgets. “If that’s fine with you?”
Fushiguro watches him with an inscrutable expression. His eyes flicker away.
“Alright.”
In the quiet of the kitchen, it’s almost comfortable enough to lull Yuuji into a false sense of security. It’s almost comfortable enough for Yuuji to remember their previous escapades in the kitchen, it’s almost comfortable enough to remember Megumi cracking a soft smile after his first success in the kitchen under Yuuji’s careful guidance, it’s almost comfortable enough to remind Yuuji of home, but almost isn’t quite enough.
But for now, Yuuji thinks when their fingers brush as he passes the salt, maybe almost is enough.
Yuuji grows almost used to the solitude, which is why he nearly startles entirely out of his bed when he hears a knock at the door. Neither Gojo nor Kugisaki are the type to knock, especially when they have the option to barge in, which means it can really only be one person at the door—
“Fushiguro,” Yuuji greets breathlessly after hurrying to the door. He swipes a hand through his hair, hoping belatedly it doesn’t look too much like the crow’s nest it typically is after he’s spent an afternoon lounging on his bed. “Do you… need anything?”
Fushiguro’s not empty handed, and it’s the items he’s carrying that next catch Yuuji’s attention. Fushiguro hums contemplatively before lifting the objects in his hands.
“I think these are yours,” he says, nodding towards the manga volumes in his hands. “I tried giving them to Kugisaki, because I thought she gave them to me, but she gave me such an intense look of distaste that, uh…” He trails off and shrugs. “I assumed they must be yours.”
“Kugisaki’s not the biggest fan of One Piece,” Yuuji explains quickly, taking the proffered books into his own hands. “I was lending you my collection since you’re interested in—” He cuts himself off. “Since you were so interested in the story. Surprising,” he taps the cover of the book on top, “since you’re only a bit into it.”
“I remember One Piece,” is Fushiguro’s next murmured confession. “I just thought Kugisaki was the one who introduced me to it…” He trails off, before shaking his head. “And this is yours, too, right?” He holds up a hoodie Yuuji recognizes.
“Oh, I thought I lost that!” Yuuji takes the hoodie into his hands. The material’s warm, like it’s been worn recently, even though Yuuji knows it’s been missing for at least a week. He chooses not to think about the fact for much longer. “Thanks.”
“I remembered it being Panda’s,” Fushiguro admits. “But that didn’t seem right. So…”
“Maybe it’s a sign of your memory coming back,” Yuuji suggests, and suddenly all of Fushiguro’s features pull down with what seems to be exhaustion. Yuuji bites his tongue, wishing he could swallow the words back.
“I doubt it,” he murmurs wearily. He shakes his head. “Anyway, I just wanted to return those. See you.”
And with that, he turns away from the door, but Yuuji has seen more of Fushiguro’s back than he’d like for the past few days. Impulsively, he reaches a hand out to tug at Fushiguro’s sleeve.
“Wait.” Fushiguro turns back to him with wide eyes. Yuuji swallows. “You… want to stay? For a bit?” When Fushiguro’s expression remains blank, Yuuji laughs awkwardly. “I can give you the next volumes of One Piece…?”
Fushiguro’s expression is still blank, but Yuuji can tell now that it’s a careful mask to hide Fushiguro’s actual emotions. What emotions exactly, Yuuji can’t exactly parse out, but after a pause, Fushiguro nods slightly. With a grin, Yuuji pushes open the door wider to let Fushiguro in. Fushiguro’s eyes roam across the expanse of Yuuji’s room, his gaze stuttering when it falls on a certain figure.
“Renji Abarai,” he reads from the figure’s stand. “Didn’t I buy this?”
“Oh… yeah, you did!” Yuuji hesitates. “Do you… remember?”
“I remember buying it,” Fushiguro says carefully, his gaze still fixated on the red-haired figure. “But…” He trails off, and Yuuji knows enough by now to fill in the blanks. He lets out a short laugh.
“Ah… it’s fine, Fushiguro, really. You don’t have to strain yourself.” Yuuji quickly turns away from Fushiguro to rummage in his bookshelf—to find the next volume of One Piece, of course, and most definitely not to hide his expression from the other boy. “Here,” he says after a few moments, turning back to hand a volume to Fushiguro, who stares at his outstretched hand with a complicated expression, “I’m pretty sure you’re on volume 21.”
“Thanks,” Fushiguro says after a beat.
Yuuji sits on the floor with his own manga volume—Haikyuu, volume 45—against the end of his bed. “You can sit wherever,” he tells the other boy, gesturing to the open space on the floor. “Even the bed, if you want.”
Fushiguro’s eyes flicker to the bed for a split second before moving back to Yuuji. “That’s fine.” He sinks to the floor on the spot right beside Yuuji. “Here is… fine, too, right?”
“Oh?” Yuuji asks, bewildered. “Oh. Oh! Yeah, it’s fine. Totally fine!”
Shut up and read, idiot, a voice that sounds like Sukuna reverberates in his head. You shut up! Yuuji thinks back vehemently, but he does snap his mouth shut to flip open his book to where he last left off. From the corner of his eye, he sees Fushiguro do the same. He quickly pulls his gaze away before he can get too distracted by watching Fushiguro’s lithe fingers flip the pages.
Just like that, thirty minutes pass. Thirty more minutes probably would have passed too, but it’s surprisingly Fushiguro who breaks the silence.
“I’m sorry.”
“Huh?” Yuuji says, tearing his eyes away from the page. He blinks. “For what?”
“In the beginning,” Fushiguro starts slowly, and even though he’s still staring at whatever open page he’s on, his gaze is unfocused and Yuuji can tell his mind is elsewhere, “I called you Sukuna’s vessel.” He shakes his head. “I still don’t remember you, but I remember… that’s not right.”
“Well,” Yuuji starts, a little confused, “I am Sukuna’s vessel, though.”
Unfortunately, a snide voice in his head comments.
“But you’re not—” Fushiguro cuts himself off with a frustrated noise. “I made it seem like that’s all you were. I was wrong. I’m sorry.”
“Oh,” Yuuji says, surprised. “Well. Err. Yeah, it’s no—it’s no problem, Fushiguro, really—”
“Itadori,” Fushiguro interrupts with a raised eyebrow. “Just take the apology.”
“Right. Yes,” Yuuji agrees. “Apology accepted!”
Fushiguro lets out a sigh at that, a small and relieved one. It’s accompanied by a slight smile, and the very sight of it after so long has the same effect as an arrow straight through Yuuji’s heart. He tries not to make it too obvious, but he’s still thankful that Fushiguro won’t look up to see how red his face likely is.
“Then, I should be going,” is Fushiguro’s next line, to Yuuji’s dismay. Before standing up, he glances at Yuuji. “Is it alright if I borrow this to finish, though?” he asks, holding up the volume in his hand. Yuuji nods vigorously enough to snap his neck.
“Sure,” he agrees fervently. “Drop it back here whenever you want. My room’s always open,” for you, he doesn’t add as he walks Fushiguro to the door.
Fushiguro drops his head in a slight nod. “Thanks.” At the door, he hesitates. “I’ll see you, then, Yuuji.”
He’s halfway down the hallway before the words register in Yuuji’s mind. It’s with a grin wide enough to split his face that Yuuji pokes his head out the door—
“See you, Megumi!”
It becomes easy after that—almost too easy. They’ve gone back to acting almost the exact same way as they were before, with Megumi finally growing comfortable in Yuuji’s presence. Now, it’s him asking if he can join Yuuji in the kitchen, him asking for the next manga volume of One Piece, him inviting Yuuji to his room for a change—the familiarity of it all warms something inside of Yuuji he hadn’t realized had gone cold.
The first names are new, though. Yuuji hopes the habit will stick even after Megumi gets his memory back.
Which doesn’t seem to be any time soon, they’re both realizing—it’s been a little more than a week now, and with no sign of recovery, both Yuuji and Megumi have been watching their hope trickle like a slow countdown. Still, Yuuji isn’t complaining, not when this Megumi is so close to his own.
Close, but not exactly so, something Yuuji only remembers when they’re huddled on the couch in the basement watching a movie. The movie ends, and Yuuji turns to Megumi, opening his mouth to comment on the ending of the film, but all the words in his mouth dry up when he notices the way Megumi watches. His mouth remains open in a half-gape, even as Megumi leans in closer, and it’s only when Megumi’s eyelashes are close enough to brush Yuuji’s cheeks that he breaks out of his stupor with a gasp, jerking his head back and nearly catapulting himself off the couch.
“What—what are you doing?”
Even in the dim light of the basement, Yuuji can see Megumi’s expression twitch with annoyance.
“I’m—” Megumi cuts himself off. “I’m trying to kiss you.”
Yuuji stares at him. “Why?”
Megumi stares back at him. “Isn’t this… what we do?”
“What?” Yuuji asks again, and then his eyes widen. “Oh. No. No, we’re not… like that…”
Not yet, at least, Yuuji adds mentally.
Megumi’s expression twists. “Oh,” he says dully. “This is embarrassing.”
“Wait, no, it’s not—” Yuuji waves his hands in the air. “It’s not like I don’t want to, but—” He swallows. “I want you to be yourself, if we ever…”
Megumi tilts his head to the side. “Am I not enough of myself yet?”
How can you be yourself if you don't remember me? Yuuji thinks foolishly, but it's such a terribly selfish thought that he shakes his head to dispel it immediately.
“Err, it’s not—well—” Words fail Yuuji, and he hangs his head in disappointment. “Um, is this okay, instead?”
Before Megumi can answer, Yuuji quickly leans forward to press his lips against Megumi’s cheek. Apologies rise on his tongue when he pulls away, beyond worried that he’s overstepped the other’s boundaries, but when he leans back—
—Megumi is, once again, fast asleep.
Yuuji doesn’t see Megumi for a while after that.
A while, meaning a few hours, because it is, in fact, just a few hours after Yuuji drops Megumi at Ieiri’s office that he runs into the other boy in the hallway between their rooms.
“Megumi,” is the only thing Yuuji can say stupidly. “You’re—okay. You’re okay?”
“Yuuji,” Megumi murmurs. He shifts on his feet. “I’m. Fine.” He won’t meet Yuuji’s eyes. “Did Gojo-sensei talk to you already?”
“Gojo-sensei?” Yuuji repeats distractedly. “No… why?” He blinks rapidly and takes a step forward. “You… remember me?”
“Of course I do.”
A weight drops from Yuuji’s shoulders. He has to press a hand to his mouth to hide the grin stretching across his face. But Megumi, still seemingly preoccupied with the floor, has a frown on his face.
“Gojo-sensei didn’t tell you anything. Really?”
Yuuji shakes his head. “Was he supposed to?”
“No,” Megumi mutters. His expression darkens. “He said I should tell you myself.”
“...tell me what?”
Megumi sighs. He pinches the bridge of his nose with his fingers before letting his hand drop. “The… curse. I was affected by.” He shakes his head. “It made me forget,” he continues slowly, “only one person.”
“Right,” Yuuji agrees. “Me.”
“It made me forget,” Megumi continues, his brows furrowing as he speaks, “only the person I was in love with.”
“Right,” Yuuji agrees again. “Me.” He pauses. “Wait, what?”
“This is so embarrassing,” Megumi mutters. With another sigh, he finally straightens to look Yuuji in the eye. “You don’t have to do this whole song and dance, though. I already know you don’t like me… like that, at least.”
“H–huh—wait, what—wait, huh?”
“Yuuji. It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not!” Yuuji blurts out. “I’m in love with you, too! Obviously.”
Megumi stares at him like he’s grown a second head. “Obviously?” he repeats. “You literally—you rejected my advances—”
“I wasn’t going to take advantage of you like that,” Yuuji stresses. “I thought you were just—confused…” He trails off. “I really like you, Megumi.” He glances to the side, scratching the back of his head. “Uh…” he starts awkwardly. “Did you still… want that kiss… or…?”
Yuuji gets his answer in the three steps it takes Megumi to close the distance between them.
(It'll only be later that Megumi looks up from flipping through One Piece, volume 23, to meet Yuuji's eyes.
"Wait, when did you start calling me Megumi?" A pause. "When did I start calling you Yuuji?"
"Ah," Yuuji will say with a bright grin. "Don't worry about it, Megumi!")