Chapter Text
The ache in the stomach is love. The ache in the stomach is love. Megumi does not hate Gojo’s guts just because the man decided to strongarm him into a 2 AM ice cream run.
The gear shift is jammed a little, but only a little. Gojo manages to wiggle it around gently enough to dislodge it and move it to second gear—like one might with a loose tooth, if you were nice about it. He’s never really been nice about it, though. When Megumi's first few baby teeth started wiggling, Gojo thought this to be twenty opportunities to shatter the trust between child and tooth-robber, one for each tooth. Tied string to door handle, tied string to remote-controlled race car, trying to pry the teeth out while Megumi was asleep, the good old fashioned "here, lemme see that tooth kid," and then immediately pulling the thing out of its socket. Or, once, he chased Megumi with a pair of pliers, threatening to wrench them out of his mouth. He's done it all.
"Why the fuck do you even know how to drive a manual? I thought you only drove the BMW," Megumi grumbles, suddenly irritated while remembering the twenty teeth he had traumatically ripped from his maw over the course of five years. He's all buckled up, sinking into the passenger seat, not because he thinks the seatbelt will save him from Gojo's driving, but because Gojo absolutely cannot get pulled over with an unbuckled minor in the car. They'll really lock him up for good.
"I'm gonna rinse out that potty mouth of yours with bleach," Gojo replies easily. "You cuss like a sailor."
"Wonder where I got that," he mutters.
"Shoko," he answers easily. "Couldn't be me."
"Shoko doesn't talk to me. She thinks I'm a whiny brat."
"Well, maybe she's onto something—Shut the fucking door, we're on a highway!"
Okay, whatever, they're not related, but he did inherit this one trait from Gojo directly: pushing buttons, no matter how costly, always. And the trait must've been bluetoothed, airdropped directly into the barbed wire cesspool of his heart because he will meet Gojo tit for tat these days. He lets him get away with too much. Not anymore.
He quickly pulls the car door shut before the whipping wind outside can slam the thing open and rip it off its hinges. Gojo's definitely speeding. He's speeding and there's a speed camera up ahead. Megumi knows this because he knows every single high risk road Gojo likes to speed on and then get ticketed for, and by proxy, he knows where all the red light cameras are too. This is what they call knowledge.
Greyed out buildings buzz by them in a blur, washed out by the tar in the sky. He’s pissed again.
"Let me out."
“If you wanted to get out, you could just open the door and hop out, Megs—Shut the door!” Gojo’s not quite a hypocrite, no. That’s not the right word. He stands by what he says, and he does what he stands by. For the most part. But there’s something in between “hypocrite” and “incompetent buffoon” that he can’t quite place his finger on. If he could box it all up into one word, he’d have it plastered on a shirt by now. “I’m putting the child locks back on,” Gojo mutters, and Megumi is so glad to finally hear the twinge of annoyance in his voice.
“For what? The two times a year you actually drive me somewhere?”
“Is something wrong?” Gojo asks abruptly, in all the wrong tones. The words are unhappy, and they’d sound uncaring, too, to the untrained ear. But Megumi knows who he’s talking to, has known him just barely long enough to know that Gojo couldn’t not care, and that was his cosmic failure. “I get that you love being pissy sometimes, Megs, but this is too much, even for you. Did something happen?”
“No,” he mutters petulantly.
And just like that, the bitters fanning in his voice are gone, replaced with a teasing lilt he’s so familiar with. “You sure? It’s not girl problems, or something?”
Megumi resists the urge to scoff loudly in his face. “Like you’d know anything about girl problems. Or girls.” And he does. Gojo doesn’t, but Megumi does know about girl problems. And girls. Because he has a sister, and he has Nobara, which is basically like having two sisters, and Tsumiki might be unreachable right now but that doesn’t stop the girl drama from seeping into his life anyway.
“Gah-hah!” Gojo snorts heartily, letting the car dawdle near the shoulder of the road without care. “Says who, Megs? I sure know girl problems! See, see,” he says, waving aimlessly at something between the driver’s seat and centre console. “When she says, ‘it’s fine,’ it’s actually not fine. And when she says, ‘I don’t care, you pick’ it means she actually does care and you have to pick what she wants, and when she says, ‘Satoru! My tummy hurts!’ you gotta say, ‘Daddy kiss the boo boo—’”
“Kill yourself,” Megumi says immediately, rubbing exhausted hands all over his face. “Shut the fuck up. Stop talking.” Daddy kiss the boo boo. Megumi’s gonna light the school on fire.
This is actually further proof that Gojo does not know girl problems or girls, and Megumi does. He knows girl problems because he has Maki, who is his cousin and basically an estranged sister, even though technically if you squint at their family tree’s connecting lines, she’s actually his aunt. But no one squints that hard, worried they’d find a circle somewhere in there. Worried they'd be in the circle. A byproduct of the circle.
He’s squinted too hard already, actually. God, his father and Maki are cousins. They have the same grandparents. That’s weird. That’s weird as hell. His face sours and he sinks further into the black leather seat. Now he’s upset. Even more upset than before.
And because Gojo can’t read minds, he takes the look on his face to be an admission. “Oooh, so it is girl problems. So, what’s up?”
Megumi inherited his spiky hair from his father. Probably, at least. He can’t remember his mother’s face or hair at all, isn’t sure if he’s even met her. He knows he must have, at least briefly, but it’s not like that matters much now. But he can remember his father’s silhouette, towering several feet above him when he was a child, with what looked like a wetted mop of hair plastered to his head. When he fluffed it up, it looked like he’d been electrocuted. Maybe, and he’d never admit this part out loud, he might’ve inherited his pissy attitude and foul manners from the guy, too.
But this? His benign love for pushing buttons, getting on Gojo’s nerves? That was from Gojo. Defense mechanism, or whatever.
“Yeah,” he plays along. “It’s girl problems. I got someone pregnant.”
Gojo swerves the car into a ditch.
Hindsight’s useless. That’s why Megumi ignores Gojo’s prattling as they sit by the side of the road in the middle of the night, cars whizzing by them at high speeds, while he wrings his hands out again to keep the biting cold from seizing up his fingers.
“Oh, you’re fucking lucky I am who I am and I had Infinity up!” Gojo yells hysterically, waving his hands around. He’d just gotten off the phone with Ijichi, the poor guy, who he’d begged to come around with a tow truck. God knows how he would acquire one. Maybe it wasn’t begging, but this time, he’d actually asked the guy for his help instead of commanding him to do it like he usually does, which is basically begging. “You could’ve died! What were you thinking?”
He’s yelling at him like Megumi was the one driving the car and turning the steering wheel into a ceiling fan. Megumi continues to ignore him, sitting down on a really nice boulder. It was probably put there by the city. There’s a row of boulders lining the edge of the ditch by the highway. Did they pick out nice boulders, just for him? How nice of them.
“Are you even listening to me!”
No, and he won’t, he decides. The car’s actually in great shape for a rollover. The passenger seat would’ve been crushed, had Gojo not pulled Megumi into his bubble of Infinity at the first sight of impact. They’d turned all the lights off from the vehicle so that people driving by didn’t stop and try to help them. Megumi is thankful that it was a solo crash. If his unassuming shit-stirring with Gojo had resulted in someone else dying or getting injured, he’d really have to execute himself.
But, at the same time, he’s not yet satisfied with the amount of shit stirred.
“Megumi!” Gojo yells, and he finally looks up at him from the rock he’s sitting on. Gojo looks a little bit like a wild white hare, all jumpy nerves and red eyes, overstimulated no doubt from the tumble. But that’s all it was to him, a tumble. Megumi had to empty out his stomach a minute ago. His lunch had been centrifuged out of him. “Explain yourself,” he demands, crossing his arms over his chest. There’s not a single speck of dirt on the pristine white collared shirt Gojo’s wearing. Now Megumi’s pissed off again.
It was momentarily satisfying to see Gojo’s eyes pop out of his skull like a cartoon character, even more so with the blindfold still on his face; it was just that apparent. And then it was not as satisfying anymore, as the car swerved off their lane and straight into the ditch that ran along the sides of the highway.
He looks up serenely at the stunning night sky. There’s no stars, but there’s a full moon, and there’s threadbare clouds scattered across the sky that paint shadows with the white moonlight’s shitty acrylic touch. “I dunno what we did wrong,” he sighs, letting some genuine melancholy seep into his words. “I thought girls can’t get pregnant on a full moon. We even used two condoms.”
The mindless shuffling to his right completely ceases. When he tears his eyes off the sky to look over at Gojo, the man has that same shell-shocked, disbelieving face he’d had when they first met in that cramped little alleyway. Except he’s older now, and the blackout sunglasses are swapped with a full blindfold (Hello? How did he get his license driving blindfolded?) and Megumi is also taller now and doesn’t have to look up at him as much anymore. The man’s still a tree, but Megumi is catching up slowly. “You used,” he wheezes out, still unmoving. “...two condoms?”
Ah, he can’t take it anymore. He bursts into a fit of giggles, or snickers more like, but he gasps again and then he’s full on doubled over, clutching his stomach with rolling laughter.
“Yeah,” he laughs breathlessly, a wide, cheek-hurting smile peeking out through the word even as he curls his face into his own chest. “And she said she’d let me name the baby.” He continued to putter on, eventually burrowing his flaming cheeks into the collar of his uniform to calm himself down. He can’t remember the last time he’s laughed like this.
“Oh,” Gojo states. Hollow dejection. “You’re pulling my leg.”
It makes him laugh even harder, until he has to count to ten in his head and relax his muscles lest he pull something in his abs and stop breathing forever.
“You made me crash the goddamn car and you're pulling my leg.”
Gojo keeps talking, and it’s like soothing white noise. He says something about Megumi not being old enough to raise a child, like he wasn’t seventeen when he’d picked up two practically orphaned kids off the street.
He feels lighter. Whatever was in his chest that was making him feel heavy, well, it’s still there. He thinks it’ll always be there. He’s not sure who put it there, and he’s not sure how to cleave it out of him, thinks it’s impossible without unspooling all that he is and clipping the thread at every fourth centimeter, but he’s content to forget about it for an hour while he sits by the side of the road, listening to Gojo who is alive and irritating, watching the clouds inch by above him. He's irritated, still. It's still a blade to his skin, but at least it's running with the grain.
He misses two phone calls from Yuuji that night.
Something is wrong. It feels wrong. No one wants to say it; maybe speaking it will bring it to life. Yuuji sits at the edge of his bed again, staring blankly at whatever shapes he can make out in the dark room.
He's been doing this a lot, lately. Maybe once every few days. Recently, it’s worked up to every single night too. Something easy has slipped between the gaps of his fingers. He's not sure where it fell, how to pick it back up.
Maybe it's the weather. It's been dull outside lately. Maybe it's the food. He eats like he’s fueling a plane that'll fly no more than 30 kilometres that day. Maybe it’s the fact that missions are really, really picking up, and he can’t hang out with his only few friends as much anymore. And nothing is exactly challenging to him; he can fight well, move perfectly, and now that Ryōmen Sukuna’s cursed technique has slowly etched itself into the fibres of his soul, he can manage some neat tricks and spells to bewitch his opponents.
It’s all well and good, but people still die. And there’s only so much he can do about that.
When he hears a knock at the door, he already knows who it is.
“Itadori?” Megumi’s mellow voice calls from the doorway. “Are you still awake?”
Yuuji twists his back over his shoulder, popping the joint and letting out a low groan. “Can’t sleep,” he mumbles back, knowing that Megumi can hear him because the boy is already pushing the door open and stepping in.
“Why’re you sitting in the dark? It’s past midnight and we have class tomorrow. You should be asleep.” Megumi is an eldritch horror, standing at his doorway with his damp, frizzy hair painting a terrifying silhouette against the light behind him. Yuuji can’t make out too much of the details on his face, but he thinks the guy is frowning. But that could be a lucky guess; he’s always got something to frown about.
“You’re at my door? In my room?” Yuuji counters back, flopping down onto his bed. “You should sleep too, Fushiguro. Where were you the other day that you got home at five in the morning?”
“Gojo crashed the car.”
“What?!” The man doesn’t even drive, ever, if given the chance not to. And what are the chances that in the few instances he does get behind the wheel, he totals the vehicle? High, apparently. “Are you okay? Did you get hurt?”
Are you okay? he asks him. Did you get hurt? Man, he thinks he’ll have to punch Yuuji a little. And then cry in his room later, sobbing at a feeling he cannot for the life of him put his finger on, just knowing that it’s there and it’s stinging. “I’m fine. I just wanted to let you know that the third years have finally finished their suspension and are coming back tomorrow. We’re gonna meet them for breakfast.” At least, that’s the plan. Megumi knows it’s more realistic that not everyone will gather together at once, so he’ll probably run into Kirara in the kitchen trying to get some honey before a run, and then Kinji some time later when it’s the worst, most inconvenient time to meet him.
Megumi moves to shuffle out of the room, but one final look back at the pink-haired emo on the bed makes him pause. Yuuji’s not exactly looking at the ceiling, he’s looking past it, eyes hazed over like he’s a million miles away.
“Itadori?” he asks. “Are you… Did something happen?”
“No,” Yuuji hums, eyes still fixed far, far away. “Go to sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Itadori,” he presses. His name is always so natural on his tongue, four rolling syllables, like he has been given a favour each time he says it again, even if he’s angry and shouting and on the verge of death. “Something happened. I don’t care if you—”
“Get out, Fushiguro,” Yuuji suddenly interrupts. Angry. Shouting. Quiet. Fushiguro’s name doesn’t sound like a favour here, it sounds like the temperament he’d hear from the people around his father. He thinks he’s felt this sinking feeling before, just never while standing around in Yuuji’s room. Normally, this sinking, doomsday feeling is reserved for when he’s pitching his fists together, muttering a quiet ‘sorry guys’ before he tries to summon Mahoraga and kill everyone.
“Just…” Yuuji whispers. “Just get out. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Oh. Oh, something is deeply wrong. He doesn’t think he’s ever felt fear like this. The I’m-gonna-summon-Mahoraga feeling twists into something uglier, something more akin to what?-what-did-i-do-wrong? and suddenly he has to remind himself how to breathe.
“Okay,” he resigns, because what the fuck is he even supposed to say? Is the world ending? Is Yuuji possessed? The words are so unlike him. It’s more unlike him to mean it. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He pads away quietly and smothers himself into the pillow until he passes out.
A quarter way into his slumbers, he hears someone in the walls shift and twist, restless and fitful in their dreamlands. It’s Yuuji. He hopes it’s Yuuji. It’d be kinda alarming if it was anyone else. And then he hears a thud in the hallway, followed by a quiet “cod roe”. Inumaki getting water in the middle of the night. Again, he hopes it’s Inumaki. It’d be weird if it wasn’t. He hears Yuuji shuffling again. He thinks he might hear him talking too, but he’s not sure if he’s hallucinating.
Only halfway into his slumbers does the thought come to his mind: yeah, you dumb fuck, of course he’s possessed.
Later that night, when the one single granola bar for lunch catches up to him, Megumi lies in bed and plays detective. He replays the conversation and scrutinizes it under every light and every angle, hoping to find the answer hidden under infrared.
Fact: Yuuji asked if he was okay. This is normal. Yuuji is always worrisome. Remembrance is how he loves. Caveat: Anyone would ask that if they heard about a car crash.
Fact: Yuuji told him to get the fuck out of his room and that he hates him and that he thinks Megumi is the bottom-feeding scum of the earth and deserves to die and be publicly executed and purged from existence immediately . Caveat: He didn’t say those words exactly, so he’ll never know if this is really true.
Fact: Yuuji’s skin looks as grey as a corpse.
There’s no real caveat there.
“I hear you got some girl pregnant?” Shoko asks. Idle small talk between patient and doctor. She presses a cotton pad against the neck of a bottle of rubbing alcohol, inverting it briefly before setting it down and setting Megumi’s wound on fire. “Did my safe sex talk mean nothing to you? Did you use a condom?”
“Yeah,” he mutters, grits through his teeth, because he’s pretty sure the rubbing alcohol has just inflicted more damage onto the exposed tissue. But hey, he’s not the doctor. “Two condoms. At once. On top of each other. I’m naming the baby Megumi if it’s a girl, and Megumi if it’s a boy.”
Shoko whistles a low, mockingly impressed whistle. “Got it all sorted out, huh? You ready to be a father?”
“No.” He bats Shoko’s hand away when she moves to add more rubbing alcohol in. He thinks he’d rather risk infection. The wound must be a chemically burned mess right now. “I’m gonna raise him ‘till he’s six and sell him to the Zenins. Then I’m gonna try and kill a strong sorcerer but actually die trying. And then baby-dump the kid onto him instead.”
“Really,” Shoko asks sardonically.
“Yeah. It’s gonna be Gojo. I'm gonna try and kill Gojo and then dump my kids on him when I lose.”
“I dunno if he’s ready to be a grandfather, kid. Here, lift your arm—” she rummages around looking for something before Megumi feels cool wet fabric press soothingly against the laceration against his ribs. “—rib injuries are delicate and need to heal on their own. RCT might make your ribs come in weird, and then you’ll be in for breathing issues. If you’re gonna baby-dump, maybe try Nanamin. I think he’d make a good father.”
Nanami Kento is too good of a person to be baby-dumped. But this entire conversation, beginning to end, has zero foundation because Megumi did not, in fact, get a girl pregnant. And he’s not gonna be a father. But it’s certainly a thought. A thought tangible enough to have Gojo’s manual car turned into a shipwreck in a muddy ditch, which was now filled with rainwater from the pouring rain. Ijichi never did manage to get that tow truck.
Megumi’s quiet. It’s not like Shoko’s about to complain. He’s normally quiet. A nice, still patient. Easy patient. Comes and goes like the breeze. But he looks constipated, and she knows what's not causing it.
Shoko sighs deeply at him, making sure to let him know that she’s sick and tired of him. “Is something wrong? You’ve been extra gloomy lately. Not that I care.”
Yes, something is wrong. Yuuji hates his guts and thinks he is the worst person on earth and Megumi now is obligated to go out on high level missions so that he can happen upon another Special Grade as an excuse to summon Mahoraga and kill himself. And before that, or maybe somehow afterwards, he needs to apologize to Yuuji (by staring at him for fifteen minutes straight, no words spoken) so that they part on good terms. He needs to fall into a coma for months, like Tsumiki. He’s so jealous. The sleep each night just doesn’t cut it. Maybe he should get his thyroid levels checked, but he feels if he asks Shoko, she’s just gonna stick a needle in his neck and wriggle it around for ten minutes.
Maybe he needs to slow down. No one ever sees how fast his mind constantly whirrs.
“‘M fine,” he mumbles, hopping off the examination table and reaching for his shirt.
A thought peeks into his mind, and it feels like a black hole has just opened in the corner of his brain and taken over the whole of everything that has ever existed, all at once, in the history of the universe:
There isn’t really a solution. Something’s just wrong. And it’s gonna stay wrong.
There’s nothing he can do. And, oh, that feels uglier than the previous thought.
Kirara looks different. Megumi’s pretty sure the last time they’d met, he had just witnessed what was the cusp of a metamorphosis, or some sort of divinical transformation, because that is not the Kirara he remembers throwing hard candy at his forehead on the few instances Gojo had dragged him to campus, years ago.
No one else seems particularly surprised, though. Of course, the second years must be used to it. They’d been around Kirara and Kinji a little longer than he had. And Nobara and Yuuji never even met the third years, so this first impression cannot garner any more shock than when they found out they had a panda as a senior. No shock at all.
Gojo’s got a big mouth, though.
“Kirara-chan! Lookin’ good there! Aw, c’mon,” he pouts. “What’s that look for? You guys don’t miss your old sensei? Excited to be nearly done with school? I know you’ll miss me!”
Megumi’s guess was so spot-on, he deserves a trophy. They did not meet up at breakfast. Actually, he thinks the kitchen was bare and empty between the hours of sunrise to around ten in the morning. And when they did meet up (now, in the training grounds), it was just the first years and Panda. And it’d be a short, quick hello, before the only two third years disappeared again to toss around Kusakabe for homeroom or history or something. Megumi would then be left to dish out the “hot goss” to Nobara about their new (old?) senpai.
Kirara and Kinji aren’t even in uniform. He’s not sure if they own a set. And they sure as hell don’t learn anything from Kusakabe, and they leave class four hours early, so are they really students here?
“Satoru, we,” Kinji huffs out. And then says nothing.
“...you gonna finish that thought?” Gojo prompts.
Kinji walks away, Kirara hanging off his arm.
This was perfect, actually. Being left with that impression, surely Megumi won’t have to do as much “hot goss” with Nobara later. There aren’t many words that could describe Kinji, but that summed it up perfectly.
There’s one more new development since the last time he’d seen the two: out of the corner of his eye, he sees Kirara plant a fat, wet kiss onto Kinji’s cheek, just as they turn the corner. Now, he could be in denial about the whole thing, because friends kiss each other or whatever, but he’s not stupid and also it’s none of his fucking business, but those two are definitely dating.
“Right,” Gojo says, pursing his lips. They’re chapped and dry. The world must’ve tilted on its axis or something. Something’s wrong. Yuuji’s mad at Megumi all of a sudden. Kirara and Kinji aren’t fucking shit up in some underground gambling ring. Gojo’s not wearing any of his excessive lip gloss collection. The world’s bent out of order. “Well, for today—”
“We need to do something,” Megumi blurts out. “The three of us. Us three,” he clarifies, like he even has to, bouncing his finger between himself, Nobara, and Yuuji. His classmates have taken to standing in the corner with their hands behind their back. Rocking on their heels. Unsure how to deal with the gentle calamity that is the third years, even though they’re already long gone. “We’re gonna be busy today.”
“We are?” Yuuji pipes up.
“We so are!” Nobara agrees. “Super busy. And it’s important and it’s a secret.”
Thank you, Megumi nearly mouths to her.
Apparently, Gojo was hunching over or something, or squatting a little, because he rises even further up to his full height and crosses his arms over his chest. There’s a leaf in his hair. There is a leaf in his hair. Oh, something’s so wrong. “I’m pretty sure my stuff is twice as important.”
“Nope,” Nobara refutes, popping the ‘p’. Then she starts the hysteric hand-waving. “It’s literally 2 PM! We haven’t even learned anything from you the whole day, which we just spent by ourselves doing the seven independent study units you assigned us even though it’s the end of the damn year, and then the four page essay you assigned us, because you didn’t even teach us anything, and then we spent our physical training time by ourselves too, and we had Itadori instruct us because you weren’t even there to teach it, which is like, the only thing you’re qualified to teach, and then you show up at the butt end and now when we have plans to do something on our own, you decide that your stuff is more important than our top-secret, life or death, super important—!”
“Alright, alright, jeez!”
Thank you, Megumi does mouth over to her this time, when Gojo turns his back to them and stretches out his arms. And then a second later he remembers: Six Eyes. He could definitely see that. Whatever, it’s not like he has many secrets worth keeping.
“Alright,” Gojo concedes again. And then throws a look over his shoulder, grinning under the blindfold. “But my stuff is also pretty important~ You’ll regret not listening, later. Panda, you’re with me. Make sure you kids are home by ten tonight. Megs, you got my card?”
“We’re not going shopping—!” he refutes, but Nobara’s already overheard.
“Ah, ah, ah! We’re not not going shopping, either! So make sure you have that card!” she says.
So they part ways, Gojo walking in one direction for whatever reason, and then teleporting away only when he’s out of eyeshot. But they can feel it, the blinking of a massive deposit of cursed energy, gone before they can open their eyes. Nobara shuffles through Megumi’s wallet, bemoaning about his uninteresting and boring collection of cards. He didn’t even know people collected cards. But he knows Nobara’s probably like that, trying to find a million and one things to fill up the sleeves of her pink, designer clutch. Gym membership cards, photo cards, four debit cards from three different banks, Hello Kitty bandaids, a movie coupon, loyalty cards, anything. Megumi’s got three things in his: a personal debit card, Gojo’s ridiculous, gold plated titanium credit card, and a health insurance card.
Yuuji leans over, slinging an elbow over his shoulder (ah, this must mean he doesn’t hate his guts), and whispers, “Where’re we going?”
That’s a great question. Now Megumi wishes he’d thought this through a little.
“Okay, spill,” Nobara demands. Megumi deserves a trophy. He must be a prophet or something, with how accurate his predictions were. “What’s with the third years? Why’d they get suspended? What’re they like?”
In a week, they’ll be officially second years. In a week, Maki, Yuuta, Inumaki, and Panda will be third years. Hakari and Hoshi will be whisked away to wherever they take the fourth year students. Megumi hasn’t seen the new intake of jujutsu students that registered for the next semester as first years, but he hears there should be at least two, one girl and one boy.
Months ago, when Yuuji was dead and gone, the first year group was also just one girl and one boy.
The three of them sit at a four-seat table, one chair designated for holding all their bags. Nobara’s bags, really. The other two don’t have bags. But Megumi slings his outer jacket onto the back of the chair, too. The restaurant sells really, really good tempura. That’s all he’s here for. Maybe he could get away with ordering five plates of tempura and nothing else.
They don’t sell just tempura. In fact, it’s not even one of their standard dishes. It’s a side dish, normally served with their noodles or cutlets. But it’s so good. Would they let him order five plates of side dishes?
“Fushiguro? You’re not even listening!” Nobara squawks. Megumi looks longingly at the menu, circling the side dishes with a finger. “You know what you wanna order? I’m getting the chicken katsu. If you want the tempura so bad, we could order it with that.”
Megumi’s head snaps up to look at her across the table. The question must be in his eyes, because Yuuji answers it right away.
“You’re making heart eyes at the tempura, man. Every time we come here, you just get a tiny salad and order three plates of tempura. We could just order it with our dishes.”
He nods in response, unsure what to say. Yuuji gets a bowl of rice with something on it. He orders three plates of the tempura and a pile of pickled ginger slices, immediately handing it to Megumi once it arrives. Megumi digs in and tries not to tear up.
“No sauce?” Nobara questions with a raised eyebrow. No sauce. It’s so good, it doesn’t need sauce. “So. What’s the deal with the third years?”
He scrutinizes the tail of the batter-fried prawn for a second, contemplating, before shoving the thing in his mouth. It’s a little tough, but it’s crispy and chewable. “Dunno what you expect me to say. Hoshi Kirara. Hakari Kinji. They’re finished their third year. This is my third time meeting them. First time meeting them properly.”
“Are they dating?” Yuuji blurts out, because of course he does. “They’re definitely dating. I didn’t know sorcerers dated. I don’t think I’ve ever met a sorcerer that’s dated. Or gotten married.”
Hmm. Megumi could gatekeep the hot goss. But he supposes it’s not really gossip. Or maybe it is, and he doesn’t want to care. “Yaga-sensei was married at some point. Not sure who he was married to. Nitta-san’s also married. But she’s not technically a sorcerer, and her husband is a civilian. I know Miwa from Kyoto started dating her classmate, too.”
And he can’t prove it yet, but Maki and Yuuta… Well, if they aren’t dating by this point, then something sinister is happening over there and all of TJ High is about to be caught in the crossfire.
“What? Really?” Nobara asks. “Kamo?” Megumi shakes his head no. “What?! She’s dating Todo—!” Megumi shakes his head no again. “Nishimiya. ... Mai?” she whispers.
Megumi shakes his head.
Nobara blinks twice at him.
“I know that poor girl isn’t dating the fucking robot—”
“Anyway,” Megumi continues. “It’s not common. Too much at stake, or whatever. But Hoshi and Hakari are crazy, so it’s fine. They got suspended because Hakari-senpai beat up a council member last year. Hoshi-senpai just follows him everywhere.”
He doesn’t mention Yuuta and his curse of a fiancée, because it might be something against the case he’s making. Or something that wholeheartedly supports it, instead.
“‘M surprised Nanamin isn’t married,” Yuuji muses, leaning back in his chair so that it’s balanced on the two rear legs. A stray bit of bell pepper sticks out of the corner of his lips as he chews at it. “Or maybe not. Now that I think about it, I’m more surprised that Yaga-sensei's married.”
“Was,” Megumi corrects, and then regrets it when Nobara’s eyes blow wide open. “Was married.”
“Spill!” she demands.
“I don’t know!” he yells back. It’s not really a yell. They’re in a cozy restaurant. The atmosphere is too PG for screaming. “You need to tone down your need for gossip.”
“Hah?! Never!”
They bicker until the sun sets. It gets revealed that Yaga is sorta kinda Panda’s father, and not just a puppeteer, or creator. Then it gets revealed that Yaga had done some weird doll voodoo with the soul of the nephew of some poor couple, which led to the ultimate question: could Nobara do that? She’s like, the queen of voodoo.
The sun sets. They walk back in the dark, under the bustling city’s street lights. They used to be out and about like this so frequently, and now it feels foreign enough to feel like a treat. Like a special occasion. And he had fun, sure, but he can’t help but drift his eyes over to Yuuji while Nobara continues to yell indignantly about some thing or another. Where he normally eats five servings of rice and noodles at this chain, he had one bowl today. Where he normally talks a mile a minute, unable to bear another second of keeping his thoughts to himself, today he’s spoken a grand total of six times.
The spontaneous plan works a little. Yuuji’s footsteps are lighter. And he loves the food here. Megumi thinks he’ll have to be brave once more, this evening.
He discreetly lifts his hand and rests it on Yuuji’s shoulder. Yuuji looks startled nearly, whipping his head to the side to look at him. But he moves his head forward just as quickly, and now he’s either ignoring it, or appreciating it. Either way, it’s acceptance. The hand stays firm at his shoulder plate, fingers hooked over a tense trapezius muscle. They walk home like that.
Maybe if they were a normal school, they’d have more standardized methods for announcements. His middle school had a PA system with an intercom, where they’d do morning announcements and wish students happy birthday. It was a small enough school for it. He knows some high schools give students their own student email and work drive, where they’d get regular newsletters or documents. If not a digital system, then at least some large, central bulletin board in the main foyer to post up the rosters for the school play, for sports teams, for new clubs looking for members and vice presidents, or upcoming festivals and ceremonies.
As it stands, the population of Tokyo Jujutsu Metropolitan Technical College campus (13, including staff) communicate by opening the window and shouting their message to the adjacent room. Chances are, you’ll spread the news to at least half the school!
There are no school assemblies. No ceremonies. They have one group chat with all the students, and one group chat with everyone. But Yuuta’s out of the country, and he’s mentioned that his data roaming isn’t reliable, and Hoshi and Hakari were gone too, and Yuuji had been fucking dead, and Gojo’s Gojo, so the most recently active group chat had been six people total.
Nowadays, all their school announcements are posted up the same way: stuck on the kitchen fridge with a Bulbasaur magnet on a loose sheet of paper. Written in bright purple sharpie. Nearly illegible. So, of course it’s Gojo.
‘ ‘ Congrats to all students on surviving another year of school !¡! (˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶) .ᐟ.ᐟ We’re doing a school trip to celebrate ~~ ! ’ ’
He’s even handwritten the kaomoji. There’s a chibi Gojo drawn in the corner with a speech bubble wrapping the text. The paper looks like someone took a bite out of it. Megumi’s fingers are already pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation. This might’ve been the “important thing” he needed to talk to them about.
“School trip huh,” Panda’s low voice rumbles from the kitchen island. “I thought those were for graduates only.”
“Aren’t the other guys finishing their third year?” Yuuji asks from behind him somewhere. Maybe under the table, because Megumi can’t see him.
Maki lifts her protein shake off the blender base, swapping the bladed lid for a drinking lid. “This school is four years. We don’t technically graduate for another two years. Hoshi and Hakari still have another year left.”
“About that,” Nobara asks around a straw. Maki had given her first smoothie to her, making a new one for herself. The world’s really ending. Megumi’s seen Maki throw a full chair at someone for touching her smoothie and now she’s given one to Nobara willingly. “Do we even have any fourth years? Did they all die, or something?”
“Tuna,” Inumaki chips in.
“Yeah,” Panda translates. “You’ve met him. Ino Takuma’s the only fourth year. The rest left the city. They’re not really considered students anymore because they don’t attend classes, it’s more like an apprenticeship year.”
Yuuji makes a hum of understanding, suddenly appearing beside Megumi. “And third year is the last year to do the exchange event.”
“So Ino’s going on the trip with us?” Nobara asks. “We don’t even know him. Why’re we celebrating his graduation like, weeks early?”
“Ino’s away right now. I don’t think he’s even going on the trip with us. Plus, Yuuta’s still in Mali. I don’t know why that idiot’s arranging a trip at a time like this,” Maki grumbles.
“Well, it’s for you guys, of course!” the idiot exclaims.
Gojo’s teleported directly into the kitchen, somehow landing on both Megumi's foot and his shoulder at the same time.
“You students have been so glum and serious,” he sighs, not getting off of either the foot nor the shoulder. Instead, he opts to wedge himself between Megumi and Yuuji, and then wraps his long, gangly arms around Megumi in a suffocating bear hug. He’s pressed so far into the man’s chest that he can’t breathe, let alone yell at him to let go. There’s no hope anyway; when he wants to, Gojo’s grip is no different from steel. “What’s all this wriggling for, Megs? Don’t want a hug from your favourite teacher?”
Whatever he replies with gets muffled away.
“Why’re we doing a grad trip with zero grads?” Maki asks, pointing a paring knife at him. Not for the sake of the threat, but more so for dramatic effect. And so that he knew she was speaking to him. It was like communicating with a frantic dog, eyes darting left and right underneath that blindfold.
“Easy,” Gojo replies. “It’s not a grad trip, it’s for completing the school year without getting killed! It’s whoever’s going, which is not Takuma-kun. Yuuta’s due to return the day of the trip, too!”
“Oh yeah?” Maki hums. “When’s that?”
“Tomorrow.”
As expected, Nobara topples off the stool of the breakfast bar, shrieking, “WHAT?!”
While Nobara again begins the hysteric hand-waving, exclaiming how it’s too short-notice to pack sufficiently and about how she has nothing to wear, Megumi wriggles his forearms between himself and Gojo, giving one big push to separate himself from the man. Gojo lets him. He knows this because he is successful in getting away. “Go take a shower,” he grumbles angrily. “You smell like sweat.”
Gojo wraps a hand around the back of Megumi’s head, pulling the boy straight back into him. “So,” he says, addressing everyone else, as Megumi continues to beat at his arms like a spooked bird. “We’re leaving tomorrow at noon! Yuuta-kun should join us by eleven. Pack for five days! We’re going to a hot springs resort.”
“Are we actually going to a hot springs resort?” Nobara questions. “Are you lying? Is it actually a cemetery?”
“And it’s not a work trip?” Panda presses. “Are we there to exorcise things?”
“Don’t lie to us,” Maki adds. “Don’t make me leave my good sword behind if this is actually a mission.”
“Jeez!” Gojo huffs, letting out a fond laugh. “No tricks this time. We’re doing some team bonding! We got three newcomers—well, Yuuta’s not exactly a newcomer, but half of you haven’t met him—so we’re gonna get to know each other before the new first years kill our bazingo and crash our party!”
They stare at him as a collective. No one’s sure what those words mean exactly. Megumi’s glad that there is a general disdain for Gojo’s tomfoolery that is so reliable and handy amongst them. He sees Maki scribble down a swear word onto her palm with a pen. Her recent talks with Yaga about “anger management techniques” have paid off to some degree, then.
“Alright, alright, this is training,” he concedes. “But it’s not any training you’re used to! We’re gonna learn to work as a team!”
“What does that mean,” Megumi grunts, finally wrenching himself away from Gojo. Just to be safe, he takes three wide steps away from him. Now he smells like sweat. Now he has to shower. He already showered this morning. He’s gonna have to shampoo his hair again, and now his hair’s gonna be all dried out. He just ran out of conditioner.
“He signed up for a last minute discount corporate team building package,” a voice calls from the doorway. Shoko pads into the room, pulling at the still-full coffee maker to pour herself a cup. “It suits exactly ten people. They’re gonna make you do icebreakers and do a three-legged race or something. But you get to relax at the onsen and there’s free food.”
“And you’re coming with us!” Gojo exclaims.
“No the fuck I’m not.”
“Shoko!” he gasps. “Don’t cuss in front of the kids!”
That’s the proof, then. Right in the pudding. Megumi got his cussing habits from all those instances as a kid where Shoko watched over him. It felt normal. If a grown, responsible adult was swearing, why couldn’t he? And sure, maybe Shoko wasn’t the grown-est, most responsible adult around, but she had Gojo lapped in that category, so she was close enough.
Ah, now he had to pack. Five days. That’s at least twelve sets of underwear, in case he shits himself, or more likely, gets blown up by a curse. And a few extra shirts, again, in case he spills soup on himself, or gets blown up by a curse. A jacket, in case it gets cold, or if he ends up lost in the middle of the night, getting chased by a curse. Some spare conditioner, in case the stuff they have at the resort sucks. Or if he gets blown up by a curse and needs to redo his hair.. Some swimming clothes, in case there’s any water to swim in. Or if he gets swallowed up into the domain of a typhoon curse. And his multi charger.
No one packs like Megumi does. Ever since he’s mastered his Shadow void, storage has been a nothing burger. You’ll never catch him anywhere with a backpack. He can fit just about anything inside the shadows, but he hasn’t tried it on living things yet. Not that he’ll ever try. Now it’s a matter of hiding this secret ability from Nobara, who would absolutely make him carry everything in his shadow if she found out.
There’s a hint of a smile on his face. He feels silly. The grin immediately washes off as his eyes trail over, for the umpteenth time, to where Yuuji stands idly. He’s clenching and unclenching his hand. When he catches a glimpse of the boy’s palm, he thinks he sees the peeking of a pink tongue, and fangs, cleaving a groove along the transverse crease running from his forefinger to his wrist. His eyebrows are furrowed.
When Megumi looks up at him across the room, they hold eye contact for two seconds.
When Yuuji looks away, unhurriedly, uninterested, bored, Megumi knows for sure this time that something is wrong.
That sinking feeling comes rushing back.