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There should be an award given for surviving nine years together.
For surviving an execution, one mentor’s death and the other’s ensealment.
A war and then a game where the one who promised to kill no more people did not and the one who made no such promise became a murderer.
A murderer, but then so is he and she and him again and then their friends. It’s to survive.
There should be an award given for surviving nine years of curses and blood and death and still being able to smile after it all.
There’s a six month period of silence where everyone rests and everyone reflects.
“After what?” you ask and the list is much too long for me to tell you.
They are sparring one evening, as boys tend to do, and they are not aiming to draw blood, but accidents happen.
It happens with a punch, a block, an attempt at a kick that’s easily dodged and hands wrapped around a red boot to throw him back.
It happens with a grunt, arms thrown around a waist in an attempt to knock him down, an elbow to the back of the neck for the arms to loosen.
While this may not be the most traditional type sparring, as they’re not using any type of weapons or curses and considering the fact Yuuji decided to tackle Megumi trying to knock him over instead of kicking his legs out from under him in a sweeping motion, it is a type of sparring that’s full of nostalgia. It’s reminiscent of when they were younger, and they’d tag team against Maki and Nobara or Inumaki and Panda. It was before Yuta was around and after that they’d have to pick teams blind, otherwise there’d be incessant arguing because, as you probably guessed, seven people doesn’t make for an even number of teams. The odd one out would usually end up reffing.
“Shit.”
“It’s fine.” Yuuji touches the back of his neck gently. “No biggie.”
“It’s bleeding a lot.” A lot might be an understatement. Megumi can see the blood starting to trickle down his neck.
“Head wounds bleed a lot?” It’s phrased like a question he should know the answer to.
“It’s not a head wound? It’s a neck wound?”
“The head is attached to the neck.”
“Sit down,” Megumi says, his voice exasperated.
Yuuji plops on the ground and looks up at the spiked black hair standing over him, his eyebrows raised in the “I love you and I’m fine and I’m going to tease you because you’re worried” kind of way.
“On the bench, dipshit.”
“Help me up, then,” Yuuji says with a grin.
Megumi offers him his arm and they lock hands, Megumi pulling upwards with a strength that causes Yuuji to bounce a little after being pulled upright. Their hands stay clasped as they walk over to the bench.
The bench sits in front of a fountain with water misting both of them, and once Yuuji is sitting, Megumi tears part of the jacket that had been tied around his waist once the sparring started, and wets it.
Yuuji bows his head, as though praying, and Megumi touches where his hair meets his neck. The blood has crusted already, melding with the pink hair that’s starting to fade.
Megumi cradles Yuuji’s head, fingers touching his cheek and starts to dab at it.
“Does it hurt?” he asks, tilting his head down further.
“No, not re– oh, ow, yeah, right there.”
“It’s still pretty raw, actually. I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t mean it,” and although Megumi cannot see the look on his face, he knows that Yuuji has narrowed his eyes and pulled his lips thin, his way of standing his ground.
“Still sorry.”
“Yeah, yeah. Give it a kiss, we’ll call it even.”
“Alright,” Megumi says, pressing his lips to the wound. To the wound, then to where Yuuji’s jaw meets his neck, down the side of his nape, stopping where his collarbone dips and sucks slightly. He grins at the smallest gasp that is given.
It is quiet; both of them seemingly trapped in this position. Is trapped the right word? They are content; one wants a little more, but he can wait until later, when it is dark, when no one could peek around the corner.
“Did you know that we’ve known each other for nine years?” The pink haired one, whose hair hasn’t changed, except for a three month period when he accidentally bought red dye when he was drunk and couldn’t turn it back because it was too dark a color, speaks softly, as though saying it out loud could prevent another year from coming and going.
“I didn’t know you could count,” Megumi responds, keeping his lips pressed to the dip.
Yuuji shifts to the left, making Megumi’s lips slip and forcing him to sit, their heads now bowed together.
“Nine years,” he repeats.
“It’s a long time,” his partner concedes.
“I think I loved you for almost all of them.”
“You think?”
“I didn’t understand love when I was fifteen.”
“You did when you were sixteen?”
“Well, I understood it better,” Yuuji huffs, making Megumi chuckle.
There’s silence again, as one closes his eyes and the other roams his face, chewing on his lip now. He doesn’t get nervous, not anymore.
He wasn’t nervous when he proposed the idea to Nobara. To be fair, she couldn’t understand what he said the first time around, but the idea came out eventually.
“You got a ring?”
This came from Maki, who was snacking on licorice and had been walking behind them, seemingly not paying attention.
“I– I don’t know. I mean, everyone we know will know so I don’t know why it matters.”
“I’d want a ring,” Maki said.
“”That’s what you want Maki-san,” Nobara says, turning slightly and earning a flick to the head.
“You’re terrible, you know I hate when you call me that. We’ve known each other for such a long time!”
“Keep it simple,” Nobara calls over her shoulder, as she speeds up to avoid the tackle hug Maki tries to give her, licorice flying everywhere.
He hasn’t been nervous in a long time. Not since before his grandfather’s death. He’s not supposed to get nervous, but marriage is a very nerve-wracking thing.
“What do you, um, you know–”
Megumi’s eyes open slowly, looking at Yuuji through his eyelashes.
“Uh, marriage?” Yuuji finishes, his voice going slightly higher at the end of the syllable, while simultaneously burying his face in his hands.
“I am the wrong person to ask,” Megumi says, his eyebrows knitting together.
Yuuji pulls back slightly, blinking. “I didn’t even ask you to marry me.”
“What?”
“Wait, how’d you know?”
“What?”
“Did Nobara tell?”
“Yuuji, I thought you were talking about my thoughts on marriage.”
“Well, I was getting around to that but I was also going to talk to you about other things. Involving marriage.” He looks away, rubbing the back of his neck, then wincing, having forgotten about his newfound cut.
“Yuuji.” Megumi cups his face, forcing him to look him in the eyes. “Were you asking me to marry you?”
“That was the idea, yeah.”
“Are you still asking?”
An inhale.
An exhale.
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah.”
“I fucking HATE you two!”
Both boys jump up, turning wildly to find the source of the noise.
Nobara storms towards them, hands on her hips.
“Why did that take three hours?”
“I was taking my time!” Yuuji says defensively. Nobara huffs in return, missing the chuckle Megumi lets out.
“Okay, well, now you have three hours worth of film of you two fighting! The camera battery is almost dead.”
“You’re happy for us, though,” Megumi says, tilting his head slightly to the side.
“I’m less happy about my camera battery.”
“Don’t be pissy.”
“I’m not being pissy!”
The argument continues, and fades, and continues, albeit about different things just as insignificant, all throughout the weeks leading up to the wedding.
This wedding in particular is sponsored by a new product being introduced into the jujutsu world by a not-so-new sorcerer. Please consider buying Gojo Hair Gel before continuing on in the story.
There is something to be said about attending the wedding of your two best friends.
You should be happy for them.
You should partake in the laughter, and the drinking, and the dancing.
And you do.
You do, but there is a terrible sense of foreboding hanging over your head.
The sense of dread first settles over Nobara Kugisaki when she is hanging a wreath of chrysanthemums on the wall where the reception is to be held.
It’s such a simple task, but the feeling that something will go wrong is so strong that the wreath is hung crooked. Nobara exits the building as quickly as possible, shivering from the feeling of being watched, although she knows no one was with her.
When she returns a day later, the chrysanthemums have now turned white, and she cannot explain how or why. She understands no one else should know.
It’s an odd happenstance. It’s winter. Maybe this batch was prone to dying quickly. A genetic failure.
The second time dread kisses her cheek when Yuuji is at his last suit fitting.
She’s not really paying attention, mostly checking her phone making sure the caterer would arrive on time in two days. Not really paying attention, until Yuuji says, “Does it fit okay?” and she says, “Yeah, are you sure it’s not too tight around the shoulders?” and he says, “Yeah, I’m sure,” and then when he turns his head, Nobara swears she sees the glimmer of teeth along his jawline.
It’s the mirrors, it’s the trick of the light. He has Sukuna under control. He’s had Sukuna under control. For seven years. There are no worries here. She is safe. They are all safe.
There are three people that attend the ceremony where Yuuji and Megumi read their vows to the shrine. Nobara is one of them. Tsumiki, Megumi’s sister, who Nobara has only met twice, Maki, and Gojo Sensei are the others. Yuuji trips over a shoelace left untied as they walk up the stairs to the altar and Megumi reaches a hand out to steady him, never letting go, even when the sake is exchanged. It makes the time pass more slowly, and gives Nobara time to soak in the breeze that’s filtering through the screens and the smell of rain that’s sticking to their clothes.
They are her closest thing to family, or perhaps they are family. Lines blur so easily.
Nobara found that she never liked lines when she was little, finding them too conforming. She couldn’t move in lines, couldn’t pave her own way. When she was fifteen, her life was ruined by lines, although it was nobody’s fault. It’s hard to fault someone who is just as young and naive as you for unintentionally giving rise to a spirit known as the King of Curses.
It’s even harder to fault him when you find out he did it out of love.
The lines that are the marking of Sukuna show up just for a minute, when Yuuji bows his head after they start to leave, and Nobara waits because Megumi has already dealt with a punch from Maki and a head ruffling from Gojo and a kiss akin to a grandmother’s from Tsumiki. She won’t add to his embarrassment, no matter how much she wants to.
He turns.
The lines appear. They’re so faint, Nobara thinks she’s seeing things. Perhaps she’s even dreaming.
He looks at her.
They’re gone.
His face remains unchanged. There’s no determination in trying to hold Sukuna back. Nothing at all. Yuuji grins at her.
“I’m married now,” he says, slightly in wonder.
She smiles weakly back. His kimono swishes over the tops of feet, his classic red boots worn underneath, instead of the traditional sandals worn.
“Yuuji. . . You’ve got Sukuna under control, right? Like he hasn’t– hasn’t appeared or anything lately?”
“Well, there was that incident two years ago, but you were there, so like–”
“No, I mean in the last six months. Has Sukuna manifested in any way?”
“No. Why would he?”
“Just making sure.”
The reception is nice, of course. The caterers got everything right, down to the way the sake bottles are arranged. She gave up on seating arrangements long ago– everyone was business acquaintances and everyone was family. So long as there was alcohol and Gojo stayed away from Utahime-san, everything should go smoothly.
Everything went smoothly until the after party.
The alcohol that had been so nicely arranged two hours before was now stuffed under the arms of adults that spent the majority of their time fighting spirits in an attempt to kill them and the rest of the time figuring out how to relax and often turned to drinking– meaning they drank often and a lot and had a high tolerance for alcohol until they didn’t.
The American rap Yuuji liked so much came on and Gojo decided that despite being forty one, he was able to bend backwards and get as low as the song said.
He couldn’t, which prompted Utahime to cackle at him, which turned into, At least I’m not in my mid-forties with eye makeup like some punk rocker from the 90s!, which was responded with, At least I didn’t break my back dancing to a song that’s primarily a stupid chorus referencing Reeboks that went out of style years ago and then the rest talking about a girl’s ass! And the conversation couldn’t go any further because Maki waved a hand in front Utahime’s face with a “Look, I painted my nails!” and Yuta spun Gojo around, pointing at a table, saying, “Why don’t we just sit down a minute, Sensei?”
Nobara could relax after that.
She danced with Yuuji, and then Megumi, then both of them, bouncing in a circle like they were sixteen again and she’d just downloaded a new album from the J-Pop band she adored. She and Maki toasted each other (“To your happiness!” “To your happiness!” “To your nails!” “To your hair!” “To your dress!” “Aw, thank you!”) and she indulged Inumaki in all the pictures he took, having recently become interested in Polaroids and the fuzzybrain quality they offered.
She hugged both of the boys before they left and knew, instinctively, that something was going to change. Not because they were married. Not because she thought she was going crazy. Something was just going to change and shift and she was going to have to be fine with that. That’s how the world works and Nobara was going to work with it.
***
They honeymooned in Okinawa.
Neither had ever been and they wanted to stay close to home. Cursed spirits will not wait for a marriage.
They move into an apartment not far from Jujutsu High’s Tokyo campus, but far enough to where their absence is felt. They run into a little trouble with their neighbors, an elderly Buddhist couple who insist on asking where their temple is, but that is quickly laughed at over drinks.
She is the one who calls both of them in.
“Why can’t Yuta go?” There is a slight whine in his voice and she suspects she caught them in the middle of something.
“He’s not picking up his phone. Look, it’s grade one. Between the two of you, you’ll exorcize it quickly enough and get home and then you can keep kissing or cuddling or fu–”
“I get it, okay, we’re going, let me put a shirt on–”
“Ew,” Nobara says, cutting him off completely.
“We are married, you know,” Megumi says, his voice filtering through the phone.
“Yeah, but it’s like if two strangers came up to me on the street and were like, ‘Hey, we just fucked,’ except worse, d’ya get it? Anyway, it’s an elementary school in Shinjuku, got it?” She gives them the address, then hangs up, a careless “I’ll see you sometime this week, mkay?” thrown their way. She has second years to attend to, and somehow, these three are more unruly than their third year counterparts were at their age.
She doesn’t know much about the situation, just that there was a black out because of excessive energy use (the electric kind, not cursed kind) and that negative energy was spewing from that region, just out of general fear. Humans have an odd kind of fear about the dark, convinced they will be quietly murdered by shadows or whatever comes out of them.
There’s a news broadcast playing somewhere in one of the classrooms that’s something of a teacher’s lounge, but she’s slightly late for class, her shoes hitting the tile hard, and so all she can hear is, Police have arrived on the scene and are attempting to take control of the situation.
Police where? She wonders wildly, before getting distracted by the waving hand of a girl with brown hair tugged into braids and her lips turned into a pout and a boy with hair cropped close to his head that’s laughing uproariously.
Her phone, not usually left on silent, but done so for this lesson so she can concentrate on hopes of teaching these sixteen year olds some form of Resonance, rings five times. The first two calls are from Yuuji, then one from Megumi. The last two are from Yuta.
Hey, uh, so the police are here? Did you know about that? We’re gonna see if we can get them to go away but if not, we’ll figure something out.
Weren’t relenting, looked at us like we were crazy. Sneaking past the barricade, but I don’t think this is anything too bad.
Megumi didn’t bother to leave a voicemail, which confuses her as to why Yuta even had to call her in the first place. Nobara almost considers listening to the messages later as she leads her students out to one of the courtyards to practice on dummies that had been set up earlier that day.
Nobara, you need to get over here. Now. It’s– His voice is cut off abruptly with a grunt and then a louder yell, the voicemail eventually dying off.
The last call was placed two minutes after that.
Special grade! Special grade! Imag—gefu—gra– Hurry!
Panic ensues.
Nobara grabs her coat, having been laid on a bench, and turns to her students, saying, “Stay here. Please stay here. Don’t fucking leave campus. I’ll– someone will find you. Don’t worry. Don’t move.”
“Where are you going?” It’s said in unison, but she doesn’t respond, already running down the hall to get to the train station. A car would take too long. Foot traffic has been oddly bad this season.
She gets there too late.
The crowd has dispersed, the surrounding area eerily quiet, like they’ve all sunken into the ground and walls and won’t be coming out any time soon. Crows flock on the telephone wires above her, and she has the feeling they’re watching to see what she’ll do next.
Nobara walks through the halls as quick as she dares without making noise, following the remnants of cursed energy.
The school gym is covered in blood.
It drips down the walls, making the sound of a leaky sink you just can’t bother to fix. It stains the hardwood floors, staining them darker and darker as each moment passes.
Yuta stands to the side, his katana hanging from his hands loosely. His head is bowed and she cannot figure out why.
Megumi is on his knees bent over— a rib or abdominal injury, perhaps, nothing that can’t be fixed.
As she draws closer, she realizes he is shaking.
As she draws closer, she realizes he is sobbing.
As she draws closer, she realizes he is bent over the dead body of Yuuji Itadori.
***
When she wakes, she doesn’t know how she got into her room again. She doesn’t know who took her from the scene from the school gym.
She learns Yuuji suffered a head wound, being thrown into the wall of the gym and subsequently hitting a pipe.
Yuta will not tell her what happened afterwards.
“It’s not my place, and I’m so, so, sorry, but I can’t–” he told her, his eyes full of regret, cut off by her standing and walking away.
Megumi doesn’t attend the funeral, staying locked in an apartment on campus, his muffled sobs heard when Nobara goes to drop off food. Gojo makes sure to keep the lease on the off-campus apartment going.
Yuuji is cremated, his headstone next to his grandfather’s.
Nobara knows he died the death he wanted, protecting others, protecting those who would not be able to help themselves. That doesn’t make the picture from when they were fifteen at the arcade when Megumi stubbed his toe playing Dance, Dance Revolution and when Nobara made herself sick from drinking too many sodas and when Yuuji beat them all at pinball by a landslide of points any less painful.
It is three months later when Megumi emerges from the apartment, the circles under his eyes darker than ever.
He walks into the teacher’s lounge, going straight to the vending machine. Nobara is the only one in the room, watching him carefully.
He doesn’t get anything, no soda, no snacks, turning on his heel after two minutes of staring emptily at the glass.
Nobara blocks the doorway.
“Would you just–” she starts, before her voice starts to break. “Can you just fucking talk to me?”
His head drops onto her shoulder and the tears start to stream down her face, wet and hot, her chest stinging from trying not to cry.
She can tell he’s crying too, from the way her shoulder is soon soaked in wetness, but still, he will not open his mouth.
It is six months when she finds herself hiking to Yuuji’s favorite spot on the campus, a Shinto shrine hidden on the very outskirts of the school, away from the rest of the Buddhist architecture. It faces the west, and makes the sunsets even more beautiful, the sky being drizzled in pink and gold.
She remembers what he told her once, when she had pried into where he disappeared before a trip.
My grandfather, he’d take me to any religious place he could when I was younger, but we went to this Shinto temple one day, and there was this pull. . . I don’t know, could’ve been a cursed spirit, but it was there and it stuck and never let go. So I always try to visit one, before something’s gonna go down. Pay my dues. Just in case.
Megumi is already kneeling on the ground in front of it, his head bowed.
“I miss him,” she says, sitting next to him.
The silence weaves itself in between them, teasing her, leaving her to wonder whether she’ll ever know how her best friend really died.
“It was. . . I don’t know, a week before.” Megumi’s voice is gravelly, like he hadn’t spoken to anyone in years. “And, we were. . . talking. About, um. Sukuna. And what would happen, if, you know, he came out, or somehow, Yuuji lost control.” He takes a shaky breath. “And, he looked at me and he, he kinda cupped my face and he said, ‘I trust you. I trust Ten Shadows. I think you could exorcize him. And if you get the chance, you need to.’” He casts a glance at her, smiling without his eyes, tears starting to well up. “He died when he got that head wound, Nobara. He’d been doing the brunt of the fighting, so it’d be easier for me to exorcize the curse. You know how he got.”
She nods.
“So Sukuna came out, and Yuta showed up, I don’t know how, or why, he didn’t say you called him, and if Sukuna’s fascination for me was anything, his fascination for Yuta was more.
We exorcised the special grade and I knew what I had to do, because if I could separate Sukuna from Yuuji, I thought there’d be some way for Nitta-kun to fix him, or something, you know, and I separated them.” He laughs hollowly. “I separated them and trapped Sukuna, which is a whole other problem but he’s still not here.” His voice, which hadn’t broken throughout the entire story, finally cracks. “He’s not here and I don’t know what to do without him.”
Nobara watched Megumi go through life’s motions for years after that day.
She watched him eat quickly, like the taste no longer mattered. She watched him laugh, and she watched the laugh never reach his eyes. She watched him shut himself up in his room for weeks before the anniversary of Yuuji’s death and she watched him work tirelessly to improve upon his skill, if that was even possible, in an attempt to exorcize the thing that cost him his lifeblood.
She did not watch him love again, because he never did.