Chapter Text
Call me and make it sound like you’re dying.
Megumi stares at his phone and keeps blinking slowly at the text. As if that will make it make more sense, or as if his exhausted brain will pick up its feet.
Itadori starts typing again.
Oh thank God.
You’re seeing this
Fushiguro
Hey
Please
Call me
Like right now
Make it sound urgent
Plsplsplsplspls
Megumi might not have a clue what has Itadori quadruple-texting him at 10 pm on a Friday when he is supposedly out on a date, but he does understand what “call me” means, and so he does just that.
He hits the call button, and closes the book on his lap, throwing it on the side of the bed. His study session has already been rudely interrupted, so there’s no point pretending he can focus now.
Itadori picks up on the first ring.
“Oh hey, what’s up?” he tries and fails to sound inconspicuous. Megumi picks up the faint sounds of a crowded space through the receiver. Chatter, thuds, crystal clinging. A restaurant, perhaps.
“You tell me. Apparently, I’m dying.”
“Oh my God!”
Itadori’s faux exclamation of concern is frighteningly convincing.
“Wow, you’re really putting in the work here.”
“Is it serious?” He keeps acting without paying any mind to what Megumi is actually saying. There’s some utensils clattering in the back of the call. “Yes, yes of course I’m coming over— “ A concerned murmur. Itadori puts his hand over the speaker, presumably, but Megumi can still hear him apologizing to his date. “I’m so so sorry but this is like— a huge emergency. Raincheck?”
Megumi doubts that any date one has to escape from by faking an emergency is worth getting a raincheck for. But what does he know? He’s not the one on the date. He’s alone, in his college dorm, catching up on readings.
“You’re ridiculous, you know that?” He tells Itadori when he hears the background noises change from chatter to open traffic. And he means it, despite the accidental fondness of his tone.
Itadori sort of laughs, causing Megumi’s ears to all but tingle.
“Sorry about that. I didn’t know who else to call and I needed to get out of there asap.”
The fondness dissolves. Megumi sits up on his bed as if to get up. “Were you in danger?”
“What? No, no, god no!” A laugh. “Just. Let’s just say it was bound to get real awkward real soon.”
Megumi picks apart the nervous tone, chopping it to pieces, trying to decipher the source.
“You sure?”
“Absolutely positive.”
“You don’t need me to pick you up, or anything?”
Not that Megumi has a car, and not that he is too eager to take the subway so late, and certainly not that he knows Itadori well enough to be organizing rescue missions for him through the phone. They've only known each other for as long as they've shared this dorm: Two months. Two months is not a 'rescue mission' type of bond. Two months is nothing.
But an emergency is an emergency.
He can hear Itadori smiling on the other end of the line.
“I do not, but it’s very kind of you to offer, good sir!”
“Fine,” Megumi lets it go like a dog would let go of a chew toy. Begrugedly. “But you interrupted my studying, so you owe me.”
“Yeah of course. Whatever you want.”
It’s best not to linger too much on these types of grand words when they come from Itadori. He never means them as grandly. Or he does, but the grandiosity of them loses effect with how often he throws them.
“Taiwanese from the take-out place near campus, on your way back to the dorm.”
“Got it—!“
Megumi ends the call and drops the phone on his mattress, unceremoniously.
Two months is nothing.
But two months can also be 2.000 yen worth of Megumi's favorite Taiwanese.
“Got you your food,” he waves the plastic bag to show as he toes off his shoes at the entrance of the dorm. “You didn’t tell me what to get, but I didn’t see you eat at all today, so I went all out.”
Megumi feels his brows furrow when he takes the bag in the space between his crossed legs and surveils the insides. A container of beef noodle soup, some zong zi, and pineapple cake.
“You got dessert?” Megumi instinctively frowns and grabs one of the pairs of chopsticks in the bag, offering it to Itadori. “I can’t eat all this on my own, help out.”
“No, it’s alright, I already had dinner,” Itadori waves his hands. “Eat up, it’s a thank you. For earlier.”
Megumi suddenly feels rather guilty. He eyes his wallet on his nightstand but knows that Itadori will refuse to get any money for that. Besides, it’s impolite.
“I was joking when I said you owed me,” he says. He doesn’t know what his personal grudge with the words ‘thank you’ is, but they always seem to stick in his mouth all awkwardly, so he rarely says them directly. “I technically didn’t do anything, you gave an Oscar-winning performance all on your own.”
“It was good, wasn’t it?” Itadori breaks into an easy grin, sarcasm flying over his head.
He goes through the motions of getting comfortable. Takes off his jacket (that’s way too light for December), empties his pockets (could do great with a bag, but refuses), and everything from spare change and keys to paper clips clatters on his desk. Megumi watches, but his focus falls on the slope of Itadori’s shoulders and how they look painfully stiff.
“What made the date awkward?”
“It wasn’t a date date,” Itadori responds all too quickly. His own urgency seems to startle him as much as it surprises Megumi. “Agh, it’s…” Hands over his face. Rubbing. Pulling. “It’s kinda complicated.”
Megumi shrugs and pinches the first bite of his food.
“Suit yourself.”
“Okay, okay I’ll tell you! God, Fushiguro, you can be so pushy sometimes!”
Itadori settles himself on the floor, next to Megumi’s bed, craning his neck so that it can rest on the mattress. The change of tone is nigh whiplash-y.
“So we were out for sushi, right? And it’s our what? Third? Fourth, uh, hangout?”
Megumi squints at the word ‘hangout’, but doesn’t interrupt.
“-and I get the inkling that they actually like me. Seriously. Like, actual, developing feelings.”
“I’m failing to see the problem,” Megumi says, blowing at his next bite. His lack of empathy sends Itadori grimacing, as if in pain.
“I did not feel the same way.”
“Well, it’s good if you don’t lead people on,” Megumi starts, tentatively, observing every micro reaction in Itadori’s face. “But I gather there are better ways to do that, that don’t involve faking a deadly accident over the phone.”
He dissolves under the scrutinizing tone, melting into a self-deprecating mess.
“Okay, I know! Dick move. But. I don’t know how to explain why I don’t reciprocate the feeling without coming off….weird.”
Megumi squints.
“It’s simple, you just say ‘I don’t reciprocate your feelings. Apologies.”
“That’s not the weird part— although if I had said it like that I would get punched.”
Megumi doesn’t understand why. That seemed like a perfectly normal way to express a lack of interest to him, yet Itadori is still wiggling with emotional constipation.
“The weird part is why I don’t reciprocate the feelings.”
A pause. Itadori looks up at Megumi, almost hopeful for something. Megumi comes up empty-handed.
“Is it a commitment thing?”
Itadori shakes his head, slow but unblinking.
“I think it’s a me thing. I think I just.” A rough swallow. Itadori looks away. “Can’t see people that way. At all.”
The words settle between them, sticky almost, like syrup. The lack of immediate reaction kicks Itadori into a fit of rambling.
“Like, I love people! Right? My friends are great, I would die for them, and I like sleeping with people,” he overexplains, hands gesturing wildly. “All that’s great and fun and lovely, but the in between— the exclusivity, the dates with a purpose, the pet names, the PDA with undertones, it’s…it makes me feel uneasy. Exposed? No, um,” he taps a finger on his chin, rhythmically. “Trapped!”
Megumi thinks about his next words very carefully. He knows exactly what he wants to say, and what he is thinking, but phrasing it correctly is almost more important than the substance. He opens his mouth, briefly, and almost as though he doesn’t want Megumi to speak yet, Itadori interjects him.
"That’s weird right?" he asks. "You think I'm weird.”
“No, I think you’re aromantic.”
“What?” Itadori’s voice breaks around the word, but Megumi doesn’t stutter at all.
There's no hitting reverse on that one, so Megumi just floors the gas pedal.
“I think you’re averse to romantic relationships.”
Although maybe he should. Hit reverse, that is. Stutter. He should be more careful with his delivery, lest he wants more of that panicked look on Itadori’s face.
“Averse is a strong word, um. I don’t mind that they exist!" he beams, not helping his case in the slightest. "Just as long as I’m not in one…now. Or for the foreseeable future."
He swallows as though he is on the death penalty and Megumi his executioner.
"I love romance movies, is this anything??”
Megumi results in taking another bite of his food, just so that he can fill his mouth with something other than clumsy words.
“Process this however you need to.”
“You know what, it’s late, I’m just gonna," Itadori gets up from the bed and heads towards the door. "I’m gonna. Shower. Yeah. I'm going to go shower.”
The door snaps shut behind him, but it reopens just as fast, with Itadori rushing back inside.
“Forgot towels! And literally everything else! Ha..ha…funny.”
Itadori grabs his stuff and exits again, this time even more frantically, and Megumi is left to idly stare at their dorm’s door, wondering just how severely he fucked up their perfectly civil rooming situation.
Megumi has yet to memorize the layout of the campus. It is, after all, enormous, in all the intimidating, not fun ways. But this particular hallway, he knows by heart, way before he was even a student.
He crosses the professor's lounge with some brief nods of acknowledgment and walks straight into Gojo’s office, for the door is always open, and not just for Megumi.
“It’s me,” he announces out of habit as he approaches the desk, and sets the Bluetooth speaker thingy on the wooden surface. “I brought you your thing.”
The desk looks as chaotic as it always does, decorated with only a carton box filled with discarded computer parts, some tangible memorabilia, and one too many empty cups of sweet coffee.
Gojo’s hands pause over the laptop’s keyboard, and he raises his head in the direction of Megumi's voice.
“Ah,” he pats his hand on the desk once, and misses the speaker by an inch, then pats again, and finds it, “you’re a lifesaver.”
“Please refrain from forgetting your belongings in my apartment,” Megumi deadpans for what feels (and probably is) the millionth time in the past ten years that he’s known Gojo.
“But then what excuses will I have to bring you down to my office to say hi?”
“None, therefore you’ll hopefully stop dragging me here.”
Gojo smiles, then, his all too familiar, teasing smile, that has unspeakable levels of eerieness when combined with these blacked-out glasses of his that hide his eyebrows.
“Ha. You wish.”
He closes his laptop, kicks out a visitor's chair for Megumi, and grabs ahold of his mobility aid if only to play with it. To fiddle with the cane and set his chin atop the handle, like a curious child.
“Sit.”
“I’m in a hurry,” Megumi says, but sits regardless, and without fuss. Ten years is enough to know when Gojo wants something from you, and it’s also enough to know that when he does, there’s nothing you can do to slip away from him.
In true Gojo fashion, his smile broadens when in preparation to tease.
“A little birdie is asking after your roommate.”
Well.
Of all the things Megumi expected to leave Gojo’s mouth, this was the last.
The inquiry catches him off guard, and it’s at times like these when Megumi is thankful for Gojo’s poor eyesight, for he can’t see the concerned look washing over Megumi’s face.
“Itadori?”
“Yes, he missed his classes today, and little birdie is wondering if you know why.”
Megumi shifts uncomfortably in his chair. He was out of the dorm all day, since the crack of dawn. He couldn’t have known Itadori missed class. Although not a rare occurrence, this time it’s cause for concern.
“If Kugisaki wanted to know where he is, she could have texted me.”
“I’m talking about Nanami,” Gojo counters, and Megumi clamps his mouth shut.
“Oh.”
It tends to be hard deciphering who Gojo is referring to by ‘little birdie’, or any other affectionate nickname for that matter. They’re all birdies when it comes to his majesty, Professor Satoru “PhD-at-27, compsci genius” Gojo, but sometimes Megumi dares to forget. An unfortunate aftermath of growing up with said genius lingering in his house.
“He’s probably in the dorms. Sick. Very sick. Yes.”
In a most unsettling gesture, Gojo leans over the desk, nearing Megumi’s face.
“Don’t buy it. Sharing is caring Megumi; Spill the beans.”
And while yes, Gojo may not be able to see Megumi’s increasingly nervous expression, he might as well be able to feel it. Or smell it. Like a gossipy shark, of sorts.
“I may have…” he starts, clearing his throat. “Spooked him a little.”
“Spooked him how?”
“Spooked him as in…I caused him a sexuality crisis?”
Even through the obnoxious glasses, Megumi notices Gojo’s eyes widening behind the lenses, matching his shit-eating grin.
“Not like that,” he cuts in before Gojo can say something entirely disgusting and presumptuous. “Not at all like that.”
“What other ways are there to cause someone a sexuality crisis?”
Megumi shoots a look towards the open door of the office and imagines everyone at the professors’ lounge having a grand ol’ time with the way Gojo is practically announcing his dirty laundry in public.
“Lower your voice will you?” He hisses. “You know what? This conversation is severely inappropriate, and I have reading to catch up on, so I’m leaving.”
Megumi goes to stand up from his chair, but Gojo reaches with both his hands over the desk, letting his cane drop on the ground with an annoying thud.
“Hey, friendly piece of advice. Hey- take my hands.”
“No, what? Ew—“
“Stop being ableist, take my hands.”
And he was wondering when that card would come into play.
Megumi begrudgingly gives Gojo both of his hands to hold and looks upward at the office ceiling. He’s probably looking the wrong way. If he were to ask a higher power why they sent this pest that is Gojo into his life, he’d have to ask Satan.
“I hate you.”
“Hey,” Gojo goes all out, putting out his best imitation of a sympathetic smile. “It’s okay. I get it, really. Do you know how many queer awakenings I cause on average every semester?”
Megumi’s face is set in stone, remaining unimpressed.
“Do you know?”
“Well not the exact number, but there must be loads. I mean,” Gojo gives a little laugh, then blows his bangs away from his forehead. “Look at me, since you can.”
Megumi rips his hands away and stands up all in one movement.
“Good afternoon, Gojo-san.”
He has an iron grip on his mailman bag and a frown that almost drags to the floor as he heads to the door, but he doesn’t get to leave, not before Gojo calls out;
“I hope you know I’m telling the entire faculty about this!”
Nothing short of an emergency text from civil protection services could prepare Megumi for the mess he returns to, back in the dorms.
He opens the door to the sight of Itadori, laid flat on the ground in a starfish position, surrounded by papers, laptop open, and his hands rubbing at his eyes. In any other dorm, this would not be a shocking sight during finals week. Yet it’s neither finals week, nor does Itadori seem like the person who’d stress during one.
“Did a hurricane happen to strike while I was gone?” Megumi calls out, careful not to step on any of the papers. His booted foot pauses mid-air above something he could have sworn was the first page of the Ace manifesto.
Before he can confirm, by ducking down and taking it in his hand, Itadori jumps to his feet and runs up to Megumi, grabbing him by both his shoulders.
“Fushiguro,” he says, with the energy of a dying man. “I’ve never had a crush on someone.”
Megumi stills, taking in Itadori’s unblinking stare. It’s very likely his hands will leave finger-shaped markings on Megumi’s shoulder bones, with how hand he’s gripping them.
“Okay,” Megumi says quietly. “Did you do the thing I asked with the fridge?”
“You’re not listening to me,” Itadori shakes his head. “I realized I have never had a crush on someone. Like. Ever.”
“Okay,” Megumi repeats because he did hear, but he also wants to know if Itadori changed that lightbulb in their mini fridge, as he said he would yesterday.
Apparently, that’s not a good time to ask.
“Okay?” Itadori repeats, frantic. “What about this is okay?"
It’s then Megumi decides the fridge can wait, and that the pain in his shoulders cannot, so he gently pries Itadori’s rough hands away, guiding them back down.
“Define crush.”
Itadori lets out a little laugh at this, but it’s not a pleasant sound. If anything it’s a bit manic. Fushiguro glances at the papers on the floor again, wondering if that’s what Itadori has been doing all day. Guilt creeps in.
“See, I have spent the past nineteen years, thinking that crushes are solely based on physical attraction. You know; Finding someone hot, wanting to sleep with them, etcetera.”
“That’s part of it yeah. Then comes the part when you think about them at random times, or find yourself wanting to spend more and more time with them and…”
Itadori grows increasingly panicked with every new word. Or rather. He gets confirmation of a wave of panic that was already there.
“You never got that?” Megumi asks.
Itadori shakes his head.
“In a nonfriendly context? No. Never.”
“Alright that’s—“
“You realize this means I have been seeing people as sacks of flesh for nineteen years?”
“No? No that’s not what that means—?”
Megumi’s words are completely ignored as Itadori slumps back to his office chair, spinning around dramatically with his head in his hands.
“I’m literally disgusting, oh my god.”
“Itadori,” Megumi tries to get a good look at him but Itadori just keeps spinning around. “Hey, Itadori. Yuuji!”
Megumi grabs the back of the office chair with both hands, forcing Itadori to keep still. He looks upward with the most earnest depiction of puppy eyes Megumi has had the displeasure of battling.
“One: Stop interrupting me. Two: Stop performing your final monologue in a Shakespeare play.”
"I'm sorry, I'm being too much," he shifts his stare to the ground where the patterned carpet that looks like intergalactic vomit is peaking through his scattered papers, and Megumi is overcome with the urge to start shaking this meek, sad version of Itadori violently until he gets the old one back. The brassy and bold and ridiculously cheerful one.
"This is just….this is awful.”
“It's a plausible orientation label, not a cancer diagnosis. It’s really not tragic."
Megumi's face scrunches. It feels like he's incapable of uttering one correct thing today. It all falls flat in the face of Itadori's ever-crumbling perception of himself. For a moment, Megumi even considers saying sorry. Sorry for planting this useless thought in your head, sorry for thinking I know better than you, sorry for not being better at talking you down like a human. That's useless now, though.
And on the off chance that Itadori calms down and figures something correct about himself...Megumi can't be sorry at all.
Itadori sighs.
“I will be single forever?”
“By common societal standards, yes. If you want. You can always lie to yourself and others, but I would not recommend that in good conscience.”
“This is so sad.”
Megumi fully crouches down at his, so that he can look up at Itadori with his best flat stare.
“Does the thought of being in a relationship forever ring more pleasant?”
Itadori visibly recoils.
Then he seems to realize how knee-jerk that reaction was, and a series of half-baked emotions starts flickering over his features. Surprise, first and foremost. Remnants of that disgust. Sorrow.
"I just don't get it. I like the idea of them. Relationships don't disgust me. That must count for something."
“If it’s of any consolation," Megumi bites the inner part of his cheek, contemplating for a second. "I feel similarly about sex.”
It’s impressive how quickly Itadori’s mood can swing upward just from a simple change of subject. As if he’s determined to forget anything that could possibly sadden him, the moment someone gives him an out.
“You don’t like sex?” he exclaims as though Megumi told him he has a tail. As though when it comes to Megumi, this is not a deficiency, a lack, or a fallacy, but this brilliant, fascinating thing he can’t wait to know more about.
“It’s a bit of a demi situation.”
The correct French pronunciation makes Itadori’s cheeks puff with a suppressed laugh.
“Demi?” he repeats in a butchered accent.
Megumi rolls his eyes.
“Sex is unimportant to me,” he admits with ease. “I’m completely indifferent towards it, and I don’t experience attraction. I see the whole ordeal as more transactional than anything…like 90% of the time.”
“What’s the other 10 for?”
“Emotional exceptions," Megumi says carefully. "I can get past my disinterest and be intimate with someone, so long as I have genuine feelings for them. Not necessarily romantic ones but...strong ones.”
“Oh," Itadori lets the information soak in, for a moment. And then; "Have you tried it?”
“Kind of,” Megumi cringes at the memory. “I didn’t draw that conclusion out of thin air.”
He wishes he had, sometimes. He wishes he didn’t doubt his perception of himself as much, and wishes he hadn’t forced himself to seek evidence for his conviction. There’s a certain envy that comes with the thought of people like him knowing they are like him, without having to confirm it physically. He’s not sure if he envies their self-knowledge or the fact that they didn’t have to ’trial and error’ their way to self-actualization.
He shakes his head.
“If I were to do it again it would have to be with someone I really trust.”
“Oh, totally. Yeah. But if I may,” Itadori gives a curious smile. Curious to Megumi. It’s very likely that Itadori is perfectly aware of the reason he’s smiling. Megumi is not. “Sex should be based on trust regardless.”
Megumi can't help the eye roll.
“How noble."
“Hey!”
It earns him a light shove on the shoulder, but 'light' by Itadori's standards is not light at all, and so Megumi loses his crouched position and flops on the paper-covered floor.
“Then it would have to be with someone I care about,” he corrects himself. “In whatever capacity. It would be more for their benefit than mine, anyway.”
Itadori gives a few, rigid nods.
“Cool, cool, cool."
An atmosphere seems to have draped itself over them like a veil, and if Megumi were a little more attuned to Itadori's emotions, he would name it Awkward. He sees no reason why it is so, however. It's just Itadori, and then it's just him, and they are just together. All twitchy fingers and sloppy confessions and self-discoveries that sound too dramatic to be happening in a messy dorm
“Well, it's late," Itadori announces, getting up from the office chair. "Time to head to bed and pretend you didn’t just wreck my entire worldview,” he gives a nervous laugh, scared eyes fixing themselves on the carpet.
Megumi stands up to match him. He forgets he is taller than Itadori. Not that it matters, but the notion sounds incorrect. It feels impossible that Itadori's character and presence can be condensed into human-appropriate centimeters.
“Or we could talk about it more if you think it would help.”
“Or I could vomit, that’s also a good one!”
He laughs as he says it, but Megumi does not. He simply watches as Itadori drags himself to his bed and plops on it with the weight of a tiring day. Or a tiring year.
“Itadori?"
His name catches his attention, as it always does, and he turns to Megumi with genuine interest in his eyes, as he always does.
"Whatever this feeling is…" he starts clumsily. "I hope you know there is nothing wrong with you.”
A pause.
“Yeah, I know that.” His eyes flicker sideways. “Kind of.”
A second pause, as heavy as its predecessor.
“Just felt like stating the obvious," Megumi shrugs.
He deems this as the end of their talk, and a sign that he should not bring it up again unless Itadori does, but to his surprise, Itadori sits up on the bed, leans on the headboard, and smiles;
“You’re a great person, Fushiguro. You know that, right?”
Megumi just swallows. He's not sure what prompted Itadori to say that with such emphasis, like shining a flashlight straight into Megumi's eyes and forcing him to admit to murder. The idea that this simple talk was enough to solidify Megumi as "great" in Itadori's eyes feels...unfair. He's not great. He's not awful either. He's just him. Megumi. Plain, simple, unnoticeable. Not great, and hopefully not awful.
“Right," he mutters after an embarrassingly long time. "Now please tell me you changed the refrigerator light, like I told you to.”
*