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(It wasn't love at first sight.
And how could it possibly be, what with Megumi's adamant torment of it? Oh, no, it wasn’t, it just—wasn’t.
And yet, perhaps, it was worse.
Infinitely so, than ripping the band-aid off at Megumi’s first glance of pink. Perhaps had it been love at first sight, a sudden crash with pink that suddenly converted his life into a cherry blossom park, things would have been easier for Megumi to tussle with; just jump into the cold water and deal with the cold for a few seconds.
But—no. That is not at all how it transpired. It was rather, well, a brush, perhaps; a cherry blossom petal that Megumi shrugged off his shoulder. Casual. Accidental, never to happen again, probably.
Or, at the very least Megumi would pretend it was that. Casual, accidental, and not at all the biggest moment of change in his life.
A tiny cog, dormant up until now, that suddenly turned just so and set in motion a change so gradual and yet so fast, Megumi would be entirely consumed by it.
Unbeknownst to him just the touch of a cherry blossom petal would leave a mark, a little sizzling sensation, a new conscious understanding that cherry blossoms existed in a closer vicinity.
In his vicinity.
An understanding that cherry blossom petals not only existed in his vicinity but could graze him in it, too, and suddenly one cherry blossom petal became two, and even when it didn’t meet his skin, he would notice it soar in the breeze.
And the truth of the matter was this: it would scare Megumi.
The noticing. The wondering. The looking for it.
And so he would focus, then, as one did when they were running from their bigger fears, intently on those cherry blossom petals pursuing the wind and now tormenting his notice, and he very well couldn’t touch them again, could he?
Because he dreaded that the silly sizzling little sensation would become frequent. Fear was a fiend in that way, wasn’t it?
Unbeknownst to him, still, that while he was so fixed on not brushing the cherry blossom petals again, not once taking his eyes off their tangle in the wind, they would fall in a heap around him and pave his way in blush.
Unbeknownst to him, still, that one touch was all it took to set in motion a gradual change much worse than a freefall into love at first sight: the mixture of pink with him, until he would eventually no longer know what his colors looked like without the rosy influence in them.
Known to him, at last, that while he was looking over his shoulder as he scampered to safety from pink, it stood in front of him instead.
Arms spread, and a cheeky little grin in place.
Perhaps, had it been love at first sight, had Megumi let it come to him as a surprise, as love at first sight so often did, it wouldn’t have been as tormenting as running away from a ledge just to figure that it followed him.
And follow him it would, ever after that fateful October tenth, when he would first brush the boy in pink, and promptly run from the sizzling sensation ever since.
(Eventually, he would apprehend the futility of his running; pink would always outpace him. Gold would always engulf him.)
(Eventually, he would stop running.)
--
Alas, Megumi noticed.
Pink hair sticking out of a ruddy beanie, pink hair disheveled, pink hair soggy, pink hair sticky, pink hair freshly cut—pink hair, pink hair, pink hair.
It seemed everywhere he went, he saw pink, noticed the pink, felt a rush of annoyance that he wanted to gravitate towards the pink, maybe touch the pink. Nuzzle into the pink, breathe it in, see if it smelled as soft as it looked.
See the face it belonged to in detail.
See if he noticed correctly the two scars underneath his eyes—golden honey and earnest—in the shape of crescent moons, or if he noticed correctly the crooked grin, the deep dimple on his right, the scars like scratches on his hands.
“Fushiguro Megumi!” the barista called out, and Megumi snapped out of his pink-induced trance.
Tearing his gaze away from the boy currently talking to another barista in the café, smiling at her and motioning wildly with his hands, Megumi headed toward the counter, took and paid for his drink, and left immediately after. All the while berating himself for noticing pink movement in his periphery and huffing and puffing his way out of the café with his hands wrapped too tightly around his cup.
His father’s smile as he abandoned his family was the last stranger Megumi could recall anything about, if anybody ever asked.
He could tell them the exact clothes he wore (dirty grey sweater and washed-out black sweatpants), and the exact words he'd spoken.
(“You’ll be alright, kid,” mumbled in passing as he'd taken his coat off their clothes rack, like an afterthought. Megumi an afterthought.)
And if Megumi could find the courage to pluck the words from their permanent place in his throat, he could probably even tell you the exact amount of minutes it took for Megumi's cries to dwindle, and his chest to stop aching.
(Years.)
(It had taken years.)
But him, this particular stranger, hadn’t left his mind in the two weeks since he'd first seen him in that café on October tenth.
God, Megumi even remembered the date.
It had been a day much like any other, bitter and drizzly, pouring and lurid with the Tokyo traffic right outside Megumi's preferred café—and he'd been sitting where he usually sat, listening to the same playlist he always listened to, scrutinizing the same people he always scrutinized, until, well.
Until he walked in, in all his tall—it was the first thing Megumi noticed—and pink-haired—it was the only thing Megumi noticed, from then on—glory.
Clad in nothing but a charcoal, long-sleeved compression shirt, and equally colored basketball shorts, sports socks, and sports shoes with a frayed backpack slung over his shoulder.
Idiot, Megumi would’ve thought, except he'd been—dumbstruck, for lack of a better word.
(He wasn’t gallant enough, at the time, to defy his tenacious fears and say it like it was: that seeing him equaled in intensity that of starting a movie and knowing from the first few seconds that, oh. I might really like this one.)
It hadn’t been love at first sight, of course—and yet it had been something.
A first something, a something at first, an unintelligible pull of pure curiosity, a roaming need for more.
A pull of curiosity, day after day.
Today, he called Nobara.
He didn’t wait for her to finish her greeting, “What’s up, butterc—“, before he mumbled into the phone, hoping he’d be heard over the honking of Tokyo’s busy glory, “He was here again today.”
Nobara paused on the other side of the phone. If Megumi hadn’t been intently listening, drowning out the strangers grazing him, brushing him, he might have lost Nobara’s sigh to the sound of the busy city and pattering rain around him.
“Did you say hello this time?” she asked.
Megumi scoffed loudly into his phone and rolled his eyes.
“Did you smile at him, then?”
Megumi scoffed again as he brushed the rain out of his face just for it to gather again in heaps, making a stop at the red light across the road.
He hissed, suddenly, as the heat of his cup finally crawled its way beneath his skin. Cursing under his breath as he looked down at his reddened hand, he instead held the cup with only his fingertips.
“Did you make eye contact, then?” Nobara asked, her voice richly annoyed and exasperated.
It brought a smile to Megumi’s face as he didn’t bother replying to her. “You know, Megumi, I don’t know how you ever want to get yourself lai—”
“I don’t want to get laid, Nobara,” Megumi jeered into the phone as the light finally turned green and he started crossing the road, taking the usual steps towards his campus, with possibly the same people he’d always walked with that he didn’t remember, could not possibly remember.
(Then why, why, why, would the pink hair remain so branded in his mind?)
“Right,” Nobara replied. He could imagine it, the blown nostrils and rolled eyes. “You just ogle this perfect stranger whenever you see him and then proceed to yap about it afterward for fun, right?”
Yes, Megumi wanted to say, except he didn’t ogle, really. And between him and Nobara, he definitely wasn’t the one who yapped, either. “It just unnerved me, is all.”
“Sounds gay,” Nobara said, the smile audible in her voice. “By the way, Megs, you heard about that girl—”
Megumi tuned her out, then, as he noticed a flash of pink pass him on the sidewalk.
Heart stood still, he watched as the man with the candy hair jogged past him, coffee in hand, his strong calves and thighs flexing with every effortless movement. Megumi watched, enraptured, as he gracefully navigated the dense crowd.
Megumi tried to maneuver himself to not lose sight of the boy with pink hair and radiance like gold.
He failed, of course, as Megumi himself was nothing as athletic as this guy seemed to be, when another person ran into Megumi and caused him to lose his balance for a moment and stumble.
Megumi cursed under his breath, swallowing the vicious disappointment rising in his throat.
“Megs?” he heard Nobara. “Megs? You comin’, then?”
“Coming where?” he asked, eyes still stuck on a spot long abandoned, and already grey again.
“To the café? To meet my old friend from high school? Seriously, dude, you’ve got to stop daydreaming when I talk to you.”
“Yeah, alright,” Megumi said and heard the excited hitch break out of Nobara’s throat. Megumi rolled his eyes fondly.
Contrary to popular belief, Megumi wasn’t as unhappy or uncomfortable in social settings as people claimed or believed. He loved solitude, and seclusion, yes, and still he enjoyed social scenes with his friends almost as much.
“Great! See ya on Friday, then. Eight am sharp, yeah? Our usual place,” she reminded him, squealing before she hung up and left Megumi to his thoughts again.
Pink scattered all throughout his thoughts, he made his way to his lecture.
(It wouldn’t be until weeks later—months, even—that Megumi noticed he hadn’t stopped using his pink marker in a while.)
--
Megumi had lived, thus far, through many surprises.
He was surprised when his father left and when his mother and sister died. He was surprised when his father’s old friend took him in and raised him as his own.
He was surprised when he realized boys didn’t have to have boy parts—that boy parts was an outdated term, anyways—and he was surprised when nobody, namely his guardian, was surprised that he'd written “be a boy” on his Christmas Wishlist at age eight.
He was surprised, also, when his wish came true, or when later on he realized not only did he like being a boy, he liked kissing them, too.
He was surprised to find, also, that his grasp on gender and sexuality had fluidified throughout his years in high school, and that he was a boy, sure, but at his core just himself, unchained to any prior expectations or ideas.
He was surprised, too, as a teenager just about on the precipice of adulthood, when he found out the depth of cruelty that dashed in heaps through some souls.
And he was surprised at his first sighting of pink.
At his second sighting of pink, and his third, and the moment he realized his supposed distaste of it was, in fact, curiosity.
(And fear. A lot of that.)
And yet, the biggest surprise thus far very well was this: sitting in a café with his friends around him laughing, talking about the upcoming exams at the end of this cold November, boisterous and loud as they always were, and thinking to himself that he'd really finally known what happiness looked like.
Just as he walked in.
(The real surprise would come much later, though, when he realized he had, in fact, not known how far the roots of happiness could actually reach into his heart.)
(Another surprise: he didn’t know pink could slither so gracefully through veins.)
It was eight-thirty am, and the café Megumi and his friends frequented was as empty as it always was this early in the morning—and there he was, in all of his pink-haired glory, strutting inside in nothing but his sports gear and a backpack slung around his shoulder.
It took Megumi's heart a moment to regulate its beating, and it took his ears a moment to clear of its ringing, only for it to start back up again when Nobara squealed, “There he is!”—and stood up, walked towards the pink-haired man, and hugged his broad frame.
There he is.
And, oh, yes, there he was.
Tall as he always was, with his usually wild hair down over his forehead from the rain, his eyes lighting up and a smile breaking out on his face as he saw Nobara. After the initial force of her embrace, he hugged her back excitedly.
Megumi was, for lack of a better word, surprised.
(Though later on, much later on, when he figured out what it all meant, he would rather use the word elated, and then: terrified. Frightened. Afraid.)
His mind reeled, and so he barely noticed when they walked over and Nobara took her seat beside Maki, her friend grabbing a chair from the neighboring table, swinging it so he could sit on it backwards at the head of their own.
His arms were crossed over the chair as he smiled at their group, no nervousness whatsoever about sitting with perfect strangers.
Megumi watched with rapt attention the way his arms bulged under his shirt as he crossed them.
Blushing, Megumi looked away immediately. He hated the reactions he had to the guy already.
Megumi himself was diagonally across from Nobara, next to Todo, who was almost blocking his view of the guy and eying him in confusion and anticipation. Yuta and Inumaki, seated opposite the man, did the same.
“Hey,” said the pink-haired guy. And—oh, okay.
If Megumi hadn’t realized the erratic beating of his heart, he sure did now. A rich voice, smooth and yet with a hint of rough boyishness mixed in as well, reached its way through Megumi's system and into the crook of his heart, poking, poking, and poking, hey, anyone in there?
“I’m Itadori Yuuji.”
Itadori Yuuji, he had said, his eyes roaming over the table and grazing everyone’s faces with a smile and a twinkle. And—Megumi could swear he saw the man do a double take when his eyes reached Megumi and yet didn’t quite connect with them.
Megumi gulped, looking down at his cup of hot chocolate, trying to still his hands from the nerves.
Megumi wasn’t sure, but he thought a conversation had immediately broken out after the introductions, Itadori Yuuji now conversing with his friends—equally as loud as they all were combined, equally sunny, equally golden.
And wasn’t that the word Megumi had missed all this time, then? Golden.
This boy, tall in height and loud in voice and warm in everything else, was golden, was a beacon of light in this grayness, who brought with him nothing short of pleasure and intense radiance.
And suddenly, the pink was equaled by pure golden light.
“I didn’t know you were still in Tokyo, Yuuji,” Nobara said when Megumi finally willed his heart to calm down enough to listen in, still not looking at pink and gold in fear of being blinded. Itadori Yuuji. “Thought you always said you wanted to leave this place?”
“Yeah, well,” Itadori laughed sheepishly, a hand coming up to rub at his neck, and Megumi felt himself shiver everywhere trying not to stare at the way his muscular arms were visible through his compression shirt. Red, today. “Have some unfinished business here’s all.”
At the tone, a hint of wistfulness mixed, Megumi finally looked up, willing himself to take in the man’s face.
(As he had wanted to many times in the past month, though still unwilling to think this out loud and confess.)
There it was again, surprise, when Megumi wanted to stare at his face in peace and was met instead with honey—golden eyes already placed intensely on Megumi.
Insistent and searching, as if—
“Sorry, what’s your name again?” Itadori asked. “I don’t think you introduced yourself earlier.”
“Megumi,” he tried, but his voice came out a little breathless. “Fushiguro Megumi.”
“Don’t mind him, Yuuji,” Nobara laughed. “He gets a little weird around strangers.”
“Well,” Itadori laughed as well, and yet did not let his gaze stray. “It’s nice to meet you, Fushiguro Megumi.”
Megumi nodded in turn and finally tore his eyes from Itadori’s before he overheated, only looking back at him again when Todo gathered Itadori’s attention and swathed him into a conversation about women, sports and, well, women, probably.
Megumi was ashamed to say he wasn’t listening much.
“Oh, me?” Itadori asked with a laugh. Watching, Megumi thought to himself how he'd never met anyone quite so eager to laugh and smile. “I don’t go to college. University. Whatever. Not my forte.”
“You’re not a student here?” Nobara asked. Itadori shook his head, grinning at her surprise. “Makes sense I haven’t seen you around earlier. What do you do, then?”
“I play basketball,” Itadori replied, smiling down at his athletic attire and shrugging. “For Tokyo? I don’t know if you know th—”
“You play basketball for Japan’s best team?” Nobara yelled, almost. “Wait, are you serious?”
“I, uh,” Itadori rubbed his neck again, and Megumi noted—unwillingly, always unwillingly—how he did that quite often. “Yeah? I mean. Yes.”
“How did I not know about this? Since when?” Nobara asked, shock and surprise still evident on her face. “Not that these are shocking news. You were always extremely athletic in school. Literally everyone thought you’d become an athlete, actually, now that I think about it, but—”
Itadori laughed again. Warm, warm, warm. “Four years now, I think.”
Nobara’s jaw dropped at that, and Megumi had problems following her train of thought. “At 21?”
Itadori shrugged, and Megumi took another moment to watch unabashedly how his cheeks reddened and his eyes took on a shy hue.
His hand went back to that spot behind his neck, and Megumi sighed inwardly at the sight. He was so—so—
“I guess?” Itadori replied. “I tried college after high school, but, uhm—yeah. Wasn’t exactly for me.”
“Oh, yeah, I remember you hated school,” Nobara snorted, then told the group, “I swear, this kid had some kind of ADHD or some shit, the way he was always struggling to focus in class.”
Megumi saw something pass in Itadori’s eyes, then, before he shook it off and laughed at her admission, too. “I did, actually,” he said. “I do. Have ADHD, I mean.”
The laughter in the group died down immediately, and Megumi would have scowled at his friends and lectured them about throwing such statements around if it weren’t for Itadori’s laughter filling the table again.
Nobara immediately noticed her mistake, spluttering an apology.
“Don’t worry, it’s not a sore subject. I’ve got a handle on it now, and really, I’ve come to accept that part of me. No reason to angst over it,” Itadori shrugged everyone’s awkward silence off. “And besides, it all worked out for me, didn’t it? Academia wasn’t my thing, and I finally found somewhere to go with my energy.”
“That’s—wow.” Nobara seemed speechless. “That’s pretty big, though, Yuuji. Making it into Japan’s best basketball team and all. Congrats, man.”
He shrugged again, his smile turning sheepish and shy. “Everyone’s good at something, right? Besides, there are a few other teams who are as good. Maybe even better, currently.”
Megumi supposed he could see it, the incessant energy, the constant restlessness that coursed through him. He didn’t know a lot about ADHD, unfortunately, but he had noticed Itadori couldn’t sit still. He knew there was more to it than that, though, a lot more, and for some reason, before he could stop it, he thought, I’d like to know.
The mental note to research it was anything but intentionally made. But it was there, suddenly, poking him in the back of his mind.
(Megumi would research ADHD well into the night, later.)
“You planning on transferring, Yuuji, is that what I’m hearing?” Nobara teased.
“No,” Itadori laughed at Nobara’s teasing eyes and wiggling eyebrows. “Well, not yet anyway, I guess. Maybe one day.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah,” Itadori replied. “Not anytime soon, though.”
Nobara’s smile took a sad turn, and something similar tucked at Megumi’s heartstrings.
I have some unfinished business here, is all.
He found himself wanting to know, again, found himself gravitating toward Itadori with a feverish want and a desperation to uncover him and ask, What’s your business here, Itadori Yuuji?
“I see,” Nobara said.
“Anyway,” the man shrugged again, though Megumi could see the want written all over his tan skin. He shook his head as if to remind himself not to dwell. “Maybe. Enough about me, though, what about—”
“Actually, wait,” Nobara cut him off. “Sorry. I just can't believe I never noticed? Granted, I wasn’t around for a while either, but how did I not notice you’re famous now?”
“I’m not famous,” Itadori laughed. “You’d be surprised how few people recognize athletes on the street.”
“But still!”
“Nobara, you don’t even watch sports,” Megumi piped in. He hoped his voice didn’t betray his nerves. “How could you possibly have known?”
She shrugged, pouting. Then she grinned, suddenly. “Yeah, well. Maybe I should start, then, to support my long-lost friend. You think you can hook me up with tickets, Yuuji?”
Itadori laughed again, and it traveled through Megumi easily. “Sure. Let me know when and how many tickets you want and we’ll make it happen.”
“That easy?” Nobara seemed shocked.
“Sure. We’re allowed to bring people to these games, so,” Itadori shrugged.
“Great,” Nobara said, then sharpened her gaze on Itadori and leaned towards him with a smirk. “Now, Yuuji, important question: will I see a jealous girlfriend there that I have to explain to that I’m very, very, seriously gay?”
Itadori sputtered, eyes widening in shock at the question before they squeezed shut from laughter. “Nah, no jealous girlfriends.”
Nobara gawked, while Megumi's heart stood still for a beat. “You serious?”
Itadori again rubbed the back of his neck, this time in confusion. Awkwardly, he laughed. “Yeah?”
“You don’t have a girlfriend?”
“No,” Itadori laughed again. “No lovers, currently.”
“That’s it. If a guy like you can't score…” Nobara mumbled under her breath.
At this, Itadori laughed, again, when would he stop, the sound wrapping the entire room in a sunny hue. Megumi's heart fluttered. “It’s not like—well. It’s not like I couldn’t—well. Whatever. Moving on.”
Nobara stared, unimpressed. “What, you took an oath of celibacy or what?”
Itadori laughed again. “God, no. No. Guess I just don’t mind staying single right now, until the right person comes along or whatever.”
“You don’t do fuckbuddies either, then? One night stands?” Nobara asked, and Megumi hated her in that moment, because he didn’t need to know, he didn’t want to know, what this guy might be up to in his free time, how he decided to spend it and whom he decided to roll around with, and—
“Nah, none of that,” Itadori interrupted. “I’m not cut out for casual stuff, honestly.”
Nobara nodded. “Yeah, you didn’t seem like that type of guy in high school either,” she replied, changing the topic in its wake. “I for one am so madly in love with this girl, but she’s all…”
But Megumi had already stopped listening, repeating in his mind the I’m not cut out for casual, once, twice, until the right person comes along or whatever. Megumi hated how that affected him.
The idea that this beautiful, beautiful man was not one to use and discard people casually like old tissues.
And the worst part of it all was that Megumi didn’t even know him, had just met him for the first time, and already he was, what? Forming opinions, wondering, pondering, wanting; curious.
Megumi shook his head, biting his lip and almost drawing blood at his own idiocy.
He needed to stop.
(He wouldn’t stop.)
(He wouldn’t say it, then, but fear and terror had overcome him in waves upon waves, and it had taken infinitely too long for it to finally ebb away, just for another spurt of nerves to arise when Itadori told the table he had to go to practice, said goodbye, and then as if on second thought, turned towards Megumi and told him, “Goodbye, Fushiguro Megumi.”)
“Spit it out,” Nobara had said the second everyone else had gathered their things, also, and left. “Spill it, Megs.”
Megumi didn’t need to.
“It was him, wasn’t it?” Nobara asked, eyes wide. “The guy you’ve been constantly seeing and obsessing over?”
And the rest was history, really, because this time, when Nobara went on a rant about her friend from high school, he listened intentionally to every word, swallowing them down in heaps, uncaring that he might not take that much at once.
He didn’t worry about that at all.
All he felt was, well, pink.
(Itadori had always played sports in high school, always came in first in competitions, always loved comics and anime, hated school, always smiled and laughed much, always loudly and never ashamed, never really got in trouble other than bad grades, treated everybody kindly, was honest, grew up an orphan but started living with his grandfather at fifteen, could never quite sit still, started dying his hair after a bet and never stopped again, used to volunteer at his old orphanage and teach kids how to play sports, always—)
With a bit of gold around the edges.
--
The truth of the matter was that Megumi didn’t stop seeing him, after that. In fact, like some cosmic joke played on Megumi—as if his burdens weren’t already crushing enough that he needed something else to be afraid of—he still kept seeing him everywhere.
More now than possibly before.
Where Megumi had at least a shred of dignity before and could at the very least not look up whenever he felt him around, he now lost it all.
Because Itadori Yuuji, truly sunshine personified because Megumi hadn’t once seen him not shine, saw Megumi too.
In the coffee shop in the mornings, he'd grin and wave at Megumi. On the streets, as Yuuji ran past him, he'd point finger guns at him and wink. And during get-togethers, he was there, too.
Always. Well, mostly. Enough times for Megumi to completely lose his footing and stumble daily, thoughts about this man not leaving him.
They were just not going away, no matter what Megumi did, and he loathed that. He detested that.
Despicable, disgraceful, stupid Megumi, letting himself crush on some guy he barely even knew and entirely thrown off kilter, teetering on a ledge of utter despair.
He needed to stop feeling this way, and immediately, at that. But weeks had passed since that first real conversation with him, and Megumi still couldn’t forget him.
His voice, his hair, his constantly smiling face, the deep dimple in his right cheek, his strong hands, strong build, like he could throw Megumi around if he wanted to, and what would that feel like, Megumi wondered. If Yuuji grabbed Megumi and did with him what he pleased? Would he be kind, would he be stern, would he use Megumi or let Megumi use him, and—
Stop, Megumi berated himself, clenching his fists as he stood in line for his coffee. He needed to stop.
Except, and this was where the tide turned against Megumi even more, Yuuji was—and this was the truth that lingered, incessantly—infinitely kind.
Supreme crush material, Nobara would always call him after a get-together where Yuuji was around, too. And Megumi would roll his eyes and nudge her to leave him alone, but—
He was. Itadori Yuuji was supreme crush-material.
Within hours, he had won his entire friend group over. He brought them self-baked goods that didn’t taste remotely terrible often, he constantly made them laugh, he helped them out whenever he could, he was funny, and kind, and honest.
Megumi had seen him console Todo after a lost wrestling match, never mind the fact that Itadori was there to support him anyway. He'd seen Itadori drive Nobara home countless times after a night out when Nobara inevitably started crying about Maki.
Itadori had given Yuuta advice on sex with a man, even, according to Nobara, when Yuuta was a little nervous about being with Inumaki because he hadn’t been with a guy before and didn’t want to embarrass himself.
In all of it, Itadori stood tall and helped however he could. And the worst of it was that Megumi didn’t think he even slightly expected something in return. This was just who he was, apparently, carved out of pure goodness—carved from the very marrow of decency.
Yet the wound ran deeper because—Megumi learned that life had not been very kind to Itadori in return.
He didn’t know any details, but sometimes Nobara would suddenly quiet down, a wistful look overtaking her face, and would change the subject after mumbling, “Not my place to tell, but shit wasn’t always very pretty for him growing up.”
So Megumi's crush couldn’t help but run deeper; Itadori was not only carved from the marrow of decency and goodness but instead seemed to have carved himself from it.
He could only imagine how much blood drenched Itadori’s hands while he wrenched and tore whatever goodness he sought from a cruel world that had mostly rejected him.
He was just so—nice.
Megumi hated how it affected him, despised when every once in a while, an unattended, untended thought like “He would be a good lover, wouldn’t he?” echoed in his head.
(Megumi had no chance, was the bottom line.)
--
“Something happened,” Gojo’s voice came five minutes into their weekly phone calls—though they happened much more frequently than Megumi would ever admit—shaking him out of his trance.
“Huh?” Megumi said, gnawing at his lip as he took a sip of his coffee, watching, as he always did, the streets outside, cars bustling and honking, stopping and going, engines revving and people brushing against each other, unbeknownst to anything but their own existence.
There was something comforting about that, Megumi thought; not being known by these people.
None of them knowing that it had been another month, but pink hadn’t left the recesses of his mind at all. The warmth the golden, honey gaze had left hadn’t iced over yet either.
None of these people knew Megumi sighed now because Gojo knew—how did he always seem to know?—that something was going on.
“Something happened that has you distracted,” he replied. And just as Megumi found it within himself to counter, he added, “And not the same kind of distracted as usual. This is different.”
Megumi sighed, tasting blood on his bitten lip as he closed his eyes, leaned his head against the window, and reflected on what to say.
“Nobara introduced us to her high school friend,” he ended up saying, instead of telling him that fear had taken hold of his limbs again and paralyzed him.
Gojo was quiet on the other end of the line, for a moment. “And?”
“And,” Megumi sighed, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment longer before he finally opened them again and looked outside. And now all I see is pink everywhere. “… Nothing.”
“Okay, Megumi,” Gojo said, except Megumi wasn’t listening anymore.
Outside, pink passed by him in a flash and stopped dead at a crossroad. And—oh, wasn’t it good to know Megumi's eyes didn’t deceive him—there he was, as he always was, every morning at six thirty am, running. Except this time, he stopped at a crossroad for a moment, just to jog into the middle of the road and help the elderly woman crossing it so as not to warrant more cruel honking from the impassionate drivers.
This guy could not possibly be real—
“You’ll tell me when you’re ready, I guess.”
“There's nothing to tell,” Megumi said, but the lie left a bitter taste in his mouth as his eyes never strayed from the boy beyond the window. There he was, truthfully, interrupting his morning run just to help a woman cross the street and carry her groceries for her.
He could not possibly be real—
Megumi's chest squeezed, and he couldn’t help it, he whispered, “I keep seeing him everywhere, Gojo.”
“Oh, Megumi,” Gojo breathed, but Megumi heard the smile in his voice. “You have a crush, that’s—”
“Not what I want,” he interrupted, voice coming out quivery. It was as close to a confession as Megumi would ever come.
“Oh, Megumi,” Gojo breathed again, and this time, Megumi heard the worry in his voice. “I’m afraid we don’t get to pick who we love in this world.”
Megumi blanched. “I never said anything about love—”
“Same difference. We also don’t get to pick who we like in this world, Megumi,” Gojo responded. “Take it from someone who tried.”
Megumi untensed, softened at the reminder that his guardian had lived a whole life before he ever met Megumi and took him in at seven, and loved a man once so thoroughly that it had ruined him.
And yet, Gojo existed, right? Despite bearing the unthinkable, carrying agony worse than any other, Gojo existed, was known, and was not defined by who he had loved and lost.
He was whole, right, wasn’t he? That broken heart of his, people wouldn’t know of unless he told him.
It wouldn’t be death, Megumi tried to remind himself. It wouldn’t be death to let himself love someone.
It wouldn’t be death.
“I know,” Megumi said. “But I don’t know him. I’ve only met him a few times.”
“So? Did that matter to your heart, do you reckon?”
Megumi scoffed. Leave it to Gojo to make everything sound like life and death, like intensity in its purest and rawest form.
He was right, though, wasn’t he? Did it matter to Megumi's heart at all that he didn’t want this?
“Megumi,” Gojo’s voice came again. “Thank you for telling me this.”
And, well—Megumi couldn’t very well say he was welcome, because this was for him. He deserved to talk about his feelings, right? He deserved to be heard and be seen and expect that from the people around him, right? Right?
Except—
“I’m scared,” Megumi whispered, but he wanted to say so much more. I’m scared it will happen again, I’m scared I’ll let myself feel again and learn the lesson all over again.
The words clawed at his throat, and Megumi knew they wanted out, that all he had to do was open that mouth of his and let the words crawl away from him, but he couldn’t.
I’m rotten to my core.
And again, at that moment, it hit him square in the chest, how every scar he'd ever harbored he inflicted on himself.
That there’s something fundamentally unlovable about me.
“I know, Megs,” Gojo said, but Megumi knew he smiled through it. “The first step is to admit that to yourself, though.”
What if you haven’t moved further from step one in three years, Megumi almost voiced, what if you can’t take the next step, he thought, what even is the next step?
Except the questions died in his throat—though for an entirely different reason than usual.
Today, his voice died in his throat because a mess of unkempt, wildly pink hair floated through the room, Megumi's face suddenly on fire as he watched the man order a drink with his signature grin intact.
Then he suddenly looked up and around, scanning the crowd before his gaze caught Megumi's.
“I’ll call you later,” he whispered into his phone and hung up.
Recognition flashed through them as more blood flushed into Megumi's face, and Itadori smiled a private smile—different, somehow, from his signature one—and took slow but steady steps toward Megumi, as if giving Megumi space to shake his head if he didn’t want his company.
Itadori hadn’t done this before. He hadn’t actually—
He watched, a breath caught in his chest, as Itadori closed the space between them and stepped in front of Megumi's table, head cocked as he gazed down at Megumi. “This seat taken?” Itadori asked, nodding towards the seat opposite Megumi.
Megumi shook his head no.
“Fushiguro Megumi, right?” Itadori spoke again as he sat down. “We met the other day, if you remember…”
Megumi almost laughed at the silliness of this radiant man. Like they hadn’t hung out with Megumi's friends—now also Itadori’s friends—many times over the past month. “Of course, I remember.”
Itadori replied, then, hand at his nape and rubbing again suddenly. “Right. I’m very memorable.” Megumi raised his eyebrow. “No! I mean. God. I’m told I’m very loud is all. That’s what I meant.”
“Well, you are,” Megumi replied without thinking, recoiling inwardly at his ambitious words.
He pretended that the way he said it sounded teasing enough to be a yes, you’re very loud, instead of the very intense yes, you’re very memorable that Megumi knew he really meant.
A secret picked out of the jumbled mess in his head, straight for the taking. “It’s not a bad thing, though.”
Itadori grinned. “Couldn’t be sure, what with you barely looking at me when we hang out with your friends.”
And really, this was one of the moments Megumi wished he had learned from Gojo more than survival and self-defense; the ability to tease and flirt. If Gojo had been in a situation like this, talking to a boy he thought cute, he wouldn’t have hesitated to say, “Spent a lot of time trying to get my attention, huh?”
But Megumi couldn’t, because Megumi couldn’t.
Because Megumi knew nothing of being open and casual and flirty, and instead mastered the art of intensity.
You’re too serious, Megs, lighten up. He’d mastered, also, the art of overreaction and easily taking offense to words—You always twist my fucking words, Megumi, fuck—and also, the icing on the cake, doubting.
I’m getting tired of this, Megumi, you crowd me too much, Megumi, let me breathe, Megumi, stop overreacting, Megumi, you’re being annoying, you’re acting like—you’re too much, Megumi, what is wrong with you, Megumi, it took too long—you wouldn’t put out, why are you so—
“I don’t do too well with new people,” Megumi winced, looking outside the window again in embarrassment, though Itadori only laughed. He'd wanted to tack on an I’m sorry, but he was told in therapy not to apologize for everything he ever did like he was apologizing for himself.
More than just a sorry gathered in his mouth whenever he choked down the apology on his tongue, though.
(I’m sorry I’m bad at this, I’m sorry I’m hard to befriend, hard to talk to, hard to like, hard to—)
“I noticed. Also, Nobara warned me,” Itadori replied, grinning. “I can make up for it, though. Told I’m a social butterfly.”
“I can tell,” Megumi voiced, trying to ignore the smile brushing his mouth, wanting out. Instead, he tried something else when he noticed the barista watching them with Itadori's drink in hand. “I think your order is ready, Itadori Yuuji.”
“Oh,” Itadori said, looking back at the counter, smiling and waving at the barista enthusiastically. “It can wait.”
Megumi blushed, trying not to smile as his heart jumped in his chest. “I didn’t think you were one to drink coffee.”
Itadori laughed. “I’m definitely not. It doesn’t—well. The ADHD thing is already difficult enough to deal with on good days. I don’t need coffee on top of it,” he shrugged, as if telling a complete stranger about his ADHD was normal, acceptable, and not too vulnerable and too real and too scary. Megumi almost frowned. “It’s green tea.”
“You don’t mind that it’s getting cold right now?” Megumi raised his eyebrow again.
“Nope.”
“No?”
Itadori grinned. “Nah.”
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Megumi asked as well, panic simmering within him.
“Practice in half an hour, but I can spare a few minutes,” Itadori shrugged again, leaning back in his seat, locking eyes with Megumi again without issues. “What about you? How come you always sit here by yourself?”
And—what?
“What?” Megumi asked, suddenly breathless. His skin suddenly tautened, hands sweaty where they were wrapped around his cup.
Itadori looked nothing if not sure, although a little nervous. Like the admission did, in fact, not leave his mouth unwarranted. It was deliberate.
Itadori exhaled deeply. Shrugged sheepishly as his hand went back to its resident place behind his neck, rubbing awkwardly. “I don’t know, just—I’ve been coming here since, like, September? And most days you tend to be here, too, so…”
Megumi had to force himself to release his next words. “You noticed that?”
But they were too quiet, too broken, too breathless and chopped. Too much, too—you noticed me?
Itadori’s smile vanished, a serious look crossing his face. “I noticed that.”
Megumi's mind was spiraling as he asked, nerves tightening ever so much within him, “How?”
Itadori didn’t break their eye contact as he shrugged again, as he did so often like he really did not care about the words that were now leaving his mouth. “You’re not very difficult to notice, you know?”
This ridiculous, ridiculous boy.
“I need to go, actually,” Megumi blurted, chest suddenly too tight, the quietly unfurling panic now about to boil. Megumi got up, begging his nerves to ease down. “Sorry, I have classes now.”
“Hey,” Itadori interrupted, voice firm and serious before a smile took over his face. Megumi took a deep breath. “I get it. That was a loaded statement. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”
And Megumi should say, you ridiculous, ridiculous boy, of course, this made me uncomfortable, don’t say that again, don’t speak to me again because I fear you, you scare me, and my fear and anxiety are too much and you can't handle it, you won't, I won't let you, not as a stranger, or a friend, or more, or less, or—
Do not ruin a good thing before you’ve had it, kid, Gojo’s voice suddenly drowned out Megumi's own. Megumi repeated it like a mantra in his head. He took a deep breath.
“You didn’t,” Megumi said, shaking his head.
Itadori studied Megumi for a second. Then he nodded once, twice, before he said, “Would you mind if I sat with you again next time I come in here?”
This ridiculous, ridiculous boy.
“I wouldn’t,” Megumi replied, unthinking.
(Between the two of them, it seemed that Megumi was the ridiculous, ridiculous boy.)
--
I wouldn’t, he had said, except he didn’t go back there again afterwards for two weeks.
Nobara constantly mentioned hanging out with Itadori, something about rekindling their friendship, and he'd listened when she’d told him to let him in, befriend him, he was good, good, good.
God, of course Itadori was good. But Megumi knew what he himself was, too.
Someone who could ruin good people.
Singlehandedly, he could ruin a golden boy and turn him molten and tired. Exhausted. Singlehandedly, he could shift his pink into blue. His gold into grey.
--
He asks about you, you know? Nobara texted him today, and it took everything in Megumi not to ask for his number and ignore her message instead, putting his phone into his scrubs and making his rounds at the hospital where he interned.
It wasn’t until he made it to his favorite patient, Wasuke-san, that he stopped dead in his tracks as his gaze landed on a mop of messy pink hair like clockwork.
What was—
This poor old man has nobody to visit him except his grandson, Megumi remembered his coworker telling him a day into his internship. He actually comes around pretty often, and he's paying his hospital bills, too. Lord knows how and why, considering the doctors said his chances are slim to nonexistent and the guy is too stubborn to try another treatment.
His grandson—
I have some unfinished business here, is all.
Megumi watched, mesmerized, as Itadori's back moved up and down in a steady, calm rhythm, hair a mess from going through it too often, probably. He was helping his grandfather get dressed, being paid in grunts and groans from the groggy man.
Itadori himself was smiling, however, rolling his eyes fondly whenever his grandfather spat possibly vicious words at him.
Megumi should leave. He should leave and let someone else make his rounds and check up on this man.
“You always have been stubborn, haven’t ya, huh?” Itadori said, humor in his voice as Megumi got closer to the door, and Megumi suddenly knew he couldn’t leave even if he wanted to. Itadori laughed, mumbling under his breath. “Docs are saying to do chemo, Pops, so why won't you?”
“Fuck off. We've been through this. Tell ‘em to go to hell, son,” the old man piped up, his back turned towards Itadori. He was a groggy, sort of mean kind of man, Megumi knew from his own experience. Though the tone he used on Itadori was wildly more menacing than what they were accustomed to at the hospital. “I ain’t need some fuckass chemo just to end up six feet under, anyways. Tell ‘em I want to die in peace.”
“Except there's nothing peaceful about you, so why don’t you tell me the real reason you want to die?” Itadori replied, taking a seat on the chair next to Wasuke-san’s hospital bed, hands propped up on his knees as he grinned at his grandfather.
He looked—tired, today. Megumi hadn’t seen Itadori in a while, but he looked tired. Weighty, like something was burdening him today.
Wasuke-san turned fully towards Itadori, sitting up in his seat. Itadori immediately rushed to his side to help him sit properly upright, but his grandfather only slapped his hands away.
“Because of this precisely, you dimwit. I ain’t want your stupid money or your stupid fucking help, ya got that? Go live your damn life and just let me die. I don’t want you around.”
Itadori laughed halfheartedly as he held his hands up in surrender and sat back down on his chair. “Try again, Pops.”
Wasuke-san rolled his eyes, jaw tightening. “’Cause you’re here every damn day, kid. Ya’ve been here since I got sick.”
“So?” Itadori smiled, not at all bothered by his grandfather’s words. “Some would say having your family around when you’re dying is a good thing.”
“Right,” the old man scoffed, coughing into his hand before he continued, “except all you dimwit do is take care of me. When’s the last time you got your stupid dick wet, huh? You’re always here. You’re paying for a treatment I don’t fucking need because I’ll die within the year, anyway, and all you’re doing is prolonging the inevitable. Grow a pair, will ya? Just piss off, Yuuji.”
Itadori laughed again as he looked around for something else to do. When his eyes landed on his grandfather’s empty bottle, he got up and refilled it for him.
“Keep it coming, Pops. You might actually hurt me with your words this time.”
“You stupid fuck!” the man yelled, a cough following his harsh words. Itadori tensed right as he turned on the water faucet. “Don’t you fucking understand I don’t want to be indebted to you?”
“Indebted?” Itadori asked. “Who told you you’re indebted to me? You’re the one who took me in when I was 15, Pops. If anything,I’m indebted to you.”
“Tsk,” Wasuke-san gibed. “I only took you in ‘cause nobody else wanted a hyperactive fucking kid. And 'cause they were willing to pay me for it.”
Itadori flinched, and so did Megumi. A sudden fury simmering within him, he frowned at the man’s words. How dare he—
“I know, but you did it anyways,” Itadori shrugged the words right off. “Doesn’t matter why. You stepped up.”
“Fucking idiot. Yuuji, you stepped up.”
“No, Pops—“
“Yes, Yuuji.” Wasuke-san clenched his jaw, as if to will away tears Megumi could see forming in his eyes. “I took you in and the second I did, you got a job, learned to cook, did the cleaning, chores, everything. I have never done a single shit for you in your life, Yuuji.”
“Why are we even talking about this?” Itadori puffed. “Now stop fiddling, you’re going to ruin your sleeping positio—”
“Won't you hear? I don’t want to see you when I’m dying, Yuuji. I want to know you’re out and about and living your life. I want to do one good thing for you before I die, kid. I won't forgive you otherwise.”
“I am living a good life, Pops,” Itadori sighed, taking a seat again, head tilted towards the ceiling as he closed his eyes. His fingers pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m getting paid a shit-ton for my passion, I’ve got good people around me, I’m healthy. I don’t need—”
“You wanted to live in Kyoko and you didn’t go because—”
“Leave it, Pops,” Itadori interrupted, voice firm. His fingers were still massaging the bridge of his nose in frustration.
“But—”
“I said leave it!” Itadori said again, this time brasher.
The man said nothing, then, face crinkled in anger and irritation and—pity, perhaps. Or guilt.
When Itadori got up and walked toward the window, looking out, Megumi watched with rapt attention the love that boiled in his grandfather’s eyes.
As if he only loved Itadori when he wasn’t looking.
The sudden thought that Itadori didn’t deserve to be loved in secret crawled into the back of Megumi's head, spreading like wildfire in his brain.
“You fucked up my pillow,” Wasuke-san said after a while, turning his face around. “Go tell that pretty nurse to come fix it.”
Itadori sighed, head dropping to his chest. “Name, Pops?”
“Megumi.”
Itadori stood up suddenly, knocking over his chair in his haste to get up. “What?”
“There’s this really pretty nurse here. Very soft hands, unlike your fuckass ones, and—”
Megumi stopped listening for a second as he closed his eyes, willed his heart to calm down, and tried to gather at least some of his wits.
“Good evening, Wasuke-san,” Megumi cleared his throat as he knocked on the door, face cooled into a somewhat neutral expression. “How are you doing today?”
“Fine,” the old man replied. “Good. Real good. Tell my grandson to piss off, will ya?”
But Itadori was stock-still, watching in surprise as Megumi walked in with Wasuke-san’s dinner and took a seat next to him. He began to feed him, then, as he always did at nights, trying not to shiver as Itadori stared and stared and stared.
Afterward, he conversed some with Wasuke-san, infinitely nicer to Megumi than to Itadori, while checking his vitals and taking them down on his chart. All the while there were eyes on the back of Megumi's head, staring intensely.
It wasn’t until a while later, when the old man finally fell asleep, that Itadori cleared his throat, at last, and Megumi turned around to lock eyes with who hadn’t left the recesses of his mind in much too long.
“You’re here.”
“I’m a med student,” Megumi replied, walking towards Itadori and stopping in front of him. Megumi wasn’t small by any means, but still, Itadori towered over him even slumped against the wall. Eyes racing. “I intern here.”
Itadori watched for a while, Megumi under intense scrutiny he couldn’t divert his gaze from.
Then Itadori nodded, pushed off the wall, and walked towards the exit. “I’ll see you around, then, Fushiguro Megumi.”
“Wait,” Megumi said before he could stop himself. Back still turned towards Itadori, he felt him look at him, gaze warm on his back. His blood twirled into honey in his veins as he turned around, fists clenched. It’d leave a mark, wouldn’t it, just for Megumi to realize he'd been grabbing at absolutely nothing again. “Wait, I—”
“It’s okay, man, really,” Itadori sighed, and yet still gave a small smile. “I can take a rejection.”
“Listen—what?” What?
“I said I can recognize a rejection for what it is, so. It’s okay. You don’t need to explain.”
“I didn’t reject you,” Megumi winced—”I didn’t—what? I didn’t know you were…”
“Asking you out?” Itadori laughed, but it was a hollow, lifeless sound. Like he didn’t believe Megumi at all. “It’s okay. I told you I can take—”
“It wasn’t a rejection,” Megumi said again. He tried in vain not to sound too desperate. “I didn’t know.”
Itadori looked confused. He let out a chuckling breath. Almost—hopeful. “You really didn’t?”
“No,” Megumi said. Shook his head and tried his darndest not to go back on his word and run. Do not run, do not run, do not—He breathed. “I didn’t. How could I have?”
“I asked to accompany you at the café… After I told you I’d been noticing you for months.”
Megumi spluttered. “But I didn’t—that doesn’t mean—I didn’t know you liked—”
“You?”
“Boys.”
Itadori laughed. Goodness, would he ever stop laughing, Megumi was losing his mind. “Well, I do.”
“But I’m not—I’m not like—” Megumi tried, failed, and tried again. “I’m not—I have—it doesn’t matter, it’s not as black as white as you think.”
Itadori nodded. Shrugged. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah, okay,” Itadori shrugged again. “You can explain it to me.”
A wave of nausea hit Megumi as his chest tightened. The carefully untangled mess in his brain knotted together again, snarled up in all directions. He couldn’t quite think, not clearly. Heart hammering, cold sweat finally overtook him, little by little. “I have a really difficult relationship with food.”
“Okay.”
“Stop saying okay!” Megumi choked. Tears threatened to break out, and he tried, he really tried his best to keep them at bay lest he make a fool out of himself in front of the kindest guy he'd probably ever met.
Itadori grimaced. “But it is. I mean, not okay, of course. I don’t, like, condone that or anything, I just mean. Is that supposed to, well, scare me off, or something? Because—”
“I’m busy often,” Megumi interrupted.
He was starting to bite on his lip too hard to not be noticeable anymore. His panic was showing, he knew, but he couldn’t exactly stop it. He needed Itadori to—to leave. To take it back. To not give him this kind of hope that maybe, maybe, Megumi wouldn’t really be too difficult to—well—feel something for, or try to feel something for, or to be with.
You’ll run, Itadori, the second you realize how difficult I am, how clingy, how scared, like, all the time. You will run.
“Okay.” Itadori nodded, suddenly no longer smiling. He took a step forward as if trying not to scare Megumi, but oh, did it frighten him anyway.
“I have an anxiety disorder,” Megumi whispered between them.
“Okay.” Itadori took one last step towards Megumi, leaving a healthy distance between them.
Megumi hated wanting to cross it, hated wanting to take more steps back, hated that it all essentially rooted him incapable of moving at all. “I—stop. Stop. These are not okay traits, Itadori.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say, actually.” Itadori’s shoulder lifted in a loose shrug, and he sounded almost confused that Megumi would be warning him.
Rubbing the back of his neck, Itadori added, “It’s not like I asked you out because I thought you were sunshine personified. Besides. I have ADHD? At least I think that’s what I think you’re getting at. I’m difficult to handle sometimes, too. That’s what you mean, right? I’m—I’m really scared of what it can do to someone close to me sometimes. But the truth is, I don’t know what it can do yet, either. And really, neither can you.”
“Yes, I can!” Megumi quipped, but where he wanted to sound fierce and strong and intimidating, he knew he sounded more along the lines of pathetic. On the brink of tears. Begging. “Because it has happened before. Itadori, I ruin people if I let them in too close.”
“I don’t believe that,” Itadori said softly. Smiling. Always smiling, always honest. “Whatever happened wasn’t your fault.”
“You don’t know that,” Megumi tried to say, straightening up. “Yes, it was.”
Itadori didn’t reply for a moment. He pondered, never once breaking their gaze, and then smiled sheepishly. “I guess I don’t know, huh? Guess I don’t really know a lot. I haven’t thought further than talking to you more, to be honest... I just—of course I don’t exactly know what will happen.”
“What do you know then?” And it was supposed to seem mean, but Megumi knew it came out like a plea instead.
“What do I know?” Itadori pondered, for a moment.
The smile left his face, switched out for something more nervous. He nodded to himself before he breathed in, and out. “I know that I first saw you months ago in September, and that I haven’t really stopped thinking about you since… And I know it got worse after the first time we talked, and then worse again the second time we talked, and—well. Quite frankly, it got worse again just now, too… So… What I know is that I would love to listen to my cheesy fucking heart, and… see you more often. See what the silly little fucker means when it beats this fast around you.”
See what the silly little fucker means when it beats this fast around you.
Megumi's heart—inconsolable.
It had heard the words, felt the words, and immediately joined Itadori’s in its heartbeat, quite ready to grow legs and run from Megumi to the person it thought might actually want to keep it.
Megumi started to shake his head, trying to force his heart to stop, just stop—
But after such words, what power could Megumi possibly still have left over it?
Itadori nodded as he watched Megumi's reactions. He turned around, then, walked to where his backpack was and grabbed it. As he walked past Megumi, he stood at the door and said, “I… understand if that scares you, you know? I do.”
Then, like he hadn’t just ripped into Megumi’s carefully curated walls, “See you around, Fushiguro.”
--
Naturally, Megumi took his time to go back to the coffee shop.
He just—couldn’t work with his fear quite yet.
And who had taught him, anyway? His father, who'd feared his own kids and ran from them? Or perhaps Gojo, who'd feared loving his best friend and ran from him, too? Or Nobara, who constantly told Megumi to get a grip but still hadn’t told Maki that she was in love with her?
Megumi hadn’t particularly learned from anyone in his life to grapple and tussle with his fears, to stare them dead-on in the honeyed eyes and say, I will stay, anyways.
And so it had taken a while until Megumi became too restless.
Fear had always gnawed and chewed at his bones, but something else entirely overcame him these days; want.
Want, as opposed to fear, had the lovely habit of gnawing at Megumi's heart and soul, instead.
And, well—bones, they remained. Unchanged, because fear’s gnawing, albeit constant and pressing and nerve-wracking, had never actually takenanything, now had it?
Want, however—oh, want—it could kill.
For years, fear had chipped away at Megumi—and still, Megumi remained.
But souls didn’t hold like bones did. They shrank, recoiled, wore thin. And every day that Megumi yielded to dread but resisted the pull of want, he paled, and faded a little more.
Until eventually he feared—yet another fear—that perhaps he’d become nothing at all, and still have want claw at his remains.
It was after the season had changed from its golden hue to its white layer that Megumi found courage, if only for a second, and walked to his usual coffee shop again.
Fists clenched, jaw tight, pulse thrashing—loud, unrelenting. Still, he walked, despite his crushing weight.
Still, he walked.
“You don’t need to be scared, Megumi,” Gojo spoke through the microphone, and Megumi could barely even hear him over the rapid beat of his heart. Yet, a frown took over Megumi's features immediately, his eyes rolling.
Of course, Gojo would say that.
Megumi didn’t need to be anything, if it were up to Gojo. Nobody needed to be anything, if it were up to Gojo. But Megumi couldn’t believe that there wasn’t a pressing need to be within every person, and that when Megumi didn’t know what to be, fear overtook until no other emotion had any space left to exist in him.
He remembered his therapist’s words, “Don’t you get tired of never feeling anything else?”
Yes, he'd said to her back then. But it was worse now, because he could feel the other emotions trying to break the surface, and his fear pressing them down. A demanding, tenacious little thing.
Today, he tried not to let it win.
“Megumi?” Gojo spoke again. “Are you listening to me?”
“I am,” Megumi replied, eyes roving over every person until they landed on his designated seat.
A man and a woman were sitting with their two kids, all laughing at their father’s milk mustache. Pointing fingers at each other. The children were trying to mimic their father and get milk on their top lip, too.
Taken.
The family's laughter rang in Megumi's ears.
“I don’t agree with you, though,” Megumi mumbled into the phone.
“I know,” Gojo sighed. “I will mark and celebrate it annually the minute you do.”
“Har har,” Megumi deadpanned, eyes still firmly fixated on the happy family.
Taken.
His seat was taken.
He had been coming for months, months, to this place in the mornings, and even though nobody ever spoke to him exactly, everyone had always known that was Megumi's seat.
But it was taken, it was taken, and it hit him suddenly how fast the tide could change and pull him under, how it took no more than a month for Megumi's insignificance to fester, and for him to be forgotten.
Because he would be, Gojo always said, if he continued being so scared of being seen.
And Megumi was, but perhaps he harbored equal fear of the opposite, of not being seen at all. And what did you do, then? When you were scared of both, and the minute you thought you decided what to fear less, it overcame you again.
Rooted to the spot, much like he was now, watching everyone decide for themselves and own it, but Megumi here, still here. Stuck in limbo.
Stuck in fear of both directions, and—
“Megumi,” Gojo said, in that stern and concerned voice of his that told Megumi that even his spiraling thoughts would not drown out his next words. They would hold a weight Megumi could not untie from the depth of his soul again, like that time Megumi was ten and alone in a room filled with shredded dresses and Gojo had said, “You can’t shred yourself, Megumi. You can only reinvent yourself.”
He'd changed Megumi's life with those words. Not shredded, but reinvented his belief system, until Megumi reinvented himself, time and time again.
Today, Gojo said: “This fear of yours, yeah? It might warm you now, but will leave you very cold in your grave.”
“And what do you suppose I do, then?” Megumi scoffed, teeth clenching. But he wasn’t, and he'd never been, nearly as strong as his tightened jaw. His voice only ever quivered. “Huh? What do you suppose I do? How do you suppose I stop feeling it?”
“You don’t stop, Megs,” Gojo said, like it was easy, like he should know this. “You do it scared.”
“Yeah,” Megumi whispered, eyes still placed on his table as he heard the barista call for a name, the coffee machine whirring behind him. “Except now my seat is taken.”
“What do you mean by that?” Gojo asked, though Megumi found it impossible to put into words.
That if he ever decided to do it scared rather than not do it at all, if he'd take tentative steps, he’d inevitably look up from his wobbly feet one day and realize he was alone. His seat was taken. Patience had run out.
And it would, it always would. Everyone’s patience would always run out.
“Nothing,” Megumi replied. “I don’t think he's coming, so. I’ll just go. Talk to you later, Gojo.”
Itadori’s patience had. Before Gojo could yell at him not to leave, Megumi ordered a coffee from the barista, and took a seat at the table behind his old one.
This had always been the fear, hadn’t it, looking up from wobbly feet just to find that Itadori wasn’t ready to take such little, unsteady steps.
Not when he was an athlete, a runner, when Megumi's every day was filled with watching his long, steady steps hit the pavement with no suspicions. No doubts at all about whether the pavement had holes, whether he might fall, crash, burn, whether the ground would open up and say, Sikes, you idiot, why did you trust me to be there?
And what would Itadori do, if he found himself falling one day, the reality he had believed in swiped from under him?
Megumi thought he would laugh, probably. Smile down at his scraped knees and say, Well, that was a bummer, wasn’t it, and try again. While all Megumi would do, could do, was stare at the blood until it quantified, hollowed him out, and put the fear of bleeding again in him.
Until red was all he saw and feared and hated, and walking was no option, let alone standing up.
Itadori would be well on his way to the sun already, Megumi thought, before he ever even made it out of the shadows.
“Needed a change of pace?” came a voice, and Megumi snapped out of his thoughts and straight into the sun.
The sudden thought that perhaps he'd never need out of the shadows, anyway, if Itadori was around to bring the sun to him overcame him, suddenly.
Megumi tried to choke it down.
“What?” Megumi said, eyes probably widened pathetically and heart in his throat. His seat was taken, so what was Itadori doing here?
“You don’t usually sit here, Fushiguro,” Itadori laughed. Megumi's cheeks warmed immediately. He hadn’t felt the sun on his skin in a long, long time, it seemed. “Or did you forget that since the last time you came here?”
And Megumi knew, of course, he was trying to lighten the mood, trying to ease the tension, but Itadori hadn’t forgotten. He hadn’t forgotten, and he'd noticed, too, that his seat was taken.
He didn’t seem to mind.
“My seat was taken,” Megumi replied, instead of apologizing.
(An apology of the magnitude he owed himself for ruining every good thing he'd ever been presented with didn’t ease off the tongue quite so easily.)
“It isn’t anymore, if you wanted to go back there again,” Itadori shrugged, smiled, though his eyes had a nervous hue in them.
“No,” Megumi said, and it was as close to an apology as he could give. “I think I’d like to sit here today.”
Itadori smiled brightly, as if he understood why it was such a big deal for Megumi to allow this kind of change in his life, and asked, “Well, then—is this seat taken?”
The next time Megumi had gone to the café, terrified and on wobbly feet as always, Itadori had already been there, and he'd already ordered Megumi's coffee, too.
(In hindsight, that was probably the first time Megumi had stared at the sun without squinting.)
(Megumi didn’t remember ever telling Itadori his coffee order.)
--
“Tell me about that,” Megumi said, a month passing again until February had rolled around and a snowy Itadori had awaited him with a warm cup of coffee in his hands.
The coffee shop had been bustling with people, about to break at the seams. Megumi had watched for the first five minutes how Itadori had fought off the people trying to sit with him, something about, sorry, my friend is sitting there and sorry, this seat’s taken and hey, seriously, he’s about to come here any second.
Megumi had a silly grin in place the entire time before he finally released Itadori from his anguish and took his seat in front of him while Itadori was mid-bickering with someone else.
“Hi,” he mumbled, his gaze finding Itadori’s golden eyes.
“Hi,” Itadori breathed right back, pushing Megumi's coffee toward him with a beaming smile on his face.
The snow had still been glistening in Itadori’s hair, his wetness splashing everywhere like a puppy’s whenever he shook his head in laughter.
Megumi had had to bite his lip to keep from smiling.
(That was a regular occurrence, these days.)
Immediately, a conversation had started. Like always. Itadori made it so easy, so incredibly easy, to talk to that most days after their little hang-outs, Megumi went home with a sore jaw. The reminder of their time lingering for hours.
(Yes, he was exaggerating.)
(The hurt jaw wasn’t because of the talking.)
And today, like always, because Itadori really just made it so easy, their conversation again slipped from casual to, well, this.
Real.
“Huh? Tell you about what?” Itadori replied, not noticing Megumi's eyes on his fiddling hands.
Megumi, too, fiddled with his hands when nervous, like when Itadori said something that turned Megumi into a blushing mess and he had to avert his eyes. But that was different to this. It was as if there was an incessant buzz under Itadori’s skin that seemed to trigger constant movement.
A tip tapping against the table here, a rub to his mug there, a scratch to his skin now.
“That,” Megumi answered, nodding towards Itadori’s scratched hands.
“Oh, that,” Itadori laughed, a sheepish grin widening on his face as one of his scarred hands scratched the back of his neck. “I don’t really know why I do it.”
Except he did, and Megumi wouldn’t let him lie. Not when he'd been so honest for a month now, not when Megumi had been taking wobbly steps for a month and let Itadori watch.
“You don’t need to tell me, but please don’t lie,” Megumi replied quietly, head tilting.
Itadori averted his gaze, seeming suddenly nervous. “It helps with focusing on what you’re saying.”
“Hurting yourself?” Megumi asked.
He failed a lot, these days, when it came to masking feelings for Itadori, to the point he'd begun to think he'd never succeeded in the first place.
“It doesn’t hurt, exactly,” Itadori shrugged. “I don’t notice it, really. I just need something to do with my hands, I guess.” His explanation was accompanied by the table shaking as Itadori’s wiggling leg graced it. He laughed again, sheepish. “… And my legs... Helps me focus.”
“Because of your ADHD?” Megumi asked. He couldn’t take his eyes off Itadori’s hands.
He'd been watching them for weeks, and yet it wasn’t enough. More and more, a desire to feel them on his skin burrowed under Megumi's own. Megumi gulped, tried not to turn red at the thoughts running through his mind.
(He hated thinking it during an important conversation, but he really wanted to feel them on his skin, these days.)
“Yeah,” Itadori said. “It’s not as bad now as it was when I was younger. I really sucked at school, you know? Sitting for long periods of time, focusing on one thing for a long time. It was hard. Is hard, still, but I’ve gotten the hang of it. It gets better the older you get, right? And you stop needing the meds if you’re lucky, because you figure out a system that works for yourself and all. So...”
“And your system is to make yourself bleed?”
“No,” Itadori laughed. “Like I said, it wasn’t intentional. It just happens around you, I guess. More than usual.” Megumi frowned, and Itadori immediately rectified his statement. “No! I don’t mean it in a bad way, just…”
Megumi's frown deepened. “Just?”
“It happens more around you because I try harder to focus… around you,” Itadori replied, and another smile grazed his lips like he hadn’t just turned Megumi's world upside down, again, with just a few words spoken.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Megumi whispered. He did know what Itadori meant—he was just desperate to hear the words anyway.
“I just don’t really want to miss anything, Fushiguro,” Itadori replied, raw honesty slipping from him easily. Megumi could see his heart bleed in his chest because he never even kept it locked. He wondered why he wasn’t scared it would fall out of his chest. “Not if it’s about you.”
(Perhaps because if it did, Itadori would just pick it up, dust it off, say, Oops, and move on.)
(Megumi smiled inwardly at the thought.)
“You’re—” Megumi started, but now his own hands were starting to fidget and sweat. Realization dawned on him. “You haven’t been missing anything.”
“No, I haven’t.” Itadori smirked, a challenge. Do you dare doubt it?
Megumi shook his head. He knew he shouldn’t say it, but— “I’m not that interesting, Itadori.”
“I disagree,” Itadori said immediately, as if he knew Megumi would say these words. “I think you’re plenty interesting.”
Interesting? Of all things, nobody had ever called him that. No previous lover, at least. He was too—slow. Too careful with his heart to ever be interesting. And now Itadori thought he was, because he seemed to see through Megumi's walls, and how was Megumi not supposed to spiral now, huh?
When a boy like Itadori claimed his feelings so honestly, how could Megumi just sit and watch and nod and not become bone-deep terrified that he could want those feelings back just as easily as he had given them away?
“You said you didn’t do casual,” he came up with, and if Gojo were here, he would applaud him, because this, this, he had been scared of since the beginning.
But he owed it to himself to do it scared. Gojo had been right; this fear he thought filled him only ever hungered him out.
“I don’t,” Itadori nodded.
“So, then,” Megumi started, stopped, and tried to suppress the tears when Itadori only ever waited for him to reply. He whispered, gaze averted, “Itadori, what is happening here?”
“We’re getting to know each other,” he replied, like it was that simple.
“But I thought you—”
“I don’t,” Itadori replied. “I don’t do casual. I don’t try to get to know people because I want to have a fling or one-night stand or situationship with them.”
“Go on,” Megumi prompted, though his voice came out breathy, if at all.
“Are you sure you’re ready to hear this?”
“Yes,” Megumi replied.
He owed this to himself for every day he went to sleep hungry when it wasn’t anyone but him who refused to feed himself. He owed this to himself, he deserved this, he—
“I don’t do casual,” Itadori started again, gaze not straying from Megumi's. “I don’t do casual, and what I want from this is a lot more than casual. And I’m getting to know you because I think we could be really good together, and I want to explore this as far as you’ll let me.”
“And if I wanted casual?” Megumi replied.
“Then I’ll respectfully decline and say I don’t do casual, but… I also don’t think I could ever do it with you. There's just—nothing casual about the way I feel about you, you know?” Itadori responded, and Megumi just about stood up and left if the words didn’t register somewhere he'd been begging to feel them. Itadori nodded, smiled at Megumi's discernable reaction. “I know. That was scary to hear.”
“Yeah,” Megumi replied, exhaling deeply. He couldn’t quite look up from his nails, picking at the black polish on them. Whispering, he added, “You don’t understand quite how terrifying.”
“I do,” Itadori said. “Probably as terrifying as it was to say them.”
Megumi scoffed. “Right.”
“You don’t think I’m scared, Megumi?” And, oh. Oh.
Megumi. Megumi.
“What?” Megumi’s mind reeled, repeating the syllables from Itadori’s mouth. Briefly, he wondered if anyone had ever pronounced his name quite so honestly.
They'd all been right, the poets, that a name claimed by a mouth you adore is fuel for the heart to sing.
“Because I’m terrified, too, you know? This already feels different. This already is different from anything else I’ve ever, well, felt. I mean… Of course it scares me. How could it not scare me?”
Megumi was—confused. “So, why don’t you run?”
Itadori pondered, for a moment. He took a sip from his cold tea—because he never actually drank it in time, always too busy with Megumi.
Itadori nodded to himself before he replied.
“Because disasters happen to the brave and bold just as much as to those who run from them,” Itadori said, and a new smile grazed his face, whimsical, and already Megumi knew someone he loved told him this. “But fate? I heard fate only favors the brave.”
Fate only favors the brave, Megumi repeated in his head, and then asked out loud, “So, what is this, then?”
“This is me trying to get to know you, and you letting me,” Itadori said. “Knowing that I want this to end with me being your boyfriend. Nothing about my intentions is casual, Megumi, okay? And if you don’t want that, you let me know, yeah? You decide what happens, you call the shots. All of them.”
Megumi hadn’t known anyone in his twenty-four years of life who could just talk about his feelings and claim them as serious and expected Megumi to still function, afterward.
And how would he ever, how could he possibly, when he'd never been granted honesty, and he'd only ever had to heave and claw and tear his way through to a truth?
“You’re mental,” Megumi shook his head. “You don’t even know me.”
“I’m getting there,” Itadori shrugged. Smiled that smile of his that weakened Megumi's knees, kicked his heart into overdrive.
“You can't be serious.”
“Why not?” Itadori pressed. “Why can I not be serious?”
“Because people aren’t serious about me, Itadori,” Megumi huffed. Perhaps this was the only chance he still had to save himself, then, no? Before he would fall one way or another, inevitable as anything was with Itadori, off the precipice. “They don’t serve me truths on a silver platter and tell me they have feelings for me. They don’t let me have them, okay?”
They let me beg for them. They let me starve for them. They let me clench whatever I get tightly in my fists just to realize my fist is empty when I open it. Bloody. Megumi inhaled sharply. They—
“Well, you can have me,” Itadori shrugged—and for the love of God, could he stop shrugging like this was nothing? Like saying have me meant nothing, like he actually believed Megumi could. “It’s that easy, really.”
Megumi shook his head, more so to rid himself of his tears than anything else, and— “No.”
“Yes, Megumi,” Itadori said.
“No,” Megumi shook his head again, ready to leave.
He just wanted to leave, suddenly. His skin was—itching. Crawling. Shaking, his breaths came out uneven, and he knew Itadori would have enough, soon. Very soon.
Give it one more pathetic push, Megumi, and he’ll leave.
“Everything I have ever wanted left with my claw marks in them,” Megumi whispered, hands wrapped around his coffee cup as his fingertips circled the warm ceramic rim.
He shouldn’t have said that.
Itadori didn’t reply for a moment, and Megumi thought, this is it, thought, this is the moment he realizes all I’ll do is hurt him.
“You haven’t even let me in yet, why are you so focused on me leaving?” Itadori asked, a genuine question.
Again, Megumi had served his heart on a silver platter, and again, Itadori had not turned away from it in disgust.
“Because it’s what I do,” Megumi said. “I imagine all the ways it could end with me hurt and stop it from happening.”
“And forbid the possibility of good in the process,” Itadori nodded along. “I understand.”
“Right,” Megumi replied sarcastically. Except—
“I do,” Itadori laughed. “I’ll just make you trust me so much your trust in me overshadows your fear of me.”
Except Megumi needed to stop underestimating Itadori Yuuji.
“I’m trans,” Megumi blurted, his last resort to salvage this terrible, terrible hope festering in his heart and fighting his fear for a good spot.
Itadori laughed, then, much less subdued and a lot boisterous. “What? Is that your killer argument to make me leave, then?”
“What?” Megumi whispered.
“I’m sorry,” Itadori apologized. “I just—I know?”
“What…”
“You implied it. Before.” Itadori breathed in deeply. “But maybe you want to elaborate.”
“I… was assigned female at birth.”
Itadori nodded. “Okay.”
“I didn’t like that.”
The golden boy folded his arms over the table and leaned in a little, listening attentively. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Megumi was perplexed, and quite frankly, he was getting angry. “What do you mean—okay?”
“I mean okay, keep going.”
“You don’t have a problem with that?”
“Why would I?”
Why—what? “Because most people really do, Itadori.”
“Well, I don’t.”
Megumi laughed, then. But it was mocking, dirty, and not at all kind. “You’re—God, you’re infuriating.”
“Megumi,” Itadori said softly then. “Please explain it to me.”
Megumi bit his lip, hard, almost drawing blood before he replied, “I was assigned female at birth and I didn’t like it. Didn’t want to be one. Gojo was cool about it, my guardian. I told you about him. He let me experiment.”
“And you did?”
“I did. I had top surgery, later on. I’m glad that I did… But I never wanted another surgery. I still don’t.”
Itadori smiled warmly and nodded for Megumi to go on.
“And I do say that I’m a guy. I also don’t mind being referred to as he.”
Itadori nodded again, smiling brighter. “But?”
“How do you know there's a but?”
Itadori only continued to smile, tilting his head as if to say, Come on. It’s me.
“I’d much rather just be Megumi. Without another label. But I’m good with things the way they are, too.”
Itadori leaned back in his seat, shaking his shoulders a little and straightening up slightly. “Alright.”
“Alright?”
“Yes, Megumi, alright,” Itadori laughed. “I'm not an ass. Why are you surprised?”
And, really, why was he surprised? Why was he still surprised, after all these months, that the golden boy was nothing but golden, golden, golden?
“I don’t know,” Megumi mumbled.
“I know I give off serious jock vibes,” Itadori laughed sheepishly, rubbing at the back of his neck again. “And I know I use a lot of outdated terms with my friends, like dude and bro and man, and I know I seem like I have no idea what gender fluidity is or that accepting anything other than heterosexuality is as far as I can go... But I wasn’t 25 when I realized I wasn’t heterosexual, I was twelve. And I wasn’t 25 when I realized more than two genders exist, I was fourteen. And I wasn’t 25 when I realized I never really did care about that anyways, I was fifteen.”
Megumi was speechless.
“So I know what gender fluidity is, not that that’s the term you want to use. I just mean that I understand that you’re comfortable being referred to as he, and that you do consider yourself a guy, but that you’d like it when people didn’t focus much on that and rather just on the fact that you’re, well, Megumi.
"And I get that, I understand that. In fact, I knowthat. And you won't believe me but I’ve never once wondered about anything like that. I mean, scratch that, I have wondered, but like… Not in that way, like, huh, is he a guy or not, or whatever, and more like, you know, fuck, I want to kiss and undress him and make him feel good. What would make him feel good? But, you know, that’s a given, with you, but I’ve known fairly early you don’t like black-and-white-thinking, and, like... Personally, I haven’t been a black-and-white-thinker since I was a teenager, and so I understand you don’t quite care about labels much, so I won't either, unless it’s something that becomes important to you, in which case I will listen, and, just, you know? Support you.
"But this... it changes nothing, Megumi. I told you I want you. You. Whatever that comes or doesn’t come with? And… now you’re just staring again. Just—I’m cis, and I know it’s difficult to grasp that some of us get it, anyway. Or at least, you know, conceptually, we’re aware that us being comfortable with our assigned gender means nothing, and that black and white doesn’t exist, and—well. I know. And it changes nothing.”
Megumi's mouth dried out. He looked up at Yuuji, face red and—I told you I want you. “Nothing?”
Yuuji smiled. “Nothing.”
“You don’t find it confusing that I’m okay with wearing nail polish but having… surgery?”
Yuuji tilted his head in confusion. “No. Why would that confuse me?”
Megumi stared.
“I mean. You like nail polish, but you didn’t like, you know, boobs. How do these correlate exactly?”
“You don’t mind that people can't quite tell my gender, sometimes?”
Itadori’s face twisted even more in confusion. “No. I mean. Isn’t that the point? That it isn’t about gender, and only what you like? You don’t like boobs so you don’t have them. You like make-up so you wear it. You dress pretty because you like it, and you keep your hair short because you like it, and it’s you. Just you. Not necessarily tied to anything else, specifically. Right?”
Megumi stared.
“You’re staring, again.” Itadori smirked, one eyebrow raised in a challenge. “Have I impressed you by not being a dimwit? Your standards are in hell, Megumi.”
Megumi sputtered a surprised laugh, eyes wide. “You’re unreal.”
“Very real, and very flawed, I might add,” Itadori said, smiling like he hadn’t just handled this—perfectly. Like he wasn’t perfect.
“You don’t have any questions? Confusions?”
“No,” Itadori replied. Then suddenly grew a little red in the face and averted his gaze. “Maybe one. I guess I did wonder if, in the future, if you ever wanted it, if you’d want to be called my… uhm. Boyfriend? Or, you know, something else?”
Megumi stared.
“Sorry,” Itadori said, shook his head and rubbed at his neck in embarrassment. “I—I can dial it down.”
Megumi shook his head, suddenly. He'd fallen, it seemed, as inevitably as it was, off the precipice. He'd tried not to, but— “Don’t.”
“Okay,” Itadori smiled, warming Megumi from the inside until he almost, almost, didn’t even notice the fear-stained fire in him. “I won't. But, like I said—you call the shots, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Megumi replied, in a daze, and never truly snapping out of it. “I’d be good with boyfriend,” he whispered. “Hypothetically,” Megumi added hastily, but he couldn’t quite keep the smile from growing even as he averted his gaze. “I’d be good with boyfriend.”
Megumi couldn’t forget the happy dance Yuuji humiliated himself with, after that. And neither could he forget how Itadori had cheered, “I have a chance!” before accidentally throwing his teacup off their table by the elbow. He stopped his silly little dance, then, eyes wide and a sheepish smile breaking out on his face as his barista-friend gave him a mock glare.
“Oops,” Yuuji said, and Megumi laughed. Not a full laugh, not a real laugh, yet, but almost.
Almost.
I have a chance, Megumi repeated to himself later on.
Megumi gave Itadori a chance, yes, but—perhaps for the first time in his life, in a long time, he gave himself one, too.
A small chance, a fickle chance, but a chance nonetheless.
--
“You fucking cheat!” Megumi heard from the hallway in front of Wasuke-san’s hospital room.
“Me?” A raspy, warm voice that Megumi immediately recognized shouted right back. But Megumi heard laughter in the voice, too, as he closed in on his favorite patient’s room. “You’re the fucking cheat, Pops! Bet you didn’t even get the rules.”
“You talkin’ back to me, huh? Respect your elders, dimwit. I didn’t raise you to be rude.”
“Oh my God—” Megumi heard Itadori’s exasperated voice before it turned into laughter again. “You bitter old man.”
“Tsk,” Wasuke-san clucked his tongue. Megumi didn’t have to see it to know he rolled his eyes. “I’ll cheat until you finally stop visiting me.”
When Megumi knocked and entered the hospital room, he saw Itadori’s hands in his hair, and his uno cards scattered everywhere on the floor. An annoyed look adorned his face. “I repeat. You bitter fucking old man.”
Megumi giggled before he interrupted the two men’s bickering. “Good evening, Wasuke-san. How are you doing today?”
“Evening,” the man saluted with his uno cards still in hand, the tiniest of grins on his face. “I’m winning at uno against this sore fucking loser.”
Itadori laughed as he collected his uno cards from the floor before taking his seat on the chair again. “Bitter. Old. Man. You ain’t winning shit, grumpy.” Then he turned towards Megumi, giving him a private smile of his own. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Megumi replied, walking further into the room. He hated that a blush threatened to overtake his face at a simple hi.
He pretended not to see Wasuke-san eye them suspiciously, open-mouthed and wide-eyed when he finally found what he was apparently looking for.
“Yuuji,” he spoke. When Itadori hummed in response, caught up fully in his card deck again already, strategizing intensely, his grandfather whisper-yelled, “This who you meant?”
“Shut up, Pops,” Itadori immediately laughed. But Megumi could see nerves rise, little by little.
“No, seriously,” Wasuke-san whispered further. Megumi wasn’t sure if he knew Megumi could literally hear them. He pretended not to as he went on to check the man’s vitals. “Good job. He's fucking pretty.”
“Shut up, Pops,” Itadori hissed, eyes wide.
“Eh. Just sayin’.” Wasuke-san shrugged—Megumi laughed at the resemblance to someone else he knew shrugged all the time—and then continued playing.
With a blush on his face, Megumi went on about his job checking his vitals, changing his fluids, ignoring the two men still bickering every few seconds. And also ignoring very pointedly the man with the pink hair stealing glances every few moments.
Megumi really hoped he wasn’t blushing this entire time.
When Megumi was close to Wasuke-san, however, he leaned down and whispered, loud enough for Itadori to hear, “His last card’s a blue 5.”
For a moment, the entire room was dead silent. Then, simultaneously, Itadori broke out in a sputter of “Megumi, how could you?” while his grandfather just laughed at him loudly, with no care in the world.
“Gonna destroy you, boyo!” Wasuke-san laughed evilly, and then proceeded to do exactly that.
Itadori pretended to be upset, pretended to pout as he whined, “No fair, you crazy old cheat!”
But Megumi saw it; the light behind his eyes as he looked at his grandfather’s happiness, derived entirely from Itadori’s loss. Itadori smiled as he cursed his grandfather out, who only grinned in return and wiggled slowly—a happy dance—in his hospital bed.
Megumi's eyes almost filled with tears at the sight.
“I’ll want a rematch, grumpy,” Itadori said. His eyes were strict, a finger pointing at his grandfather, who only grinned in return and shrugged. Itadori grabbed his sports bag and gear before he turned to his grandpa again. “But I gotta go now, so…”
“Yeah, yeah,” Wasuke-san waved him off. “You have practice. See you tomorrow, boyo.”
“See ya, Pops,” Itadori said as he walked towards his grandpa, leaned over him, and smacked an exaggerated kiss to his forehead. “Love you. And don’t annoy the nurses.”
Wasuke-san didn’t reply, cursing under his breath at Itadori’s public display of affection. Megumi had to hold back a giggle.
Before Itadori left the room, however, he made a pit stop in front of Megumi. The latter held his breath as Itadori’s firm gaze landed on his face, hand reaching out to tuck a piece of Megumi's hair in behind his ear.
“Sorry. This has been on my mind all night,” he whispered. “Night, Megumi.”
Then he gave Megumi another private smile of his, like Megumi wasn’t already breathless enough as it was, and left.
Megumi couldn’t stop blushing for a while after that.
“So…” Wasuke-san said, wiggling his eyebrows after Megumi gave him his medication. “You boning my grandson, huh?”
Megumi choked when the words registered, coughing heavily until there were tears in his eyes.
“Oop. Guess not,” the man shrugged, laughing. “But you wanna, yeah?”
Megumi wasn’t sure how to respond to that exactly, heart still caught in his throat. He sighed. “Uhm. I guess? We're friends.”
Wasuke-san chewed on that for a moment before his face transformed into something serious. “But it’s more than that, right?”
“Yeah,” Megumi replied, not knowing how to keep this from this man, anyway. He knew already, just like Gojo always did too, so the best Megumi could do was just be honest. “It’s more than that. Just…”
“Ah,” the old man understood immediately. Surprisingly, he gave a smile—almost gentle. “You scared?”
Megumi clenched his jaw a little and sighed. “I… yes. Did Itadori tell you?”
“Nah, didn’t have to. I can see it plain as day,” Wasuke-san shrugged. “Been around a moment. I know what a man on the verge of in love and terrified of it looks like.”
Megumi blanched as his pulse stuttered massively. But Wasuke-san did not seem to care much and just continued talking. “I was scared of Yuuji boy too when I first took him in, ya know that? Man, I was terrified. Stopped pretty fast, though. Kid’s got a way of making you feel like shit will be okay. Making it okay, even, when it isn’t. He’s always been like that.”
Before Megumi could reply, he added, “But it ain’t that simple for you, huh? Runs a little deeper?”
Megumi laughed. “Yeah,” he replied. “You could say that.”
“Well,” the man shrugged—Megumi really only saw Itadori in those moments. “That’s okay, too.”
“Everyone says that,” Megumi answered, a bitter laugh leaving his lips. “But you don’t know what it’s like trying to move forward and having fear anchor you to where you are.”
“Eh,” the man waved off. “Just gotta free yourself of the shackles.”
Megumi smiled at the man. Humoring him, he asked, “How do you propose I do that, Wasuke-san?”
“Dunno, kid,” Wasuke-san replied. His painkillers were kicking in, Megumi could tell. Snuggling into his hospital bed, the man closed his eyes, yawning loudly. Then, his last grand advice before he fell soundly asleep: “Could try to just kick fear in the nuts.”
Megumi laughed quietly, rolling his eyes fondly as he wished his favorite patient a good night.
Just kick fear in the nuts, Megumi repeated to himself on his way home later, fond smile intact. Perhaps he'd try that sometime.
Just kick fear in the nuts.
--
“Come with me,” Nobara pestered Megumi on the phone. “Megumi, trust me. Come with me.”
“No,” Megumi replied without hesitation, phone next to his butt on the bed as he painted his toenails dark purple. “He didn’t invite me.”
“Babe, please,” Nobara whined. Megumi could see how she’d probably stamp her feet like a toddler who didn’t get the toy she wanted in the store. “You guys have been talking for ages. Come with me, Megs.”
“No,” Megumi repeated. “He hasn’t invited me.”
“Except he's saving an extra seat for you,” came Nobara’s annoyed voice. “Has been saving an extra seat for you for so long now it’s embarrassing. The simp. God, Megs, why can you not take a hint, like, ever?”
“I am taking a hint, okay?” Megumi pleaded. “I’ve been trying, alright? This isn’t easy for me.”
“I know, babes,” Nobara sighed, her voice suddenly softening. “And I’m really proud of you for trying, okay? I am. I’m so happy to see you happier. So trust me when I say he wants you there. Seriously. Come with me.”
Megumi couldn’t answer, for a while. He looked at his toes, sparkling dark purple, and loved how comfortable he felt with feeling pretty.
For so long, prettiness was assigned only to women, and he'd hated the idea of that, hated the idea that anything had to necessarily be tied to something else, and finally found for himself that he'd be pretty, period.
Pretty in pink if he wanted, pretty in purple, pretty in black.
Handsome, some days, gorgeous the next. Beautiful today, alluring if he wanted, or hot if the occasion called for it—Megumi, in all of it, and nothing ever else.
“Babe, walk me through it,” Nobara’s prodded when Megumi didn’t reply. She didn’t sound annoyed, or impatient. Megumi hadn’t realized until a while ago that on his wobbly feet, he'd already had people steady him all along.
Nobara, Gojo—people who'd watched and stayed as Megumi fell and stood up again, over and over, and never lost their patience.
“Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I’m thinking I don’t want to just show up there uninvited like a clingy boyfriend,” Megumi whispered, sort of to himself.
“Except you totally are a clingy boyfriend, and he knows it, so…” Nobara said, and Megumi could see the smile if he closed his eyes. “I’m kidding. Sorry. Listen. He doesn’t think that. Mainly because you haven’t locked him down yet, anyway. So. But—okay, Megumi, he's my friend, yeah? But I’ll tell you.”
“Tell me what?” Megumi whispered, heart beating a little faster in his chest at the idea that Yuuji talked about him. Megumi knew he was getting more comfortable, or maybe just more brave, but some days, like today, he couldn’t find it within himself to muster the courage quite as easily.
All he needed was to kick his fear in the nuts. But on days like today, his feet were glued heavily to the ground.
“He really, really wants you there.”
“You don’t know that,” Megumi scoffed, but it came out—upset. He hated how terribly he felt about the idea, and about how much he hated, more than anything, that his brain wouldn’t let him have a single good thing, sometimes.
Most times.
Get those damn feet off the ground, Megumi, and just kick fear in the nuts.
“I know it,” Nobara argued, “because he kept asking me last time we hung out. Do you think it’s too early to ask him to come to my game? Do you think he ever will? Fuck, should I ask? He’s so pathetic, Megs. Give the poor guy some relief.”
Megumi stilled so as not to smudge his nail polish with his unsteady hands. “Did he really?”
“I swear, Megs, he did,” Nobara answered. “He wants you there, babe. And, listen. Babes, I know this all has been hard for you, yeah? I know. And I know going there every other morning was a huge step. But you deserve to take a good thing when it’s presented to you, Megs. And… this boy went to your spot every morning for a month not knowing you’d ever find the courage to come too. And he's told you exactly how he feels and what he wants from you, and you’ve given him nothing so far except showing up. So… I don’t know… I just feel like you need to give him something.”
Megumi frowned. He hadn’t been giving nothing. “He said I could call the shots.”
“And he meant it, Megs,” Nobara replied. “I’m saying he deserves some kind of lifeline. Some kind of sign that he isn’t wasting his time trying to court you.”
Megumi snorted. “He’s not—”
“Piss off, Megumi. Seriously. Piss off. Is that what you got from this?” And now, well, Nobara sounded pissed. And she was right to be—Megumi was being difficult. He knew he was being difficult.
“I’m sorry,” Megumi muttered. “I don’t know why I’m so scared all the time.”
“I know, babes,” Nobara replied. “I know. I’m sorry. Just—I’m asking this as his friend for a moment, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you leading him on?” Nobara asked, and Megumi swallowed. “Megumi. Are you leading him on? Or is there an actual chance he might become more to you than the guy you talk to in a café every other morning?”
And, well—Megumi had stopped lying to himself a while ago about this, at least. He whispered, “There is. I—Nobara, I want that.”
“Yeah?” Nobara asked, breath hitched and happiness detectable through the phone.
“Yeah.” Megumi huffed. “Of course I want that. Of course I want more. I—”
“Yeah?”
“I really like him, Nobara,” Megumi whispered, and it was the first time since that first day they’d met that he'd actually let himself say the words instead of just feeling them.
“I know, boo,” Nobara sighed happily. Then, like the annoying little shit she was, “So, you’re coming, right?”
Megumi rolled his eyes and hung up, biting back the smile creeping on his face.
He'd told himself he wouldn’t dress to impress, and yet he ended up exactly that: dressed to impress.
Clad in his best black jeans that showed off his butt, doc martens and a tight turtle neck, with a bunch of silver jewelry around his neck and on his fingers, Megumi knew he was the picture of effortless, casual elegance.
And his eyeliner, well—Megumi was certain anyone with eyes would do a double take if they saw him. And he loved that—he loved knowing people looked at him despite, and questioned themselves time and time again whenever Megumi passed them.
He loved knowing he looked gorgeous and desirable.
On any normal day, really, but especially today. Especially considering, well—Itadori would be there. Itadori would see. Maybe Itadori would even comment.
Nerves filled Megumi's stomach, but they weren’t as awful as they sometimes tended to be. For a second there, they even felt good. Exciting.
Almost normal. Like the emotions of a boy who was about to go see his crush.
Nobara couldn’t stop commenting on his eyeliner the entire time they went there.
Pretty soon, however, Megumi was the one who couldn’t stop commenting anymore.
Megumi had seen Itadori Yuuji quite often so far. He'd seen him in sports clothes, mostly, and he'd seen him in casual clothes. He'd seen the way jeans could hug—not at all too tightly—his strong thighs. God, Megumi especially loved when Yuuji wore those light denim jeans with the rips in them. He'd seen his arms underneath hoodies slightly too big on Yuuji, and he'd seen him in tight compression shirts. He'd seen him in T-shirts, and he'd seen him in sleeveless ones too. Bared forearms, strong and toned, lined perfectly with muscles.
Megumi had seen Yuuji—knew already that he was sculpted, well, like that.
He'd seen him with his hair wet from rain, or snow, and he'd seen it disheveled from a beanie. Or from ruffling his hair all the time. He'd seen it sweaty, too.
He'd seen Itadori annoyed that one time he ranted about his grandfather being a pain in the ass. He'd seen Itadori tired, he'd seen him happy.
Smiling, laughing, even frowning.
Megumi had, from the get-go, fallen for every single version of Yuuji he had seen so far.
This version—this version was new.
The truth of the matter was simple: Megumi knew Yuuji was bright. Too bright, even. But nothing so far had prepared Megumi for this. For the way the crowd cheered when Yuuji turned up, for how Yuuji immediately became even brighter seeing everyone else’s reactions.
Megumi didn’t know Yuuji could be brighter than what Megumi knew, but this—the energy and light he absorbed from those around him who loved him, and then gave back tenfold… That was new, and Megumi—
Megumi needed a moment, is all.
Many moments, and then some more when the game began, and Megumi finally understood what Yuuji had meant all those times when he'd mentioned having somewhere for his energy to go. Because from the very first second, Yuuji was thoroughly, entirely captivated. Focused wholly on the game, tuned into his teammates’ every move, every need.
He was everywhere, all at once, never stopping on the court.
Megumi knew next to nothing about basketball, but he very well knew this: Yuuji was, at his core, a prodigy. He kept scoring, he kept assisting in his teammates’ scores, and he never, for even a second, frowned.
For those forty minutes, excluding the breaks, Yuuji was his very own solar system. And his entire team gravitated towards him, on and off the court. He commanded them, led them, and encouraged them.
He was the spirit of this entire team.
Megumi hadn’t known quite how much Yuuji had loved this sport. Now, he'd understood. And he'd understood, also, distinctly, that he hadn’t quite known Yuuji that well yet after all. He thought you would never quite know Yuuji, unless you had seen him on a court.
Suddenly, it was as if Megumi had only ever known half of Yuuji.
An extension of him, an eternal place of peace.
Megumi could barely choke down his drink the entire time he was watching.
(Yuuji in a jersey, sweat running down his bare arms and legs, certainly wasn’t helping either.)
(He didn’t dignify Nobara with a response when she’d poked fun at him for ogling Yuuji like a “whipped little middle school kid.”)
(Megumi fell for him all over again, tonight.)
(Yuuji always found a way to make Megumi fall again, and again, and again. And then again.)
“I should go,” Nobara giggled, stepping away from Megumi, who immediately caught her arm and begged her to stay.
“Stay, please,” Megumi said, voice caught in his throat and all of his confidence leaving his body when he saw Itadori Yuuji come towards them in his grey sweatpants and white hoodie, white Nikes on and one pant leg tucked into his sock, the other just about to touch the ground, his huge sports bag chucked over his shoulder as he walked towards them, hair wet.
Yuuji with wet hair was a weakness of Megumi's, you see.
Immediately, his nerves spiked tenfold.
Megumi's breath really did hitch, seeing him. He was so—he was so unassumingly attractive, so naturally attractive without even trying. Boyish charm just about oozed out of him, and Megumi could barely hold himself together.
And he was looking at Megumi. Yuuji was looking at Megumi, a little wide-eyed. A little tense, suddenly.
“Told you he'd love having you here,” Nobara whispered to Megumi, laughing. Megumi gulped. “He looks so nervous, help. Poor guy.”
Yuuji stopped somewhere in front of them, yet not as close as Megumi thought he'd come. Disappointment found a way onto his face before Yuuji gave Megumi a once-over and then locked eyes with him intensely, a question in his eyes.
Surprised.
He was particularly surprised that Megumi was here. Nobara hadn’t told him?
“Dude! You were so cool!” Nobara started raving, trying to ease the obvious tension as soon as Yuuji was within talking distance.
Megumi was glad for it because it gave him pause to stare unabashedly at Yuuji in his casual leisure clothes, with his wet hair over his forehead, cheeks red, and hand behind his neck as he awkwardly tried to accept Nobara’s compliments.
Humble, he was, and Megumi just couldn’t bring himself to talk quite yet.
He wanted to say that he was amazing, spectacular, golden. But the words were clinging to his throat desperately, not yet brave enough to get out lest Megumi show his very obvious attraction and flustered state.
(Not that Megumi could hide it, really.)
“You wanna go out for dinner?” Nobara asked suddenly, and Megumi was a little disappointed Yuuji still hadn’t quite looked at him again.
“Huh?” Yuuji asked, like he was stuck in his head. Megumi’s smile fell, a little.
“Dinner? Grab a bite? I’m hungry, and I’m sure so are you.”
“Right! Yes,” Yuuji said, voice failing him as he looked at Megumi, finally, then immediately away as he saw his irritated expression. “Let me just get my jacket. I—uhm, I think I forgot it in the locker room.”
“Sure,” Nobara said, “we’ll wait.”
“I’ll come with you, actually,” Megumi said suddenly before he could stop himself, trying to sound confident. Kicking fear in the nuts, or something. “If that’s okay.”
“Yeah,” Yuuji replied after a few seconds. Cleared his throat. “Yup. Sure. Of course.”
And then he turned around, irritating Megumi more. Why wasn’t he looking at him?
He gave Nobara a look, and she mouthed something along the lines of, Aww, he’s nervous.
Megumi rolled his eyes.
They'd been talking nearly every day for months. And had known each other for longer. Nervous wasn’t exactly in Yuuji's vocabulary.
When Yuuji was in his locker room, back still turned towards Megumi, Megumi took the time to look around the empty place.
“Nobody here?” Megumi asked as he inspected the rows upon rows of grey lockers. Some closed, some open, a few clothes still lying around somewhere.
“Uh, no,” Yuuji replied, walking towards his locker. “I was the last to leave.”
Megumi nodded, watching as Yuuji stood in front of his locker and yet didn’t open it. His hand was at the locker door, but he wasn’t opening it.
“Yuuji?” Megumi voiced, then, from somewhere behind, hopefully loud enough to be heard. His irritation was giving away to fear, and—
“Fuck,” he heard Yuuji curse under his breath.
“Yuuji?” Megumi voiced again, and this time Yuuji's hand on the locker door tightened and his forehead dropped to it with a violent thump. “Are you okay?”
“Peachy,” came Yuuji's voice, then. Breathy, strangled.
“Can you look at me, please?” Megumi whispered, hesitation in his voice. This was—he was so clearly out of depth, here, he wasn’t sure quite what to do.
Yuuji shook his head, his locker rattling at the movement, and Megumi almost lost it.
“What the fuck? Yuuji, turn around,” he ordered, taking as many steps as necessary until he stood right behind him. He moved a hesitant hand toward his shoulder.
Yuuji tensed, cursed under his breath again, and then turned around, head tilted up towards the ceiling, back slamming against his locker door.
“Why aren’t you looking at me?” Megumi whispered, the hurt in his voice deep. He felt embarrassed, suddenly.
“Fuck, I can't,” Yuuji replied.
“Why not?” Megumi replied. But Yuuji didn’t fucking look, still, so the hurt festered. But he pushed himself not to become mean, and instead gave a truth he owed Yuuji, right? Nobara had told him to give him something, some kind of lifeline.
Megumi took a deep breath before he removed his hand from Yuuji's shoulder. He whispered, “It took a lot of courage to come here today, and you won't even look at me?”
Finally, oh, finally, Yuuji did, and he looked—pained. Pained to be looking at Megumi, and then—“Fuck, you’re beautiful.”
Megumi blanched, taking a step backward at the sudden words. A “what?” was caught somewhere in his throat.
“Fuck, I’m sorry,” Yuuji replied, head tilted back and eyes closed again. Megumi stepped a single step closer again. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t prepared to see you today.”
“Yuuji—”
“You really need to stop calling me that, fuck,” Yuuji laughed mockingly. Megumi's heart was thrashing violently in his chest. Uncaged.
“Why?”
“It makes me nervous,” Yuuji said, eyes still closed and head tilted against the locker door. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I’m really nervous right now.”
And—Megumi saw it, now. The averted gaze, the fidgeting, cursing, tensing. The heavy breathing, decidedly not from his exhausting game.
But— “Nervous?”
“Yeah. Nervous.” Spoken quietly, followed by a breathy laugh. “Extremely nervous. Nervous of epic fucking proportions.”
“You’re not nervous around me, usually,” Megumi replied, trying to make sense of the situation against the loud thrumming of his heart. He hoped Yuuji couldn’t hear it.
“Fuck, except I am. Always. But I have time to prepare, usually, so I don’t show it.”
“Why not?”
“Because if I showed you how nervous I was, you’d run, probably. Fuck, I don’t know?”
“Yuuji?” Megumi spoke. And took one last step forward until he was in front of him. They had never stood so close. Immediately, Yuuji's citrus scent overwhelmed his senses. Megumi felt the sudden urge to step closer, and tuck his face into Yuuji's neck.
Megumi realized finally how right Nobara was.
He needed to take a step, never mind how tiny and wonky and wobbly. But a step nonetheless. “Look at me.”
Yuuji shook his head.
“Please.”
Megumi's heart stuttered when their eyes finally locked again. He had never seen anyone so—enrapturing.
So enraptured by Megumi.
He whispered, then, again, because he needed Yuuji to know. “It took a lot of courage to come here today.” Megumi breathed. Took that last step so they were closer still. “I put a lot of effort into how I dressed. I’m… a little embarrassed that you haven’t been looking at me.”
Yuuji said nothing but looked down at Megumi. His eyes first, but then they dipped down to his nose, his lips, his cheeks, his neck, back up to his eyes.
Megumi bit his lip to keep from blushing. But it was futile, really, because Yuuji whispered, “You’re the most beautiful person I've ever seen, Megumi.” And then, as if Megumi’s world hadn’t been tilted already, “And you’re wrong. I have been looking at you. At only you, really. For months.”
Megumi's breath hitched. Before he could answer, Yuuji asked, “Why did you come here today?”
And, well. The truth. He owed Yuuji that, right? And himself, especially himself. You deserve to take a good thing when it’s presented to you, Megs. “I wanted to show you that I’m not… leading you on.”
“Leading me on?” Yuuji whispered between them, eyes still focused so intently on Megumi.
“Yeah. I’m not doing that, okay?” Megumi breathed. “I’m not leading you on.”
“Okay,” Yuuji puffed, hands turned into fists at his sides, smiled, and Megumi almost laughed. “I know.”
“You don’t have to try so hard not to look away from my eyes,” Megumi whispered. “You can look.”
Immediately, Yuuji's gaze snapped to Megumi's face, taking it all in, eyes suddenly stopping at a part somewhere below Megumi's eyes. “Can I tell you you’re beautiful?”
“Yes,” Megumi breathed. Took a step back when Yuuji took one forward.
“And that you’re pretty?” One more step.
Megumi took one back, heart just about leaping from his chest.
“Yes.”
“What about gorgeous? Can I call you that?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck, because you are,” and suddenly Megumi's back was to another locker, and Yuuji had stepped infinitely closer than before. Megumi was nervous, and jittery, and fuck it, he wanted.
He was scared, too, but nothing like he thought he'd be.
“You’re beautiful, Megumi.”
Suddenly, a completely different fear manifested. What if I never get to have more than this? A little whisper in his mind, somewhere in the back, poking incessantly. Wouldn’t that be worse?
“So you’ve said,” Megumi replied, trying to lighten the tension. Thinking, for the first time in a long time, yes. That would be worse.
“I can't look away,” Yuuji laughed as if mocking himself, and he looked so upset about that that Megumi couldn’t help his next words.
“Don’t, then,” Megumi whispered right back, and his breath hitched when Yuuji's hand found the locker next to his head. He looked like it hurt him physically not to touch.
Megumi thought it hurt, suddenly, not to be touched. “Yuuji?”
“Yeah?” A gravelly, deep voice. Megumi wanted desperately to hear it again, in another context. And what if he couldn’t? What if he never would?
“I’m scared,” Megumi whispered.
“Do you want me to back off?”
“No,” Megumi shook his head. “That’s even worse.”
“Fuck,” Yuuji breathed. “Can I touch the mole on your cheek?”
It came as such a surprise that Megumi had to release a pent-up laugh, a choked little thing before he saw how serious Yuuji was about his request.
Megumi nodded, then, held his breath when the hand not propped up next to his head came up to touch his cheek, cupping his jaw. It was—rough, a little. A little wet, still, and yet—warm.
So warm.
A gentle, strong thumb then ran over where he knew his mole was. Infinitely tender. Delicately. Then, even softer, the voice of Megumi's undoing, following the gentle back and forth of the hand on his jaw, “Been obsessed with this since day one, you know that?”
Megumi shook his head. Couldn’t quite breathe. “Never noticed.”
Yuuji laughed breathlessly. “Of course you didn’t.”
Megumi's hands moved themselves to Yuuji's hoodie, tugging him closer instinctively with fluttering but honest hands.
“Come on,” Yuuji said as he shook his head, smiling at Megumi, as if to say, not yet, not here. “I’m hungry.”
“Yuuji,” Megumi called.
When Yuuji turned towards him and Megumi told him he'd forgotten his jacket, the golden boy only laughed and said, “Never even brought it with me today.”
On their way to the restaurant, where Megumi sat shotgun in Yuuji's car and watched with rapt attention the way Yuuji focused on and navigated his car—and perhaps the way his bicep moved when he turned the wheel, or the way his forearms tensed a little when he shifted, or how strong his fingers looked wrapped around the wheel, or—Nobara texted him.
Stop eye-fucking him and gimme the details, bitch
I know he didn’t kiss ya, but what happened
Nothing.
We stood very close to each other.
He told me I was pretty and beautiful and gorgeous and that he couldn’t look away.
He touched the mole on my cheek.
Wtf??????????
That’s
Fucking. Gay. wtf
Omfg please he's so into you
Yeah.
I think he really is.
When Megumi looked at Nobara in the side mirror, she had the most beautiful smile on her face. Like she was—proud. Megumi felt it, too, for a moment.
And then Megumi switched the chat, after this giant confession he'd just divulged. He typed a message to Gojo while Yuuji and Nobara started a conversation in the background, soft music—Megumi's, because passenger princesses get to choose music, I don’t make the rules—caressing the comfortable air around them.
Gojo…
I really like him.
I know, kid
So don’t fuck it up
How?
Just let him like you back
That’s all you need to do
Just let him feel what he feels for you
I want to…
I’m just scared.
You should be, kiddo
When it’s real, it’s scary.
Real, it was.
It was real when Megumi smiled unabashedly during their dinner, and it was real when he sat closer to Yuuji so their thighs touched. It was real when Yuuji leaned in closer in return, his pinky tenderly grazing Megumi's own, linking them together as Megumi listened to his friend’s animated conversation.
It was real when the waitress flirted with Yuuji and Megumi felt bitterness rise in his throat, and it was real when Yuuji's other fingers wrapped around Megumi's too and squeezed, as if to say he had nothing to worry about.
It was real when Yuuji's hand stayed interlocked with Megumi's all the way through dinner. And it was real when Megumi had to swallow his disappointment when Yuuji eventually broke their touch after dinner.
It was real when Yuuji constantly asked Megumi if he was alright, comfortable, okay. Like he really cared.
It was real when Megumi finally conceded that Yuuji did, in fact, really care.
Megumi deserved nothing about this boy, and he was tired of pretending he didn’t want to take it all anyway.
(That. That was real, too.)
Yuuji walked him to his door, like the stupid gentleman Megumi always knew he was, and—well, if Megumi swooned inwardly, then so what?
So what?
Smiling to himself, he breathed in the fresh spring air. The walk to the apartment was quiet, and Megumi couldn’t help but steal glances at Yuuji every once in a while, noticing his pink cheeks.
Megumi blushed, too, at the thought that Yuuji fully understood the depth and importance of Megumi even showing up tonight, and letting all this happen.
In front of the elevator, Megumi told Yuuji he could leave if he wanted and only got a scoff in turn, a “Like hell am I not bringing you up, Megumi.”
Megumi's blush only deepened, but he felt—good.
God, did he feel good today.
Scared, yes. Nervous, yes. But so—just—good. Megumi didn’t remember the last time he felt like this after being walked home by a boy.
“Thanks for the food,” Megumi spoke first after they quietly, comfortably reached his apartment door. He opened the door, not yet stepping inside but leaning against the frame instead, turned towards Yuuji.
Yuuji, who stood in front of him, hands in his pocket as he fidgeted standing, swaying from leg to leg.
“You’re welcome,” Yuuji replied, quietly, his eyes concentrated, urgently intense as they locked on Megumi's.
Megumi gulped. “And for driving me.”
“You’re welcome.”
“And for walking me to my door.”
“You’re welcome.”
Megumi smiled. Then, almost inaudibly, except that Yuuji would always be able to discern his words, anyway, “Tell me what you’re thinking, please.”
Yuuji stood still. Pondering, first, for a few moments, before he replied, “You came to my game today.”
Megumi nodded.
Yuuji continued, eyebrows scrunched together adorably in thought. “Because you said you wanted to give me a sign that you aren’t leading me on, yeah?”
Megumi nodded.
“So—”
“Today wasn’t a date,” Megumi interrupted. “If that’s what you’re getting at.”
“I—” Yuuji bit the inside of his cheek and nodded once. “Got it.”
Say it, Megumi, he begged himself inwardly. Say it, say it, say it. “Because you didn’t ask,” Megumi breathed.
“Ask you what?”
“Out on a date,” Megumi replied.
Waited, patiently, for it to click in Yuuji's brain. He waited until Yuuji understood what Megumi wanted, what kind of bone he was throwing him here.
And when it clicked—Yuuji's eyes widened suddenly, the movement of his body stopping abruptly, caught. Megumi smiled shyly, as if to urge Yuuji on, a silent confession.
“… But I could?” Yuuji asked carefully.
“Yes,” Megumi replied, heart threatening to disengage itself yet again from Megumi's chest, perhaps dance in excitement between them.
Megumi smiled to himself. Excitement. For the first time in his life, probably, he was more excited than he was afraid.
“I can ask you out on a date?”
It felt like he won something, to have a feeling other than fear reigning supreme, at last.
“Yes,” Megumi smiled.
“Right now?”
Megumi laughed quietly, bit his lip to keep his smile from becoming foolish and goofy. “Preferably, unless you need three to five business days to—”
“Will you go on a date with me?” Yuuji blurted.
Megumi stopped laughing.
“Will you go on a date with me?” Yuuji asked again, a slight tremble in his voice.
“I’d love to.” Megumi stepped forward once. Tried to gather his wits and look at Yuuji when he whispered, “Yes, please.”
And then he tried to gather his wits again, closed his eyes and stepped forward one last time just when a smile broke out on Yuuji's face. Megumi reached up with a trembling hand to Yuuji's cheek, and with his trembling lips planted a soft kiss on it.
Against it, he whispered, “Goodnight, Yuuji.”
He broke their touch as fast as he initiated it, but the feeling remained.
The warmth, even as Megumi left Yuuji dumbfounded and with a hand hovering over his cheek at his apartment door, lingered.
The warmth, even as Megumi stepped inside his home and closed the door, slumping against it with a dizzy smile on his face, lingered.
He found himself wishing the warmth would linger forever.
(Spoiler alert: it would.)
--
“I’m coming to the café right now,” Gojo said when Megumi picked up the phone just as Yuuji went to order more drinks.
The dates thus far were—perfect. For a month, as spring finally blossomed into summer, Yuuji had been taken Megumi out on dates, and they were perfect. They had tried many things together, from an art course evening to pottery to movies to dinners and picnics and everything in between, to just sitting in the café together and talking.
And it was all perfect.
And yet different, because with the knowledge that they were dates came nerves Megumi had never dealt with before. He felt so seriously out of depth, and yet Yuuji never seemed to think Megumi was messing anything up. Every time after their dates, he'd walk Megumi home, or to his internship, or to university. A full-blown smile, a happy smile, permanently attached to Yuuji's face.
Megumi always kissed his cheek—the only possible reaction to Yuuji's obvious excitement. And, well—it was for him, too. Because Megumi wanted this. Of course he did.
The lingering touches, the lingering looks, the teasing words—Megumi would snap, one of these days. He knew it wouldn’t take very long before Megumi found it within himself to ask for more.
Because it was real. And Megumi was trying to be brave, these days.
(He was kicking fear in the nuts, these days.)
But this, Gojo coming here to meet Yuuji, no. He wasn’t brave enough for that, yet. He wasn’t.
Immediately upon the words, Megumi blanched. “No.”
“Ye-es,” Gojo sing-songed, and Megumi could hear how he was already putting on his jacket and grabbing his keys.
Megumi panicked. “Gojo, no. Please.”
“I want to meet your boyfriend,” Gojo whined over the phone.
“He isn’t my boyfriend, please. Stop. Don’t come.” Megumi wasn’t above begging. “Please, I’m not ready.”
“Too late,” Gojo spoke over the phone. Then, “Megumi? Be for real. Do you actually not want me to meet him yet?”
He did. God, of course Megumi did, but what if—
“Stop it with the what ifs, Megs,” Gojo huffed into the phone. “You. Do you not want me to meet him?”
At Megumi's lack of answer, Gojo laughed into the phone and told him he'd be there in 15 minutes. And hung up.
When Yuuji came back with their drinks and noticed Megumi's whitened face, Megumi reacted before Yuuji could start fussing.
“Gojo is coming,” Megumi whispered. “My guardian.”
Yuuji took a seat opposite Megumi again, nodding, an inquisitive look grazing Megumi's face. “Are you okay with that?”
“Are you?” Megumi asked right back, trying to lighten the mood.
“I’m perfect with that, Megumi.” And—God, he really meant it, didn’t he? That he would love to meet Gojo, right now, so spontaneously.
Megumi, not for the first time, wondered how Yuuji could just be so okay with everything thrown at him. He must be—he must be so confident in this, not to mind that Gojo was coming.
“Are you okay with that?” Yuuji asked again. Smiling. “From what you’ve told me about him, there's no way to change his mind now that he wants to come, right? But I can leave if you need me to. Tell him I needed to rush to practice or something.”
Megumi’s heart warmed. And that alone—the fact that Yuuji knew how important this was and was ready to do whatever it took to help Megumi feel more comfortable—was enough to calm his nerves, little by little. “No, it’s fine. The more the merrier,” Megumi decided in that split second.
Yuuji smiled, nodded, and went back to sipping his green tea.
Megumi loved that he didn’t ask another four, five times. Yuuji knew that Megumi struggled with his fears, yes, but he never doubted Megumi's choices.
Granted, Megumi hadn’t given him reason to, so far, but where everyone would double and triple check, Yuuji knew Megumi didn’t lie. He took Megumi's decisions at face value, knowing that Megumi hated being constantly asked if he was sure. Like he was some fragile person who couldn’t make proper decisions.
Yuuji knew that Megumi was selfish in that way; that he never let something happen he didn’t want, and once he had agreed to something, he usually meant it.
And if he didn’t, he would say it.
The knowledge that Yuuji knew this warmed him anew. Megumi had never even told him about that, but Yuuji had known anyway.
I’m ready, Megumi thought, meeting Gojo won't change anything—
(Except it changed everything, for Megumi.)
Gojo, as Gojo did, made an embarrassing entrance of epic proportions, yelling through the shop about that son of his, Oh son of mine, where art thou? as he scoured the place for Megumi and Yuuji.
After finding them, he smiled blindingly and immediately hopped in next to Megumi, ruffling his hair and planting a frankly childish kiss on his cheek. Followed by looking over to Yuuji, eying him up and down, whistling like a freak, before—
“Damn, Megs, good fucking job!”
Megumi immediately buried his ever-reddening face in his hands as Yuuji laughed out loud boisterously.
“Hi, sir, I’m Itadori Yuuji,” he introduced himself, hand outstretched and waiting to shake Gojo’s. “It’s very nice to finally meet you. Megumi mentions you all the time, so it’s nice to have a face to the name finally.”
“Megumi, huh?” Gojo smirked, and Megumi groaned next to him. “I hope he tells good things of me, this son of mine.”
“Exclusively good things, sir,” Yuuji smiled.
“You can call me Gojo.” Gojo took his hand, and shook it. Conspiratorially whisper-yelled, then, “By the way, our Megumi here doesn’t shut up about you either.”
Yuuji laughed. “Only good things, I hope?”
“Oh, Yuuji,” Gojo smirked. “Exclusively good things.”
Megumi squeaked, head hitting the table in absolute terror, but—
Yuuji only laughed, and then, like Gojo wasn’t a lot, changed the subject. And whatever ridiculous questions and topics Gojo came up with—Yuuji matched his energy in equal measure.
(“What do you think about aliens, Yuuji? Real or not?”; “Do you prefer washing the dishes in a dishwasher or by hand?”; “Why do we wear underwear if we wear clothes on top anyways?”; “What’s your favorite movie?”—finally a thread of normalcy; “Do you think teeth have memories since they’ve been in our mouths forever?”; “Toilet paper orientation: over or under, Yuuji?”; “The soap dilemma: if soap washes dirty shit, right? Then soap would have to be dirty after washing something dirty. What washes soap, then? Cause otherwise soap would just make shit dirty instead of clean, no?”)
(“I’m pretty sure I saw a UFO when I was ten, so.”; “I do love a good dishwasher, but depending on the company, washing them by hand is just—nicer, you know? Good conversation.”; “I’m pretty sure it’s so our balls don’t jiggle around in our clothes. Or something.”; “Anything action-y, really. Blockbusters? I can't concentrate on plot very well.”; “I… have never thought about it, actually. Maybe. Have scientists tried to figure it out already? Shit, imagine how much our teeth must hate us for eating shit all day!”; “Over… Definitely over, don’t be weird.”; “Water, Gojo-San. Water… I think?”)
It was to no one’s surprise when Megumi—needed a minute.
“Excuse me for a moment,” he choked out, getting up and leaving the building in haste. Right outside the café, he turned the corner and walked into the small alley behind it. With his back to the brick wall as he crouched, his hands clapped over his knees, Megumi tried in vain to calm his breathing again.
He tried to compose himself, he really did, when ten minutes into his spiral—
“Megumi?”
“Oh, God. No,” Megumi whined. He straightened up the second he saw pink. Turning his back to Yuuji in embarrassment, his breathing quickened again. “Please, I’m fine. I’m fine.”
“Megumi.” He could hear a step being taken.
“Yuuji, I’m serious. I’m fine. You can go.”
“Megumi, hey,” Yuuji whispered. Another rough step on the gravel.
Megumi had tears in his eyes, ready to fall. He clenched his jaw, trying not to be weak right now. “Please, Yuuji.”
“Okay,” Yuuji said. Stepping closer. “Look at me, though. Please. Do you want me to leave right now?”
Megumi didn’t answer, couldn’t answer. He balled his hands tightly into fists as he tried to breathe. Just breathe.
“It’s okay, baby. You can tell me.” Another step, and then an abrupt stop. “Should I leave?”
Megumi shook his head no, but he couldn’t say anything, he—I—he needed to breathe.
“Words, baby,” Yuuji whispered. Stepping closer.
“Don’t leave,” Megumi choked, a tear leaving his eyes, still panting heavily.
“Okay,” Yuuji whispered. Took one step around Megumi until he was in front of him. Palming his cheek and making Megumi look at him, he smiled slowly. “Breathe with me, yeah?”
“I—can't,” Megumi shook his head, trying to free himself from Yuuji's tender grip. Yuuji's hand closed around his jaw immediately, tipping it upward so Megumi would look at him.
“Look at me,” he ordered gently, and yet—commanded. Megumi obliged, his blurry gaze locking on Yuuji's honey-warm one. “Now breathe with me.”
He tried, and he failed. For some reason, seeing Gojo and Yuuji together, and getting along so well—Megumi's flight or fight response was triggered immediately. Just like that, fear had overtaken again. it had drowned out his excitement so swiftly that Megumi was dizzy with it. The breaths that came easy—if not filled with nerves, surely—suddenly stuck in his throat, unwilling to come out.
So abruptly could his body turn against him again, Megumi was reminded.
He didn’t know how long it took—minutes, hours?—but after trying and failing multiple times to follow Yuuji's command—in, out, in, out—he finally succeeded, and breathed again.
“There you go, baby. Good job,” Yuuji whispered somewhere close to Megumi's ear. Megumi shuddered. Shivered. Yuuji—sweet, sweet Yuuji—immediately took off his hoodie and put it on Megumi.
Close. Still so close. Megumi found he didn’t mind much, and even took a step closer, dropping his head on Yuuji's collarbone from exhaustion. Yuuji's lemony citrus scent immediately calmed his nerves some. He took a deep breath.
Embarrassment clawed at him as Yuuji's hand moved slowly as if to wait for a rejection Megumi was no longer capable of giving him, to Megumi's hip and grabbed it softly.
“Talk me through it. What just happened?” Yuuji whispered as he rubbed gently.
Megumi took a deep, terrified breath. Then: “That’s basically my dad.”
He could feel Yuuji nodding. Urging him on. “And?”
“And he really likes you. He really clicked with you, even though everyone usually hates him, but you didn’t, and—” Megumi breathed as Yuuji's hand squeezed his waist a little tighter, as if to say, Slow down. “People don’t tend to like him very much. But you get along really well with him.”
“These are good things,” Yuuji pointed out as he nodded along, thumbs rubbing gentle circles into Megumi's hip.
“Yes,” Megumi whispered. “It feels so real.”
“It is,” Yuuji replied, pulling Megumi marginally closer by the waist. Megumi went willingly, hands fisting Yuuji's T-shirt as he burrowed his face into Yuuji's warm collarbone. “This is real. Very real. Is that a problem?”
Megumi shook his head immediately. He didn’t need to think to know he wanted this, he did. But— “It’s just scary,” he croaked out against Yuuji's skin. Still warm, matching perfectly with the May weather.
“I know,” Yuuji replied, his unoccupied hand moving softly through Megumi's hair. “But you’re doing great. And I’m not going anywhere, okay? I like your dad a lot, he's really funny. And he likes me, too, ‘cause I’m obviously just a giant catch. So…”
Megumi laughed, a choked little thing.
“Today was a good day, Megumi,” Yuuji whispered into his hair. “Those are allowed to happen to you.”
Megumi shook in Yuuji's arms, eyes brimming with another set of tears unexpectedly. Silently, they fell. Just a few lonely tears at first, but Yuuji noticed, of course he noticed, and pulled him a little closer. And then he just—let him.
Megumi let go of whatever was keeping him from losing it completely, and cried. Openly, unafraid, or maybe just too exhausted to care that Yuuji was witnessing it.
And he found, five minutes into the tears, that it was a lot easier being scared like this:
Letting someone kind and luminous cradle your cheek, your hair. Your cold skin turned warm at last, as they tell you they would share the fear with you just so it burdened you a little less.
(Gojo had called Megumi that evening, of course.
“You freaked?” he asked, referencing the half hour or so that Megumi was gone.
“Yeah,” Megumi whispered, a tinge of embarrassment clinging to his voice. “Thank you for not making it a big deal when we got back.”
“Tsk,” Gojo clicked his tongue. “I’m supposed to embarrass you about funny things. Not serious things.”
Megumi smiled. “Well—thank you.”
“No worries, kiddo,” Gojo replied, all honey and warm. “Now tell me what happened.”
Megumi did. He explained how he'd choked on too much fear all at once when he saw how great they got along, when the reality of the situation dawned on him and he realized there was truly no going back anymore, not really, not after Yuuji had been so perfect with his dad, and then so perfect with—him.
With Megumi.
“That boy is…” Gojo trailed off, unsure of what words to use.
“Right?” Megumi laughed. “He's perfect, Gojo.”
“Nah, don’t dehumanize him, kid,” Gojo said. “He's not perfect. He’ll make mistakes, probably. You will, too. But you know what makes him different from the rest?”
“That he won't mean to?” Megumi guessed.
“That he’ll move the heavens and the earth to make it up to you if he ever hurt you somehow.”
“You think so?” Megumi whispered.
Hope was a silly little thing, wasn’t it, the way it slithered right through the cracks of his fear and transformed it, little by little.
“Yeah, kid,” Gojo said. “That’s a keeper right there.”
Megumi smiled. He was.
“Even though he thinks aliens are real, the fucking weirdo, I mean—”
Megumi laughed. He did that a lot these days, where Yuuji was concerned.
“Night, Gojo,” he interrupted Gojo’s spiral after a minute of incessant ranting, rolling his eyes fondly.
“Rude!” Gojo whined. Then, kinder and filled with all the warmth a father had for his kid, “Night, kid.”
Megumi hung up, and went to bed feeling—free, almost.
Like he was floating more than falling, today.
Almost.)
--
Megumi spent all of the next weeks wondering what in the world he was still waiting for.
After brooding for hours, sitting with his fear for hours, thinking, discerning, contemplating, wondering, he realized—absolutely nothing.
He was waiting for absolutely nothing.
He'd reached the precipice long ago, and after a day like that where Yuuji showed just how deep in it he really was—Megumi started to feel a little ridiculous to still make him wait.
To still make himself wait, when he could just take, at last. If he ever were brave enough to.
After having a whole scene in the arms of the boy he liked, so, so much, and being received still with pure kindness and understanding and want, well—
He would be brave, today.
Megumi invited him in. Shy, yes, and infinitely nervous, and yet brave. Today, he was brave.
“Would you like to come in?”
Yuuji hesitated. Tensed, as he stood in front of the elevator door with his hand on the call button.
Megumi found his voice in the nervous lines of Yuuji's back, and added: “You could cook for me? You always said you would, one day.”
Yuuji turned around, gaze inquisitive and perhaps a little confused. He looked like he wanted to double-check with Megumi, doubt the words. Megumi took it upon himself to seem confident so Yuuji wouldn’t doubt that Megumi really, really wanted this.
“Unless you were lying about being a great cook, of course?”
That seemed to do it. Yuuji shook his head and stepped towards Megumi's door again. “I am a great cook,” he voiced confidently, looking down at Megumi.
“And I’m really hungry,” Megumi smiled, biting his lip. “So?”
After several seconds of silence, Yuuji deep in thought for a short while, he finally nodded. “Alright, what does Your Highness want on the menu tonight?” Yuuji asked in a posh sort of pronunciation as he came in with no ounce of hesitation or doubt.
Megumi laughed a little as he pondered the question.
“Pasta,” he decided as he followed Yuuji to Megumi's kitchen.
Yuuji had never even been in here properly, and yet he'd already started moving about in his kitchen as if he'd cooked in it many, many times. It was starting to—Megumi was perhaps starting to sweat a little, again. This was—God, this was real.
It was happening.
“Pasta?” Yuuji asked as his head popped out from somewhere between the cupboards, exasperated.
His exasperation gave way to sympathy when he saw Megumi's nerves spike right then and there.
The boy of his dreams was literally in his kitchen.
Yuuji pouted at Megumi. “You question my cooking, and then you ask me for pasta? I was thinking something along the lines of a five course meal, starting with a delicious appetizer! So, soup, essentially, since you don’t seem to have the ingredients for—well. Whatever. And then followed by a salad, a really good one, followed by the best meal of your life, followed by dessert and then maybe ice cream, and—”
This silly, silly boy. He always did know how to manage tension when Megumi brought it to life. He couldn’t help but laugh, relaxing slightly.
There was nothing to fear, it was just Yuuji here.
Yuuji stopped whatever he was doing with Megumi's kitchen as he heard the laugh, and smiled at him. “You okay again?”
(Except there was nothing really just about Yuuji, now was there?)
Megumi nodded, biting his lip. His heart was still racing, but definitely not from the spiral anymore.
“I still want pasta, though.”
He got his pasta, of course. Megumi had long ago stopped doubting that Yuuji would do mostly everything just to please him. They ate together, and if Megumi moaned a little at the taste, Yuuji didn’t mention it.
(Only eyed Megumi like he wasn’t quite full yet.)
Yuuji told him about practice and talked to Megumi about his grandfather. He was still stubborn, still upset that Yuuji was sticking around.
At this point, Megumi was beginning to stoke bitterness, a little bit.
Loving Yuuji meant understanding he would always stick around, that sticking around and being there was the ultimate love language Yuuji had picked up throughout his life. It had taken Megumi a minute to see it, but a boy abandoned by everyone, constantly, never having a parental figure in his life, how else would he show his love but by sticking around?
Saying, I was abandoned, over and again, but I will not abandon you.
Megumi had made a mental note to talk to Yuuji's grandfather soon, tell him to get his head out of his ass and stop refusing Yuuji the room to love. Megumi, too, had made that mistake. And all it got him was a Yuuji that stuck around, anyway. Without the happiness to go with it.
How stupid had Megumi been, this entire time?
His grandfather was afraid, too, of letting Yuuji love him as thoroughly as he could if his he granted him the opportunity. Though Megumi also thought he might understand why. Yuuji's grandfather, Megumi thought, could probably ruin good people, too.
“Anyways,” Yuuji cleared his throat as he changed the subject. “Let’s talk about Gojo for a second. Yesterday. Was he actually serious when he said—”
Megumi smiled throughout the entire meal, was the bottom line.
And he'd smiled, too, as he let Yuuji was the dishes (“A good chef never lets his patient wash his dishes for him. Now shoo.”) and took a quick shower, all warm, all—happy.
God, Megumi was happy. Happy, and warm, and—well. He wanted, tonight. He’d always wanted where Yuuji was concerned. But today, Megumi really wanted to take, too.
For those few hours, fear was almost non-existent, pushed down by every other good feeling Yuuji prompted in him.
He pondered what to wear until his eyes landed on the hoodie he never gave Yuuji back. The grey one with his team’s logo on it that he'd stolen from him the night of his game when Yuuji had first asked him out on an official date.
He paired it with shorts that Megumi knew weren’t actually visible under the huge hoodie—big on Yuuji and therefore practically swallowing Megumi's tall and yet slight frame.
He bit his lip to stop himself from smiling as he took a look in the mirror and decided, yes. He blushed before he put on his fluffy socks—yes, even in May—and went back to the kitchen, where Yuuji was just about done with the dishes.
He was drying his hands on a towel as Megumi entered shyly.
“So, I should probably—” Yuuji interrupted himself as he turned around toward the kitchen entrance, gaze caught on Megumi. “Fuck.”
Yuuji's face dropped immediately, snapping his eyes away from Megumi as fast as they were placed on him.
Megumi took wobbly steps forward until he was next to Yuuji. He leaned against the counter, and, fiddling with his hands, asked, “You should probably what?”
“I—” Yuuji gulped, head tilted backward to stare at the ceiling. “Oh my God. Fuck.”
“You don’t have to look away,” Megumi whispered, trying to catch Yuuji's gaze. But the other boy was decidedly not looking, hands clenching and unclenching next to him. “I like it when you look.”
“It doesn’t scare you anymore?” Yuuji asked, slowly tilting his head downwards to catch Megumi's gaze again. And then, finally, he really looked—ravaging his collar bones, neck, cheeks, legs.
Megumi's cheeks heated under Yuuji's intense scrutiny, something burning low in his stomach. Like an oven just about to reach maximum heat.
“Terrifies me, actually,” Megumi whispered, hopping on the counter for fear that his wobbly legs would fail him soon.
“That’s unhygienic,” Yuuji said, eyes fixated on every ounce of skin visible, catching on Megumi's thighs and not straying again.
“Yuuji?”
“Yeah?” his voice came out dry.
“What are you thinking?” Megumi whispered, sliding a little closer to Yuuji on the counter, his thighs now mere inches away from Yuuji's hand as it clenched the edge of the counter.
Yuuji shook his head, about to step away, but Megumi caught him by the hand on the counter and urged again. “Yuuji. What are you thinking?”
Yuuji shook his head. Megumi nodded, sliding just a little closer so his thigh finally, finally touched Yuuji's hand.
Just a brush, but enough to elicit goosebumps all over his legs. “I want to know. Please.”
“I’m thinking—” Yuuji stopped himself. Squirmed and shook his head. “Fuck, Megumi. Don’t make me say it.”
“Scary?”
Yuuji whispered as his gaze strayed from Megumi's legs, leaving a trail of heat behind, to his eyes again, “Terrifying.”
Megumi nodded in understanding. “Tell me anyways. Please?”
“I’m thinking…” Yuuji started, gaze catching on Megumi's lips for a moment before they came back to his eyes. In another whisper, just between them as he leaned a little forward, he let his hand touch the outer side of his thigh a bit more obviously: “I’m thinking I really want to touch you right now.”
“Where?”
“Everywhere?” Yuuji laughed in a jeering breath. “Fuck, anywhere you’d let me?”
“Like my legs?” Megumi whispered, spreading his legs minimally so his outer thigh touched Yuuji's hand more. Yuuji needed to finally understand that Megumi wanted him to.
“I—” Yuuji cut himself off. “I shouldn’t.”
Megumi wasn’t above begging. And he almost did, he almost begged, but he quickly swallowed his plea.
“You said I could call the shots,” Megumi started, and Yuuji's confused gaze snapped back to him from his naked legs and the point where they were touching. Megumi's skin was still tingling. “But you’re still allowed to make a move, Yuuji. I would tell you if I wasn’t ready.”
“Make a move? Make a move like—like what?”
Like kissing me, Megumi wanted to yell, scream, beg, even. But he remembered there was something else more important to Yuuji, something Yuuji needed to know before he would ever—go there.
Something they both needed, actually, before they could move on.
“Like asking me questions,” Megumi whispered, and then cringed at the absolutely terrible way he was addressing this right now. “Important… questions.”
Yuuji looked confused for a moment, before it seemed to dawn on him that this was Megumi telling him he was finally ready. The athlete’s gaze widened comically as he just about took a step backward. Megumi stopped him again, though, with shaking hands and a trembling smile as he took Yuuji's sleeve and pulled him closer, maneuvering him between his legs.
He came willingly, at least, his hands placing themselves on the counter next to Megumi's thighs but not—not touching him. Not yet.
“I would say yes, if you asked,” Megumi whispered, a quiet little promise.
Yuuji stood still, searching Megumi's face for any kind of tell that he was dreaming, maybe, or just misunderstanding. Megumi knew he wouldn’t find one.
But Yuuji was still hesitating, so Megumi inhaled deeply. “I mean, I can ask, too, if you w—”
“Can I be your boyfriend?” Yuuji blurted. “Fuck, is that what you meant? Because if it wasn’t, then that’s really fucking embarrassing, but I really—fuck. I want that. You know I want that. So, is this—do you—”
Megumi laughed at Yuuji's jumble of words, stopping him from his silly spiral with an unsteady hand on his cheek. “I do want that,” Megumi whispered, biting his lip to stop a tear from escaping. Fuck, he could not cry right now. “You know I want that.”
Yuuji exhaled shakily, and his breath—a little minty, a little tomato saucy, and a lot Yuuji—hit Megumi's face, eliciting a burning blush on his cheeks. “You do?”
“I do,” Megumi whispered, both of his hands now resting against Yuuji's neck as he dropped his forehead to Yuuji's. “I really want to be with you.”
“Fuck, that’s good,” Yuuji laughed, breathless. “That’s—that’s really fucking good, actually.”
Megumi nodded, still biting his lips so as not to start tearing up, hands wandering over Yuuji's neck, cheek, jaw, down his hoodie.
He fisted it in his hands, pulling Yuuji a little bit closer so their chests brushed.
Yuuji's smile dropped immediately, eyes taking on a serious, intense, hungry hue again.
“Are there…” he started, gaze dropping to Megumi's lips as his hands wandered a little closer to the outer parts of Megumi's thighs again, grazing them. “Are there any other moves I’m allowed to make right now?”
“Yeah,” Megumi breathed, gaze caught between them at the ever-so-slowly approaching hands. “Yes.”
“Yeah?” Yuuji smirked, teased, and—goodness, Megumi just about turned to fire right then and there. Yuuji's hands, rough with scars and yet so tender, finally, fucking finally, grabbed his thighs. Gently, and yet—with intention. Firm. There was nothing to misunderstand about that touch. “Is this okay, then?”
“Very,” Megumi breathed, eyes closing at the sensation of Yuuji's hands—rough and soft together, kind and commanding, strong—moving sluggishly up and down his thighs.
“What about this?” Yuuji whispered, his eyes now also caught on where they were touching, hands moving higher towards Megumi's waist and—pulling, a little, so Megumi's behind was placed more on the edge of the counter and closer to Yuuji.
Yuuji's hands were now fully wrapped around his waist and thigh respectively, and Megumi burned. “Is this okay, too?”
Megumi nodded hastily, lip continually caught feverishly between his teeth so as not to let out an embarrassing sound. And it worked, right up until he felt lips—soft and chapped much like the hands belonging to them—press gently to Megumi's throat.
A gasp left Megumi, little but so very audible in the quiet night between them.
“Still okay?” Yuuji whispered against his skin, and Megumi—
“Yes,” he huffed, already breathless. Megumi's hands grabbed shakily at Yuuji's hair. “You can—more.”
“Yeah?” Yuuji smiled against his skin, kissing his way up his throat, around his jaw, taking Megumi's ear into his mouth just to whisper into it: “And here? Can I kiss you here?”
A soft thumb pressed down on Megumi's lower lip, then, making Megumi so lightheaded with want he thought he might cry if Yuuji didn’t kiss him soon. “Yes.”
Megumi felt hands first, big and coated with affection to cover up the coarseness. He'd closed his eyes at the touch, opening his mouth to say that that wasn’t what he’d meant when he was silenced.
A brush of lips, first. A tender touch. Just two lips meeting for the first time.
The inside of Megumi's ribcage immediately caught fire.
And then Yuuji kissed him again, this time—properly. A shock of burning shivers spread through Megumi's body roughly.
He finally snapped out of his trance, though, when Yuuji's tongue gently, so very gently, poked at his lip. Megumi immediately sighed, opening his mouth to let Yuuji kiss him, and—
The floodgates opened, after that.
Where Yuuji was testing the limits, trying to just feel Megumi the first time, his kisses now were packed with intent. His hands were now lingering on Megumi's legs. He closed them around his hips and squeezed tightly, intently. He grabbed Megumi's face to tilt it this way and that way to kiss him harder, deeper.
Gone was the shyness, the tentativeness. Replaced easily, naturally, with something else entirely; a desire so fierce, it burned in Megumi's veins and threatened to spill everywhere.
Yuuji kissed him with fervency, like something sacred and starved.
Megumi wondered what it would be like when Yuuji let his hands wander underneath Megumi's hoodie, what it would be like when they moved under his shorts, closer and closer to where Megumi was definitely burning now, heat coiling deep in his belly—
“Hold on, baby, slow down,” Yuuji panted into Megumi's mouth when Megumi's hands wandered from his hair to just underneath the hem of his shirt.
Pulling away from Megumi's thighs, Yuuji took ahold of Megumi's hands and moved them to his sides, intertwining their fingers in the process. Their hands now placed atop the counter.
He slowed them down, still never unlocking from Megumi's mouth. Megumi melted into a puddle against the cupboards behind him as he let himself be kissed slower, hands still firmly grasped in Yuuji's.
When Yuuji pulled a little on Megumi's lower lip, letting flop back and then kissing it soothingly, Megumi let out an involuntary shiver, a soft moan following.
“Hmm,” Yuuji hummed into their kiss, smiling as he gently bit Megumi's mouth again. “My baby likes that, yeah?”
And—oh. Oh.
Yuuji pulled away, just a hairsbreadth of space between them, as if he couldn’t physically step further away, gauging Megumi's tense reaction. “I’m sorry, did I—"
Megumi shook his head, his face overtaken by a burning blush again. “I… liked that.”
Yuuji smiled, an open-mouthed, happy kiss placed on Megumi's lips. “You like it when I call you baby?” Yuuji pressed into Megumi's mouth, still smiling.
“Hmm,” Megumi nodded. Followed by a silent, nervous confession: “And when you call me yours.”
Yuuji pulled away from Megumi's lips with curses spilling from his own, head falling into the crook of Megumi's neck. “Fuck, Megumi.”
“I knew you’d have a possessive side,” Megumi laughed, albeit still dazed, dizzy.
“Fuck, I didn’t,” Yuuji laughed into Megumi's neck, planting silly little kisses everywhere. Passion replaced by pure adoration. Megumi could feel the shape of his smile on his neck. He melted again, hands disheveling Yuuji's hair one strand after another as he sighed in content.
“But I guess it makes sense, since it’s you,” Yuuji added, pressing one last smiley kiss to Megumi's cheek.
“Sweet talker,” Megumi breathed, a smile also playing on his mouth. Megumi had never known anyone so eager to smile as Yuuji.
But he'd also never known anyone so eager to make Megumi smile.
Yuuji grinned at him again, then, an all-time big silly teeth smile, with crescent eyes and a golden light of warmth settling deep inside Megumi.
Today, he was brave. Today, Megumi was fearless. Today, he had kicked fear in the nuts.
--
There were good days.
Good days like when Megumi had all of his friends and his boyfriend (boyfriend!) at his apartment, eating pizza that Yuuji cooked for them and ice cream that Yuuji made for them from whatever leftover fruit Megumi had lying around. As they watched idiotic reality tv and played Scrabble, or Never Have I Ever, or just talked to each other like nothing else, nothing terrible, was happening outside his four walls in the world, nothing else mattered.
Good days like when Nobara came to Megumi during a quiet moment, which were far and few between with this group of people, touched his hand and just looked at him, for a while. Then she pulled him roughly into a tight hug and whispered, "You deserve this. Fuck, you really do."
Good days like when he believed her that he did.
Good days like when they spent time with Yuuji's grandfather in the hospital, playing uno and pretending to lose just so Wasuke-san wouldn’t pout about losing. Something about shitty youngstersbutchering the damn game. When Yuuji would leave and Megumi remained, smile still intact, and Wasuke-san would observe him and smile that rare smile of his and tell him he was happy it worked out.
When he’d asked Megumi, “You serious about him, then?” and Megumi could answer with a confident smile without first spiraling into self-doubt and fear.
Good days like when Megumi and Yuuji were lazing about in Yuuji's apartment and Yuuji chased him with whatever food he made that included pineapple in it.
“Stop being a child, Megumi, just taste it!” he yelled around his apartment, laughing, dragging himself from room to room to find Megumi. Megumi would run away again once found.
“I will not—” Megumi panted, still running from Yuuji with laughter all but spilling everywhere— “taste that abomination! Stop! Yuuji, no!”
Good days like when Yuuji caught him by the waist and hoisted him up—despite Megumi's giant height—and they fell unceremoniously on Yuuji's couch, laughter filling their four walls.
Good days like when Yuuji smiled down at Megumi and proceeded to kiss him silly, all over his smiling and laughing mouth.
(Those were always his favorite kisses, the ones that couldn’t possibly contain the joy. Where you had to kiss around the happiness.)
Good days like when there was a shield around his heart protecting it from the what ifs of his brain.
Fear didn’t exist anywhere close to Megumi's heart, those days.
--
There were bad days.
“Hey, sweet child of mi—”
“Do I deserve this?” Megumi interrupted Gojo the second he picked up, breathless.
His lips were still tingling from that kiss Yuuji had placed on him before he'd left for practice. When Megumi was still okay—and then promptly spiraled before finally finding the courage to ask for help.
He was allowed to ask for help, right?
“Oh, Megumi,” Gojo replied. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
Gojo had made it in fifteen.
It went to show just how badly Megumi was doing when he all but ran to answer the door and fell into Gojo’s arms immediately, heart hurting.
On bad days like these, fear had slithered its way into Megumi's heart through the cracks he had left when he wasn’t careful.
And so he'd cried, much like a child who couldn’t find solace in anything but a mother’s embrace, until his tears ran out and he could unclench his fists once again.
“Tell me what’s going on in there,” Gojo said the minute they took a seat on Megumi's couch in the living room.
Gojo had brought snacks and placed them between them on the couch, a blanket pulled over them both as he turned toward Megumi with kind and curious eyes.
“I have a boyfriend,” Megumi replied, a small smile playing on his face at the idea that left directly upon realizing he was the one with the boyfriend.
Another tear left his eyes.
“I know, sweetheart,” Gojo laughed. Smiled as he wiped Megumi's tears. “You’ve had one for a while now… It’s been, what, two months?”
(51 days.)
Megumi's lips quivered, the question just barely making it through his clenched jaw. “Do I deserve this?”
“Yes,” Gojo said immediately. “You do.”
“That’s it?” Megumi said. “Tell me why.”
“You just do, Megumi,” Gojo replied softly, trying to catch Megumi's eyes.
“No, Gojo, tell me why,” he pressed. His breathing was getting heavier, and his words were getting less audible, but he needed to know. “What have I ever done to deserve this?”
“Megumi…” Gojo started. “What have I done wrong in my raising you that you’ve come to believe you’re so fundamentally difficult to love?”
“Because I am!” Megumi cried. “I am difficult to love, Gojo. Don’t deny it.”
“You’re not.” Gojo shook his head. Megumi thought he might have seen a lonely tear somewhere underneath his unmade hair.
“I am. I have issues the size of the moon, and I have mood swings all the time, like a ticking time bomb. Some days I’m okay, some days I’m like this, and I’m severely high maintenance, and—”
“I think you need to be having this conversation with Yuuji,” Gojo interrupted, hand petting Megumi's thigh.
“No,” Megumi snapped back immediately. “I don’t want to have this conversation with Yuuji.”
“Why not? You trust him. You’ve had difficult conversations with him before.”
“Not like this,” Megumi shook his head.
“And what gives you reason to believe he won't react just as wonderfully as he did every other time?”
Megumi paused.
Gojo raised his eyebrows. Nudged him. Smiled. “Megumi. What has Yuuji done that makes you believe having this conversation with him is forbidden?”
“Because I think this time, I’ll really crack,” Megumi said quietly, after a moment of pause. Gojo nodded, and nudged him to go on. “I’ve cracked before, here and there, and then that time when he met you, and he didn’t mind. But this time, he will. I know he will. Even someone like him can't—”
“Say it,” Gojo prodded him to go on as Megumi bit his lip to keep from crying. “Say it, Megumi. You’ll feel better.”
“Even someone like him can’t love me,” Megumi admitted through gritted teeth, looking down at his clenched fists.
“You think he can't love you?”
“Yes.”
“Not that he won't, but that he can't?”
“Yes.”
“Explain.”
“I don’t bring anything to the table, Gojo. He's all sunshine and gold wrapped up in one, and I don’t bring anything.”
Gojo nodded for him to continue.
Megumi breathed in deeply. Ashamed, he admitted it all: “And—he’ll realize. He’ll realize I wasn’t kidding when I told him I’m unlovable. It’ll be fun once, twice, three times to react to my mood swings, but the fourth time he’ll realize it’s not actually that fun, I’m actually a lot more work than he ever assumed I would be, and then he’ll leave.”
“And then?” Gojo nudged. Smiled. Smiled because he knew and he would always know Megumi well, like Megumi actually was his child and not some kid he took care of out of this stubborn, altruistic goodness in his heart that he never let anyone see.
“And it’ll break me,” Megumi whispered, voice cracking.
“Ah,” Gojo smiled. “So this isn’t about him, then?”
Megumi couldn’t hold back the next lonely tear that fell.
“Tell you what, kid,” he said, and again with that voice of his that told Megumi to listen because he wouldn't say it again. “The way I’ve seen and witnessed it, multiple times, I might add, this boy is already well on his way to in love with you. Okay?”
Megumi didn’t reply.
Most days, these days, thinking that Yuuji might love him would fill him with happiness. Today, he dreaded it like he'd dreaded it the first time they met.
“Megumi, he already knows you’re a mess. That sometimes you get in your head too much, get scared about everything too much. He knows, kid. He already knows. Because he has seen you spiral more than four times already. Your point therefore makes no sense. There's no limit to how often he will want to take care of you, you know? He's not counting, Megumi.”
Megumi releases another sole tear.
“And tell you what, kid,” Gojo went on. “He hates every single lonely tear of yours that he can't kiss away for you.”
“You think so?” Megumi mumbled under his breath.
“Megumi,” Gojo chided. “Do you really doubt it? Do you really doubt Yuuji?”
Megumi sighed. “No,” he replied. “No, I don’t.”
“So it isn’t about him.”
“No.”
“But about you, then?”
“Yes.” It was a quiet admission, almost discernable to Megumi over the painful beat of his heart. But it was an admission, nonetheless.
“I know you think you’re fundamentally unlovable. But he has proven to you already that you aren’t. What is it, then, that causes you so much pain?”
“What if…” Megumi started, and stopped. Only at Gojo’s hand on his shoulder did he muster the courage to say more. “What if… I can't love him in that perfect way he loves me?”
“Explain.”
“Yuuji is—perfect. I know you said not to dehumanize him, once. I’m not. But he's patient, and funny. He can tell when I need to be left alone, and he can tell when I need him to be there. He can tell when I need our date to be just us, on a couch with some pizza, and I don’t need to say it. He knows because he watches me. He’s attentive and selfless in the way he lov—when he’s with me. But I’m not.”
“Explain,” Gojo pressed again.
“I’m so in my head, I forget to pay attention sometimes. I keep thinking, do I look pretty enough, do I look handsome enough, will I ruin this, will he hate me? Try not to panic, Megumi. Be brave, Megumi. Nobody wants a coward, Megumi. I’m always in my head, and it’s always about me and my fears, and so I’m scared, okay? That one day he’ll get tired of me not noticing him. That it will hurt him that I can't love him like he loves me. I know he wants me, that he's serious about me. But what if one day I put in his head the idea that I can't love him back? What then?”
Gojo said nothing, for a while. For a while, all he did was hum, and close his eyes. Think about what Megumi just admitted, loudly for the first time in his life. “Those are very valid points, Megumi. But I disagree with you.”
“How?” Megumi whined, desperate to just understand.
“I know you’re in your head a lot, but you do notice. You’ve noticed the issue, right? You’ve voiced them. The fact that you’re scared you won't give him what he deserves is already sign enough that you will. There's no doubt in my mind that you will.”
He played with Megumi's hair, stroking gently, like he was a child. And maybe he was.
Maybe when Gojo was around, he'd always be.
“You are so genuinely full of love, Megumi, and you’re not even aware of it. And any time in the past when you’ve wanted to show it, it was rejected. So you’ve stopped, and now you wonder if you will ever be able to do it again. And you’re afraid if you can't, you’ll be the sole reason for your very own doom. But tell you what, kid,” Gojo said.
“This boy here isn’t like the others before him. He knows what you’re struggling with and what this anxiety does to you. Trust me when I tell you it won't turn him from you. It hasn’t, yet, why would it now? And besides… I don’t think you’ve ever tried to actually love anyone. You were just always told you’re unlovable, cold. Not capable of love, and you just took it. But I think you are. I think with the right person, you are.”
“And you think Yuuji is the right person?”
“You don’t?” Gojo scrunched his eyebrows like Megumi was in over his head for thinking the opposite.
“I think he’s probably the only person,” Megumi confessed, gaze caught on his trembling fingers. “I think he might be. For me.”
“I think so, too, kid,” Gojo said. “And so you’ll love him. All you need to do is let yourself.”
“Like you did? With your best friend?” Megumi asked.
He winced a little, an apology on his tongue as he saw the pain flash in Gojo’s face. “I’m sorry—"
“I guess it’s time, huh?” Gojo smiled sadly. “To tell you.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I loved him, is all,” Gojo replied. “Since we were twelve and I went home and couldn’t sleep after we held hands once. I fell for him, then. As we got older, I tried to swallow it. I thought that if I chose to ignore it, it would go away. It didn’t work. I honestly think I never even wanted it to work, anyway. I just wanted it to hurt less. But I never could imagine a better person to love, you know? And the thing about love, Megumi, is that you don’t get to choose who to fall for. But you do get to choose who you love. That’s a conscious decision that you make every morning. And he was mine.
“But I was a coward and I didn’t tell him. He died when we were in college. He was bright, larger than life. God, he was a truly good person. He was training to become a volunteer firefighter, did you know? But then he died in a fire before I ever even found the courage to say anything.”
“He probably knew,” Megumi said sadly, trying not to imagine what he would feel now, had Yuuji left before Megumi could ever even experience this. “You’re not a subtle person.”
“Yeah,” Gojo smiled sadly. “He did. And I knew he loved me, too. He wasn’t at all subtle either.”
“So why didn’t he—”
“I wasn’t ready,” Gojo shrugged. “I told you he was good. He waited until I had the guts to say something. But life doesn’t always care for that. It takes from you what you were never brave enough to reach for. Didn’t realize I was ready until it was too late.”
“But,” Megumi frowned. “Would anything have changed? He died, Gojo. He would have died either way.”
“Everything would have changed,” Gojo nodded. “Because then, when he left, he’d have been mine.”
“It would’ve hurt you more,” Megumi said.
“Maybe,” Gojo shrugged. Smiled. “But he would’ve been mine.”
Is it really that simple, Megumi wanted to ask, yell, scream, shake him—but it was.
He could see it on Gojo’s face that it really was that simple: that to belong, to know you belong and that you were the last to love it and hold it, the last to be loved by it and held by it, would always trump it all. The pain, the agony—all of it.
“Gojo,” Megumi said, after many minutes unspoken, one last question on the tip of his tongue before he knew he’d have to call Yuuji over.
“Yes, kid?”
“If you could—"
“I would’ve told him I loved him, if I could. That’s what you wanted to ask? If I could go back in time, would I choose him again? I would. I would choose to love him again. But this time, I’d do something about it. Even if I had known he'd die… Especially if I had known he'd die,” Gojo said.
Pressing a kiss to Megumi's head, he stood up, ready to leave. “Now call that boyfriend of yours. He deserves to hear about your angst, too, you know? You should never leave those who love you out of your pain. You’re not doing them the favor you think you are.”
On my way!
Megumi stared at the text in front of him, nerves spiking as he finally heard the doorbell ring—it had taken Yuuji 25 minutes, not that Megumi was counting—since Yuuji's reply to Megumi's Come over after practice, please?
“Someone’s missed me!” Yuuji exclaimed, grinning brightly with his eyes closed as he stood there in his casual sweatpants and hoodie, practice bag slung lazily over his shoulder.
It took him one look at Megumi's face before a shadow of sympathy passed over his own. Then, like the absolute goof that he was: “I would’ve said, but then I saw your face. You look like you’re about to serve me divorce papers. I’m sorry I forgot to take out the trash and buy milk, love, I promise I’ll do better next time—”
God, this boy.
Megumi couldn’t help it, he giggled, until his giggle turned into a full-blown belly laugh before it died down into a teary smile.
“There’s that beautiful smile,” Yuuji said softly, slowly entering Megumi's apartment as he took Megumi's hand and intertwined their fingers. “Let’s go sit, yeah?”
Leading Megumi to where he had just sat with Gojo an hour earlier, they also took a seat. Yuuji's hands didn’t falter in holding Megumi's close as he pulled Megumi's legs up and over Yuuji's lap, their interlocked hands resting on Megumi's legs.
Megumi was left staring dumbfoundedly at the way Yuuji's thumbs were running soothing circles over his skin.
For a moment, it was silent. Megumi didn’t know where to begin.
“Are you getting cold feet?” Yuuji whispered.
Megumi looked at him, alarmed. “Of course not. No.” He shook his head, averting his gaze.
Yuuji's hands still wrapped over Megumi's came up to his chin, tilting it up. “What is it, Megumi?”
Megumi sighed. Inhaled. He deserves to hear about your angst, too, you know? “I’m scared I can't love you.”
Yuuji looked confused, for a moment, before he tensed up slightly. “I’m not following… Is it like an aro thing, because—”
“No,” Megumi shook his head. “No. I’m very romantically into you. Yuuji, you know that.”
“Then what do you mean?” Yuuji smiled.
Communication is key, honesty is key, Megumi reminded himself.
The thing about fear, Megumi, his therapist had once said, is that it builds on irrationality; it builds and builds and builds. But if you voice them, say the words out loud and let someone else hear them, you’ve already halved the pain. Fear cannot grow where an honest conversation has sown its seed.
“I’m afraid I can't love you like you deserve,” Megumi whispered. “You keep showing me how you feel, and I can't even doubt you because you’ve been consistent with the way you show me your feelings, and I’m—I’m scared I can't ever love you like you deserve to be loved.”
Yuuji let Megumi's words sink in before he nodded. “That’s what your brilliant brain has conjured up today?” he asked. “Sounds like your brain is using its last party trick to ruin something good for you.”
“I mean,” Yuuji added when Megumi only stared in response. “It just doesn’t make that much sense, right? Considering everything.”
Megumi was confused. “But—”
“Megumi,” Yuuji chided gently. “What are you reallyscared of? Spell it out to me again, baby.”
“That you will love me,” Megumi replied, desperate. His therapist was almost right. Now that Megumi had said the words and noticed how little Yuuji agreed with them, the weight lifted off his chest at least a little.
“I will.” Yuuji nodded. Shrugged. “I’m well on my way already. But you know this.”
“I do, I—” Megumi replied. “I want to love you, too.”
“You will.”
“Except not like you will,” Megumi said. “You’re patient. You’re attentive. You’re kind. You know me so well… But I’m just me. I’m always in my head. Worried. Scared. Anxious. Nervous about something. And… I’m scared that my head will stand in the way of my heart, and that I’ll never be able to give you the feeling of safety you give me, and that that will hurt you.”
“And then?”
“And that you’ll leave,” Megumi whispered. “I’m scared you’ll leave me not because I’m unlovable but because I’m incapable of love. Of showing it.”
He'd gone ahead and done it; he'd bared his biggest fear to Yuuji just for him to still be here. Still holding Megumi's hand. Still rubbing it tenderly. Still listening.
“You practiced these words,” Yuuji noted, and Megumi was—confused, again.
“Yes,” Megumi laughed dirtily, “but—”
“You practiced how to say this, for me?”
“Yes?” Megumi whispered, gazing down at Yuuji's hands on his lap again.
“So you’ll just practice loving me, then. Problem solved.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Isn’t it?” Yuuji shrugged. “Then tell me what you’re doing right now. Communicating with me, telling me your fears—is that not an act of love?”
Megumi blanched.
“You know, Megumi,” Yuuji smiled. “I’m not scared of saying what I feel, or showing what I feel. I’m pretty open. I always was, since we met. But you arescared of it, and yet you still do it. Honestly, between the two of us, you’re probably a lot better at this than I am. ‘Cause your stakes are higher, right? Sort of. Does that make sense?”
Megumi had never in his life been this—honest, this raw about his emotions—and actually received the same kind of honesty and rawness in return.
Briefly, somewhere behind the twists and tangles of his messy mind, he wondered how many more times Yuuji would have to bare himself in front of Megumi for him to understand he meant every word—meant them for him.
“I mean, you could’ve run away from this, no?” Yuuji shrugged. “But you didn’t. You took small steps, yes, but you took them. You take them. For me. I don’t know in what world I would ever see you do all of this while wobbly on your feet and think you’re not showing me how you feel. Or that it isn’t enough. You’re trying to work through your fears, right? For me. And for you, of course. But—you’re letting me hold you through them. You trust me. There’s nothing else quite like your trust that screams how you feel about me louder. And this brain of yours, God—it’s brilliant. But also—this is its last resort, you know? It doesn’t want you to be happy, so it throws whatever idea of you being incapable of this your way, but you are capable. Seriously. You’re doing this relationship thing exceptionally well as we speak.”
Yuuji smiled, wiping the tears from Megumi's cheeks with no reluctance. Unfaltering, as Yuuji always was, in his unveiled gestures.
“So—baby steps, okay? Baby steps. And I’m here for those, and I know how you feel because you let mebe there for them,” Yuuji whispered against Megumi’s cheek, pressing a soft kiss to it. “You let me take care of you. That’s all the reassurance I could possibly need.”
Megumi let another tear fall, and closed his eyes. Immediately, he felt Yuuji's hand on his cheek again. “Is it really enough?” Megumi whispered, barely audible.
Yuuji nodded immediately. “Just let me take care of you, okay?”
Another tear, and another gentle touch. “It’s nasty work.”
“Nasty?” Yuuji shook his head. “There’s nothing nasty about you. Don’t let me hear you insult my boyfriend like that again, hear me? He's the best.”
“But I don’t do anything for you.”
“That is very factually untrue, actually. You listen to me yap away about the most random stuff,” Yuuji started. “You let me take you out. You laugh at my jokes. You trust me. You give me your smiles, and you pay attention. You do know me. You’ve found so many different ways to handle my ADHD already, and you’re constantly finding new ways to ground me, and you bring me… peace. You bring me peace. I feel like I can settle down a little around you. Like this incessant restlessness gets balanced out by you. So much so, I can’t really stand it when you’re not around, these days.”
Megumi's heart stopped. Immediately, he snuggled closer to Yuuji, looking for warmth. Always looking for his warmth.
“I want to see you—all the time. And—you do a lot for me. But even if you didn’t, it’d be enough. To hear you talk. To be the one who gets to see your smiles. But also to be the one who gets to see you like this, when you don’t feel like smiling. I want it all. The good days, the bad days, the meh days. You know. All your days.”
Megumi laughed a choked little thing. Yuuji smiled in return.
"And let me tell you a secret, yeah?" Yuuji whispered against Megumi's lip before pressing a lingering kiss on it. “You don’t need to do anything at all to deserve it, either.”
There were bad days. But Megumi thought he could fight them, these days.
--
(There were even worse days.
Worse days like when they spent nights in hospital rooms, barely eating, barely sleeping.
Worse days like when Megumi held Yuuji's hand tightly, tucking it safely into Megumi's jacket pocket as they stood in front of the newly closed grave.
Worse days like when tremors wracked Yuuji's body, rendering him speechless—jaw clenched, eyes fixed on the sky as the late summer rain soaked him, and drowned out his agonized cries.
Worse days like when Megumi spoke for Yuuji instead and held him for however long he needed before he could find the strength to stand by himself again.
There were even worse days, but they faced them together head-on.
Hands tightly clutched.
Miraculously, they overcame even those.)
--
There were in-between, meh days.
Meh days like when Megumi was okay, of course, but restless. When his anxiety, the bad word he hated saying, wasn’t a pounding hole in his chest but rather—a hum in his brain. Like waking up in a room where nothing moved, but everything hummed, a little bit.
There was a feeling of annoyance, but also a feeling of, “What is that, and why won't it stop? Where’s the humming coming from?”
It was less painful and more—tight. Like something in his chest was about to unravel, maybe, sometime soon, something a little knotted and just a tad uncomfortable.
Megumi could breathe, those days, but something was still stuck in his throat that made it a little difficult.
Not impossible, though.
The in-between days, the meh days, were mostly quiet, sort of dull, and tired. A little grey. A little heavy, but not crushing, exactly.
It didn’t scream, those days—it just lingered.
“Tell me about that,” Yuuji would say during mehdays, as they cuddled on Yuuji's couch. In the background, some animal documentary about elephants was droning gently.
Hands interlinked, Megumi's chest on Yuuji's. Megumi hummed in question, asking for an elaboration.
“About that brilliant head of yours. Tell me,” Yuuji explained.
“It’s not brilliant,” Megumi replied. “It’s a mess.”
“Tell me,” Yuuji mumbled against the top of Megumi's head, and Megumi couldn’t help himself. Of course he would tell him because he knew Yuuji would keep all this knowledge safely tucked away in his mental Megumi-Box.
(“My mental Megumi-Box is a mental box in my brain, duh, where I keep all the important information about you that I don’t ever want to forget. Like that your favorite color is purple, that your favorite food is pasta, that you fiddle with your hands when nervous, that you scrunch your nose when you’re deep in thought, that your body trembles when you get scared, that you make a really hot little noise when I kiss your—“)
“I read in a book once,” Megumi started as he played with Yuuji's hands absentmindedly. “About this girl with anxiety. She explained it like a honey mushroom.”
“A honey mushroom?” Yuuji quipped, and the fact that he didn’t laugh when he very well could’ve—seeing as it was his reaction to everything—gave Megumi the strength to keep going.
Yuuji's biggest instinct was to laugh, always, and yet he'd hold it back just to make sure Megumi didn’t think he wasn’t being taken seriously.
“Yeah,” Megumi replied. “It’s the biggest living organism on this planet. Its roots reach up to over three square miles. It’s huge. But you can't see more than just the mushroom’s cap.”
“And your anxiety is similar?” A kiss pressed into his hair.
“Hmm,” Megumi hummed. “You see the signs. The dissociating. When I’m deep in thought, staring holes into walls. When I text too late and you know I can't fall asleep again. But in my body, it feels different. It’s—it’s worse. This sense of impending doom. Like something terrible is about to happen but I don’t know when. Or like I’m stood at a cliff with a blindfold and told someone will push me, but I don’t know who or when or even why. I just know I’ll fall. It’ll hurt… There’s always something that will hurt. Something that will happen, someone who will leave, something or someone I will fail. And I just—”
Yuuji kissed his head again, his arms tightening around him.
“It feels cruel, Yuuji,” Megumi replied, tears in his eyes. “It feels cruel that your body would do this to you.”
There was silence, for a while, before Yuuji asked, “Is there no relief, ever?”
“It’s better when I’m around my people,” Megumi replied. Smiled as he closed his eyes and listened to Yuuji's steady heartbeat. “Especially around you. And, I mean, I went to therapy for a long time, so I have lots of different ways to help myself now. I’m okay more often than not, these days. I can still feel it, but it isn’t as prominent as usual. But there are bad days, of course.”
“Like today?” Yuuji asked.
“No,” Megumi said. “Today is an in-between day. It just—lingers, on these days. Bad days are different. On bad days, I just—I keep thinking about it, and it won't stop. Sometimes, it just doesn’t stop. When it gets bad, I want to scratch my skin open and cut off the mushroom roots. But I can't, because they seem to have become a part of me, or something. Sometimes, I don’t know if I’m real until I’m terrified of—something. Anything.”
“And I help, sometimes?” Yuuji whispered.
“Yeah, Yuuji,” Megumi replied. “You help all the time.”
Yuuji hummed. “You don’t know what that means to me, Megumi.”
Megumi sighed into his chest. “I guess I don’t.”
“What does it mean to you when I say you bring me peace when my body is usually only ever charged with energy?”
“Everything,” Megumi replied quietly.
“Exactly,” Yuuji said. “It means everything to me that I don’t make it worse when I’m here.”
“Can you tell me about that, too?” Megumi asked quietly.
He knew already, of course, the same way Yuuji knew about Megumi's anxiety as well. But Megumi loved asking anyway, just to be closer. To remember that they tell each other these things, on all days.
The good, the bad, and the in-between.
“I remember back in high school when my teachers would yell at me to ‘just sit still for once’,” Yuuji began, absentmindedly playing with Megumi's fingers and chipping away at his week-old nail polish.
“I guess at the time, ADHD wasn’t so widely known. Or at least it was still pretty stigmatized at the time. All I remember is adults talking about me being hyperactive a lot. Distracted. Cannot concentrate for the life of him. It overwhelmed me because I didn’t know how to stop it. I wanted to be good, like everyone else. I always thought there was something wrong with me when I couldn’t be. I thought maybe I was just… bad.”
“There's nothing wrong with you,” Megumi whispered into the crook of Yuuji's neck, placing a gentle kiss on his throat. He didn’t have to see it to know Yuuji smiled at the gesture.
Inside Megumi, anger boiled at the thought of these adults making Yuuji feel as though he were bad, when all he was was a little lost with no one to help him figure out where to go.
“I know,” Yuuji replied. “At least now I do. Growing up in an orphanage with all these kids that got adopted wasn’t—it wasn’t nice. They always looked at me, the adults. The potential families. But after some time, they immediately went looking for others. Nobody ever thought I was worth the trouble, I think. Why take me when other, calmer, smarter kids were around? I didn’t blame them...
"But it was still rough. I'm not proud of the way I handled my loneliness back then. But, uhm... Those stories are longer. Not pretty. Anyway, where was I? Right. It wasn’t until my grandfather took me in that things sort of changed for me.”
Yuuji had never kept his life and struggles with ADHD a secret, not since they'd first spoken. But this part—this was new. Megumi hummed into Yuuji's neck and gave it another quick kiss to signal him that he was still listening.
His heart broke hearing about Yuuji's fight against loneliness, but he listened regardless. He knew Yuuji hated being pitied.
“I know he feels—felt. I know he felt this immense guilt for not wanting me, back then,” Yuuji sighed. “But I don’t blame him for that. Nobody did. And he was right when he told you I was pretty self-sufficient. I definitely was. Had to be, with the way no one usually stuck around much back then. Didn’t have too many friends either as a kid… So…
"But Pops noticed fairly early that I wasn’t just a spoiled brat. That me not listening and always asking things to be explained ten times and not focusing, like, ever, wasn’t just me being lazy. Everyone always thought I was lazy. He was the first one who realized I really was struggling. That maybe this kid wasn’t just annoying but maybe… genuinely overwhelmed. And I was. There was just—so much going on up there, all the fucking time…
“It was never bad things. Not like in your brain, where everything is sort of scary. Mine was just—busy. Whatever I processed, I thought about. I was always hyperaware of everything. Or of more things than others. I noticed noise faster than anyone, and once I did I couldn’t ignore it. But I also can't quite ignore things that I see. Or smell. I just—notice more. And it keeps me up. I can hear the elevator right now and it’s already messing with my ability to talk, a little.
"I just always felt, hmm… Untethered, kind of? Like I didn’t have an anchor keeping me in the conversation, or even in the place I was at. Everyone could always stay, mentally. I was just always floating, and I couldn’t exactly do anything. And everyone always said I had a weird way with words, because I always stuttered in my haste to say everything I was thinking. And I talked too much. I still do, I know that. I don’t get to the point because most times I probably don’t have a point. Or I figure it out as I go. Or I lose the point. It was just—fast. I mean. I've gotten better about it all. It was just... not that fun, as a kid? Everything was always happening so fast, and I never quite had any possibility of slowing down or just… not noticing literally everything, for once.”
Megumi opened his mouth but trailed off immediately. He didn’t know what he could possibly say to Yuuji right now that would encompass what he felt.
“I wish I had known you back then,” he settled on, because it was the simple truth.
“Nah,” Yuuji laughed. “It’s good you didn’t. I wasn’t always very nice to be around. Especially back then when I didn’t know how to deal with stuff.”
“What changed?”
“Huh?” Yuuji mumbled. “Oh. Pops, I think. Right. As I was saying, he noticed I really wasn’t pretending, that I was really struggling. He went to a doctor with me, and I got my diagnosis, then. I think I was sixteen. Just after I met Nobara, actually. Anyway, the doctor gave me meds. I thought they worked wonders, but Pops hated when I took them. Said it turned me into an ‘emotionless mop’.
"The doctor said we could try other meds, but my Pops wanted me to try something else first. He got me enrolled in sports, after that. I was kind of in every single high school sport club, did you know? It was a good first step. Then he got rid of overstimulating stuff in the apartment, and stopped letting me watch tv all the time and shit. You can see my apartment, it’s pretty bare. When stuff is too colorful or too full, I get a little overwhelmed. Pops helped me figure these things out. Got me little earplugs for the classroom so the noises weren’t too much for me, for example.
"We found all kinds of ways and systems to deal with it together. Thanks to him, most days, I’m doing pretty well. And it’s easier when Academics isn’t involved, you know? Sitting for hours on end. And when you have a job like mine where you basically just work out all day. Things I was passionate about were always easier to do and deal with. Obsessions, you know? I can fixate on those spectacularly well. But anyway, it’s all a lot easier now. And when you have friends and family who get it, it’s really okay.”
Megumi pondered. “What does a difficult day look like for you?”
“Huh,” Yuuji quipped. “Good question… It’s not so much difficult days than moments, I think? It’s really hard when I’m in loud and crowded places. There's just so much going on all the time, you know, it’s hard to be, in spaces like that.”
“Like coffee shops?”
“Yeah! Those are a bit rough, sometimes.”
Megumi frowned, turned and twisted so he could look Yuuji in the face. “You went to one almost daily, Yuuji.”
Yuuji laughed abashedly. “Guilty as charged. But in my defense, you’re, like, the person of my dreams. So…”
Megumi tried to deepen his frown instead of blushing. He knew he probably failed. “Yuuji…” he started. “You tell me now, right? When things or situations are difficult for you.”
Yuuji stared for a moment before he leaned down to peck Megumi softly. “Of course. You know I do,” he said. “Besides, you kind of really bring me peace, you know? I think I told you this before, but… I can rest more easily. When you’re around. Feel more tethered with you.”
And then Megumi wanted to say it, unexpectedly, three little words, silly little words on the tip of his tongue. But he bit the words back, instead, almost drawing blood. He whispered against Yuuji's lips, right before giving them a peck as well, “You bring me peace, too.”
Yuuji tightened his hold on Megumi as he deepened their kiss, a little. Smiling against Megumi's lips, he claimed, “Hearing that makes me want to not leave you again.”
“So don’t,” Megumi replied as he pulled away, looking up at his boyfriend.
Yuuji laughed. “I meant—”
“I know,” Megumi whispered. Licked his lips, and Yuuji's eyes dropped to them immediately. Moth to a flame. “Stay, please? Tonight.”
Yuuji must’ve seen it, then, that Megumi was serious. He nodded, kissed his head, and said, “Okay.”
(When Yuuji later claimed the couch, Megumi didn’t fight him. Baby steps, he'd thought. One at a time.)
(Meh days, Megumi figured, were much more bearable with Yuuji around, too.)
--
There was a side effect to always overthinking everything that people underestimated. When you lived your life overthinking every step you were taking, like Megumi always had thus far, a lot of things became simply—underwhelming.
Megumi had scarcely ever experienced anything in his life to be as good or close to as good as in his imagination, let alone better. Everything always lacked, essentially.
Until Yuuji.
Of course, until Yuuji.
Yuuji had redefined love, life, friendship, and everything in between, for Megumi. In many ways, many times throughout their relationship.
And Yuuji had, in fact, redefined lust for him.
It wasn’t like Megumi was a prude, or a stranger to pleasure. He certainly was no stranger to want, either.
Though, need and want like the one he felt for Yuuji were, in fact, new.
Unknown. Strange. And entirely specific to Yuuji.
And so he'd imagined things often, ever since that day they'd first met. He'd imagined Yuuji down on his knees, imagined his tongue between Megumi's legs, imagined his hands on his hips, grip tight, or the breath on his neck when he fucked Megumi silly. He'd imagined it, had come to the images in his head unabashedly a few times, too, and—
Megumi hadn’t been underestimating Yuuji in a long time, but—even Megumi's wildest dreams, most shameless imaginations, could not have amounted to, well—this.
It was a revelation every time.
“Yuuji,” Megumi panted, breath coming out choked and heavy, embarrassing if not for Yuuji's goosebumps under Megumi's skin telling him he liked it. He liked Megumi panting, moaning, whining. “Yuuji, please.”
Yuuji hummed into Megumi's neck, hands still wrapped firmly around his hips, his fingertips almost brushing on Megumi's stomach. Oh, his hands were so big, so—“Yuuji, please,” he begged, almost, trying to ground down on Yuuji's lap. But Yuuji was too strong, too much, too good, fuck, and Megumi himself was getting delirious already. “Yuuji, please, I need—more. Please.”
Yuuji didn’t react, only smiled as he kissed his way down Megumi's neck, until finally, fuck, sweet relief in the form of Yuuji's hand wandering lower. Grabbing the backs of his thighs and pulling him closer, their clothed chests were finally touching properly.
Megumi couldn’t help it, he moaned, trying again to ground down when Yuuji finally let him, releasing a choked sound himself.
“Megumi,” Yuuji breathed, his lips stopping their kissing and marking on Megumi's neck and biting down instead, controlled. Megumi needed Yuuji to lose it, and soon. “This okay?”
“Yes,” Megumi replied breathlessly, eyes squeezed shut at the sensation of Yuuji's lips on his skin, marking him. He hoped he would, this time. “I want this.”
“I want this, too,” Yuuji whispered the words right back, sighed them into his mouth, then into his neck, into his collarbones. Said them again and again and again while his lips moved downwards, while he removed Megumi's shirt and boxers—and then again and again as he kissed a trail down his stomach, leaving nothing short of burning skin in his wake.
His navel.
His hip bone.
He lapped and nipped at Megumi's inner thighs until he arched off the bed, hands wrapping around Yuuji's hair again to get him closer, closer, closer—but Yuuji didn’t budge.
“Yuuji,” Megumi panted. “Yuuji, please.”
“Hmm?” Yuuji hummed as he bit into Megumi's thigh, causing him to moan lewdly. He couldn’t—Megumi couldn’t—
“What do you want, baby?”
“Mouth,” Megumi replied, breathlessly unashamed of how deep this want could actually run. “Want your mouth. Please. Please.”
Yuuji buzzed, painfully hard in his own boxers now that Megumi was flat on his back with Yuuji between his legs, equally as unashamed as Megumi was, as he dived into Megumi, licking and nipping gently at the wetness pooled between his legs.
Megumi’s hands in his hair tightened just so as he grabbed and pulled at it ferociously, and Yuuji moaned into his boyfriend in return, causing the hands in his hair to tighten and the legs around his waist to spread and clench further.
Goodness, Yuuji didn’t know what he was doing to Megumi.
What was a gentle caress of his clit at first became an overly eager relentlessness now, tongue biting and nipping with vigor that had Megumi’s thighs beginning to shake around Yuuji. A burning in his lower belly that built, and built, and built.
When he moved and fidgeted too much, Yuuji's hands clutched at his hips to hold him down, his tongue darting out to lick into him more rigorously.
“Yuuji—Yuuji—fuck!” Megumi rarely ever cursed, so when he did, Yuuji could never quite help but smile into his wetness.
(Megumi remembered fondly the first time Yuuji ever did this to him. Remembered with a hint of embarrassment that it hadn’t taken Megumi very long to feel pleasure so intense that he cried.
Remembered, as if it happened yesterday, Megumi being embarrassed about coming too fast.
Remembered how Yuuji had whispered into his ear not to be embarrassed, with that laugh of his, because Yuuji himself had come in his pants, too.
Remembered how they’d laughed and lied together in the aftermath for hours.)
The tension built, and built, and built—until his hips snapped into the soft mouth between his legs, his thighs constricting shakily and then going impossibly limp, offering Yuuji's name to the space between them like a prayer.
He could feel himself pulse on Yuuji's tongue, shaking and shaking and shaking for as long as Yuuji lapped at him, licked him clean until Megumi whined, suddenly feeling too much—too much.
Yuuji kisseed his way up Megumi’s body, then, humming when Megumi carded his hands gently through his hair and massaged his scalp. Yuuji kissed him softly on his mouth and smiled when Megumi moaned lowly at his taste.
He loved it. Megumi loved it. Loved this. Loved them—
“Yuuji,” Megumi whispered into the space between them when their mouths parted from each other, foreheads pressed together as he was still coming down from his high.
“Yeah, baby?” Yuuji replied, kissing his cheek, his mouth widening into a smirk.
Megumi smiled back at Yuuji's knowing grin; he thought that Megumi would kiss his way up his neck, now, and whisper into his ear some filthy variation of fuck me, please. And sure, that was what he usually did after Yuuji made him feel so good, insatiable, his want impossible to quench for too long.
Except when he reached Yuuji's ear today, Yuuji himself half delirious—Megumi whispered, “I think I might want this forever.”
Yuuji tensed between Megumi's legs, exhaling a deep breath into Megumi's neck—and then he laughed. A full, happy belly laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Megumi whispered, hands grabbing a fistful of Yuuji's hair to tilt his head back and catch his eyes.
Yuuji was still laughing, but now there were tears in his eyes that threatened to give.
“Nothing,” Yuuji laughed, voice cracking in his throat. “Fuck, Megumi. You can't just—say that.”
“Why not?” Megumi asked, just on the precipice of breathlessness again when Yuuji began to kiss his neck, openmouthed and wet, biting and nipping at it with his hands pressed firmly into his hips. “What if I mean it?”
Megumi's hips wanted to snap up to feel Yuuji, but the latter held him down as he kissed his neck however he pleased again, distracting him. “Yuuji…”
“I think I might want this forever, too.”
The words were kissed into Megumi's neck syllable by syllable, and they weren’t a revelation, today, no shock.
They didn’t elicit fear in Megumi either.
Another day, they might have. Any other day, Megumi might have fought the urge to run when he heard honesty like that one, but today, he floated.
Today, he let the words consume him, and he let himself be kissed silly and pressed into the mattress.
He let Yuuji mark his neck until Megumi was begging him to fuck him after all, and he let Yuuji tell him to be patient, baby, we have all the time in the world.
Today, he didn’t try to run.
Today, Megumi thought he won.
--
Megumi thought he was winning very often, these days.
--
“Yuuji,” Megumi said from his space on the couch, sprawled over Yuuji's lap as the latter went over his practice videos, hands playing with Megumi's long strands.
He'd been growing them out a little, lately, much to Yuuji's pleasure. He couldn’t stop touching Megumi's hair anymore, anywhere. Always, there was a gentle hand somewhere near Megumi's head, a strand around a thick finger, or fingers buried into thick strands.
Megumi would never tell him how much he loved it.
“Hmm?” Yuuji replied, absent-minded at first.
Then, he put his phone away and watched Megumi, intent completely on what he was about to say.
Megumi's heart squeezed uncomfortably, and three little words rapidly rose in his throat. They did that a lot, these days.
Yuuji, his Yuuji, who never forgot to pay attention, albeit it being hard, sometimes.
And wasn’t this love, then? If anything, wasn’t it love when you worked on what you suffered the hardest just for the sake of another?
“Will you come to Kyoko with me?” the words slipped easily from Megumi's mouth. He’d wondered how to ask Yuuji about this for so long. Before right now, he thought he wasn’t capable.
And now it slipped, easily as Megumi slipped into love, from his mouth like honey.
“What?”
Megumi sat up, then. Repeated, “I got accepted in Kyoko. For my residency.”
“Holy shit,” Yuuji whispered, first. Then he promptly jumped up from the couch like bitten by a bee, hoisting Megumi up and hugging him suddenly, twirling him around and yelling congratulations at him left and right. “Holy shit!”
“Yuuji,” Megumi laughed, hands absolutely tied as his boyfriend twirled him around the living room.
“Holy shit!” Yuuji yelled even louder, pecking Megumi's mouth constantly. Between each kiss, he breathed, “Your. Brilliant. Fucking. Brain. Holy shit!”
“Yuuji,” Megumi laughed harder, Yuuji now completely in his own world as he kissed his boyfriend silly.
Megumi hadn’t met a single person so incapable of selfishness as Yuuji.
Even now, his first instinct was to be happy for Megumi. Not for a second did Yuuji seem to think about possible long-distance, or what ifs. He was truly, genuinely, irreversibly happy for Megumi.
His first instinct was always to be happy for Megumi. Always Megumi first, always—
“I love you.”
Yuuji stopped twirling him around. His eyes widened.
With Megumi's legs still wrapped around him, he stood still in the middle of his living room, gawking like he was surprised.
But Megumi knew nothing was surprising about this confession. Not to him, or to Yuuji.
He'd loved this man for a long, long time now.
“I love you,” Megumi whispered again, tears filling his eyes at the sight of Yuuji's stunned face.
“Holy shit,” Yuuji whispered. Then, “I—"
“And,” Megumi interrupted loudly. His hand cupped Yuuji's cheek. Immediately, the latter leaned into it. “I need you to listen to me right now, okay? Please. You can tell me how much you love me too later.”
Yuuji's mouth snapped shut and he immediately complied. Sitting them back down on the couch with Megumi now fully seated on his lap, facing him, he nodded at Megumi to go on a little nervously. “I’m all ears.”
“Do you remember when you told me I could call the shots in our relationship?” Megumi asked, hands scouring gently over Yuuji's neck, jaw, lips. Touching for no other reason than to just be close.
“Yes,” Yuuji nodded, eyes not straying from Megumi's eyes.
“I need you to call the shots, this time,” Megumi whispered, smiling. “The hospital here accepted me too. And I want you to decide where we go, okay?”
Yuuji immediately shook his head, as Megumi knew he would. “No,” he said, “Nah. No can do. I can't do that. This is your choice, Megumi.”
“And I choose you,” he replied, simple. Like there wasn’t anything simpler than this.
“You can't—”
“I choose you, okay?” Megumi said again, this time with more vigor. Confidence. “I’ve spent my entire life afraid of this. But I can't lose it now that I have it. And—close your mouth, Yuuji—I know you’re going to say we can do long distance, but I don’t want that. I’m selfish, and I’m especially selfish about you, and so I will stay here with you or go to Kyoko with you. I call the shots, and I don’t accept any other outcome.”
Yuuji pondered this, his hands moving up and down Megumi's thighs in concentration. “I can't ask that of you.”
“I’m the one asking this of you, Yuuji,” Megumi replied. “All I want is to stay with you. Both hospitals are amazing. I would be happy attending either, okay?”
Yuuji averted his gaze, caught in conflict.
But Megumi wouldn’t have that, he tilted Yuuji's face back and commanded, “Yuuji, look at me.” Then, “You once told me that I could be as selfish as I wanted about you. This is me being selfish.”
Yuuji smiled at that. Tentative, but there. “Using my own words against me, huh?”
Megumi smiled right back. “Well, you won't choose, otherwise.”
“I still don’t want to choose, Megumi,” Yuuji shook his head. “I don’t want you to resent me three years down the line when you realize I made the wrong choice.”
“You won't,” Megumi disagreed softly. “Besides, my choice is you.”
“My choice is you, too,” Yuuji whispered, honey gaze caught on Megumi's own. “You know that. So, you can just pick a hospital, and I’ll follow. I don’t care where we go either. Or where we stay.”
“I have until the end of the month to make a decision,” Megumi nodded. “Let’s figure it out together, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Yuuji agreed. “I’m game with that. We’ll make a pro-con-list like the ones you love so much, and then we’ll decide together.”
“Don’t make fun of my lists,” Megumi frowned, but a smile was still playing on his lips. “But wherever we choose, we go together, okay? If you can't transfer, we stay here.”
“So Kyoko is your first choice?” Yuuji asked.
“I don’t know,” Megumi replied honestly. “Maybe. But I don’t want to go if you can't come with me. Okay?”
Yuuji squeezed Megumi's hips in agreement, pressing a promising kiss to his lips in reply. “No chance I’m letting you go anywhere I can't follow, anyways.”
“Good,” Megumi replied, leaning in slightly to drop his head to Yuuji's temple.
“Hmm,” Yuuji hummed, eyes closing at their proximity. “Now can we circle back to when you told me you loved me?”
Megumi's head slumped into the crook of Yuuji's neck. His cheeks heated up immediately. “No?”
“No?” Yuuji laughed. “So you don’t want to hear my response to that?”
“I already know your response to that,” Megumi whispered, embarrassment still clinging to his cheeks.
“Hmm, is that so, princess?” Yuuji laughed when Megumi squealed at the pet name. “Pray tell, what is my response to that?”
“You love me, too,” Megumi whispered. Then, righting himself in Yuuji's lap to look at him again, he repeated: “You love me, too.”
Yuuji's laughter died in his throat, eyes taking on a serious hue again. “You don’t want to hear me say it?”
Megumi bit his lip, averting his eyes. ““I… do,” he whispered.
“Can I finally say it, then?” Yuuji asked, and—
“Yes,” Megumi replied, heart caught in his throat suddenly. “Please.”
But Yuuji took his time, of course, with wandering hands and lingering touches, pressing strong and intimate kisses into Megumi's skin until the latter was just about ready to beg again.
Megumi tried to compose himself as Yuuji kissed him, but—
“I love you.” Yuuji pressed the words into the crook of Megumi's neck, first. Then said again, “I love you,” as he pressed them to his jaw.
“I love you,” mumbled again, this time against Megumi's lips.
Megumi shattered in Yuuji's lap, hands grabbing a fistful of his hair and closing the gap between them as he kissed him. Nothing hesitant, all open-mouthed and wanting.
Yuuji kissed him back with just as much vigor, hands roaming all over Megumi's body, and yet still waiting for Megumi to make the first move.
Megumi grabbed the hem of Yuuji's shirt, trying to pull it over his head, but Yuuji didn’t budge and instead continued kissing Megumi deeply, so thoroughly Megumi was dizzy with it.
“Yuuji,” Megumi whined into his mouth. “Take it off.”
“Hmm,” Yuuji hummed into Megumi's mouth, smirking. “Patience, baby.”
But Megumi couldn’t stay patient, whining into Yuuji's mouth again as he panted, “Please. I want—”
“What do you want?” Yuuji mumbled into Megumi's mouth, still smirking. “Don’t be shy, baby. Tell me what you want.”
“I want you to—” Megumi started, breaking off with a moan as Yuuji bit down on his lip before closing his mouth over it again.
“Want me to what?” Yuuji asked, smirking, still, as he kissed his way down Megumi's chin, one hand moving over Megumi's thigh, higher and higher, until—
“Fuck me,” Megumi panted, trying to get closer to Yuuji's hand, which wasn’t—it just wasn’t—“Please. Please.”
Yuuji, the tease, still didn’t put his hand where Megumi really needed it. Instead, he hoisted Megumi up again, turning them around and pressing Megumi onto the couch without issues.
And then finally, oh, finally, Yuuji continued kissing down his neck as he positioned himself between Megumi's legs, wrapping them tightly around Yuuji's waist. Letting Megumi feel him.
This time, when Megumi grabbed at Yuuji's shirt and tried to get it off him, Yuuji complied, moving back up again and kissing Megumi's breathless mouth, pushing and pulling with a hand coming up to Megumi's throat and just—grabbing.
Softly, without pressure, but it was enough to make Megumi arch his hips with need.
“Fuck,” Yuuji pressed into Megumi's mouth as their cores connected. Megumi tried again, bucking up and against Yuuji to make him lose his composure, too. “Fuck, Megumi, you feel good.”
“Could feel better,” Megumi panted, breathless and quiet. “Please.”
“Hmm,” Yuuji hummed, another smile playing on his lips even as he ground down heavily into Megumi, causing him to moan and writhe beneath him. “You really are impatient.”
But Yuuji was no saint, either, Megumi knew, so it was only a matter of time before he would—
Yuuji's hand wandered between them, cupping Megumi in his rough hands.
“Oh,” Megumi moaned, unashamed as he bucked up again, trying to find pressure in Yuuji's hands. “More. More.”
Yuuji complied, putting pressure between Megumi's legs and starting to rub, little by little, and, oh, did it feel good, did it feel amazing—
“Fuck, you’re wet already,” Yuuji hummed, kissing down Megumi's neck and pulling his hoodie—Yuuji's hoodie—up in the process, before he took a nipple in his mouth and pulled.
Megumi wasn’t embarrassed at all about the sound he released because it spurred Yuuji on immediately, kissing and biting at his neck and chest however he pleased, with his hand slowly but confidently, teasingly rubbing Megumi into ecstasy.
“Yuuji?” Megumi asked around a moan at a particular hard pull of his teeth. When Yuuji hummed in answer, Megumi added, “Don’t wanna come yet. Please. Wanna—wanna feel you.”
“Aren’t you already?” Yuuji smirked up at Megumi as he increased the pressure on his core just so.
Megumi bucked up again, trying to find some semblance of control in Yuuji's hair. “Yuuji.”
“Yeah, baby?” Yuuji smirked, groaning as Megumi pulled harder and harder on his hair.
“Thought you—loved me?” Megumi replied, and he knew he wasn’t playing fair, he knew, but he really, really needed Yuuji to—
“Okay,” Yuuji laughed, breathless, as he removed his hand from between Megumi's legs and instead pulled his shorts down his legs, baring him completely. “You win. Tell me what you want.”
“Promise you’ll do what I ask?” Megumi asked in turn, gazing down at Yuuji as he kissed down his chest, holding Megumi down by the hips so he couldn’t buck up anymore.
This, seeing Yuuji so rigorously enraptured with pleasing Megumi, he would never get used to. The way Yuuji looked with the muscles of his back tensing at every move, the sharp line of his jaw as he kissed Megumi wherever he could and wanted.
The dimple when he smiled after making Megumi deliriously loud. The groans he let slip when Megumi clawed at his skin, kissed him the way he liked it, touched him the way he needed.
He'd never get tired of this.
“Promise, baby,” Yuuji whispered into his tummy. Kissed further down, “Want me to fuck you?”
“Yes,” Megumi replied, moaning when he finally, finally, heard Yuuji's zipper and the familiar crunch of plastic.
“Don’t want me to eat you out first?” Yuuji asked against Megumi's skin, his inner thigh, just—right there.
“Too close,” Megumi panted. “Please. Please, Yuuji, I need it. Need you. Please.”
And that was all it took for Yuuji to kiss up Megumi's body again and ravage his lips. Deeply, thoroughly, until Megumi was again nothing but a writhing, dizzy mess underneath him, and—
Oh, there, Megumi could feel Yuuji between his legs, resting, before one of Yuuji's hands reached down and—thank fuck—aligned himself with Megumi.
“You okay?” Yuuji whispered into Megumi's mouth as he pushed, ever so gently, ever so softly, into Megumi.
Megumi nodded, tearing up a little at the stretch, hands catching onto Yuuji's back and gripping onto his skin when Yuuji pushed in further. At Yuuji's desperate groan, Megumi's legs tightened around him, trying to pull him further into him, when—
“Fuck,” Yuuji groaned into Megumi's mouth, “you feel so good.”
“Yeah?”
“Fuck, baby. Yeah,” Yuuji replied, grunting more when Megumi's nails pierced and clawed at his back.
“Then move, please,” Megumi whispered into their kiss. “Don’t be gentle.”
Yuuji instantly snapped his hips into action, pulling all kinds of loud, desperate moans out of Megumi in the process.
He fucked into Megumi without abandon, groaning into his mouth, his neck, his ears, hands wandering and touching and grabbing him everywhere—hips, legs, chest, neck.
One hand wrapped tightly, just how Megumi liked it, around his throat, the other catching whatever skin it could as Yuuji fucked into Megumi recklessly, slow and deep, so deep, so—
“So deep,” Megumi panted, eyes closed as he let the feeling consume him.
It wasn’t the first time they did this, of course. The first time was much more gentle, much softer, kinder. There was more fumbling, more awkward laughing, more tears and more fears and more gentle words whispered into Megumi's skin.
They had needed to stop, once, because Megumi had been so overwhelmed, had cried in fear that Yuuji would not want him now that even sexual intimacy was challenging.
But Yuuji had stayed, held Megumi through the tears, and whispered promises in his ear that it was okay if Megumi didn’t want it, or didn’t want it yet, or just needed a while. Told Megumi that he would stay.
He would stay.
He did stay.
It had taken a while for Megumi to be as comfortable as he was, now. With nudity, but also with being—well, pounded into the couch. It had been a lot of trial and error, for months, before they reached this kind of trust and understanding with each other.
Trial and error, trial error, until, at last—Megumi and Yuuji, and all the ways they knew made each other feel good.
“You’re doing so well, baby, fuck,” Yuuji panted into Megumi's ear, the hand not wrapped around his neck tightening infinitely on Megumi's hips. “Feel good?”
“So good,” Megumi replied, incoherent and dizzy, dizzy, dizzy. The knot in his stomach was tightening, building, and— “So good. ‘m close. I’m close. Don’t stop.”
Yuuji didn’t, fucking into Megumi in the same deep, slow manner as before until Megumi was really—he was—
“I’m gonna come,” he moaned, fingers ripping into Yuuji's skin just the way Yuuji liked it, almost drawing blood, spurring him on and on until—
Megumi shook uncontrollably as the tension finally snapped, his hands and legs tightening around Yuuji as he moaned and screamed in pleasure. Just as Yuuji began slowing down, Megumi tightened his hold more and whispered, through trembling breaths and despite trembling legs, “Don’t stop. Don’t stop.”
“It’ll hurt—” Yuuji started, but Megumi shook his head desperately, snapping his hips up.
“I like it,” he promised. “You can use me. Wanna feel it. Please.”
Yuuji just about lost it at those words, pushing into Megumi again and groaning just as Megumi moaned from pleasure, from pain, from Yuuji.
Megumi didn't know how much time passed before Yuuji's thrusts became uncoordinated and rough, so deep, so much, and Yuuji finally cursed and groaned, moaning sweet and filthy praises into Megumi's ear as he, too, found sweet, sweet relief.
Megumi clenched and clawed at Yuuji's back until both of them calmed down a little, Yuuji falling unceremoniously on top of Megumi with his full weight, head tucked into the crook of his neck.
Yuuji didn’t remove himself from inside Megumi quite yet.
(Secretly, he knew Megumi really liked that.)
For minutes, they didn’t speak except for their gently moving hands, lingering touches, soft kisses to whatever skin was available to them.
“You okay?” Yuuji asked as he kissed all over Megumi's tear-stained face. He'd barely even noticed he was crying. “Was I—”
“Perfect,” Megumi replied breathlessly, laughing at the soft kisses placed on him again and again and again.
“Hmm…” Yuuji hummed into his skin. “Let me get you cleaned up,” he said, moving to get off the couch when Megumi wrapped his arms around him tightly and clung to him like a koala.
“Stay,” he pouted when Yuuji only laughed in return for his attack. “Please? We can shower together later. I want to be close, right now.”
“… Okay,” Yuuji breathed, flopping onto Megumi again without restraint, and then turning them around on the couch so that Megumi was sprawled all over Yuuji.
Propping himself up on Yuuji's chest and promptly ignoring the exaggerated noises and complaints that Megumi's elbow was digging into his bones—they weren’t, Yuuji just was a drama queen—Megumi let his fingers travel gently over Yuuji's face.
Over his chapped lips—usually from biting them too much—and his crescent-shaped scars. Over the curve of his nose, and the arch of his eyebrow. Over the cut of his jaw, and his Adam’s apple, and—
This beautiful boy was really his, wasn't he?
“You admiring my handsome looks again?” Yuuji smiled, eyes closed and—content—as he let Megumi play with his face.
“Hmm,” Megumi responded, entirely focused on this face he loved so much. On this boy he loved so much.
He couldn’t help it when he whispered it again: “I love you.”
“Fucking—wow,” Yuuji breathed, one eye popping open to gaze at Megumi. There was so much tenderness there, affection, Megumi was filled to the brim with it. “I will so not tire of hearing that, like, ever.”
Megumi laughed, cheeks reddening at the thought that even at eighty, when they'd be old and wrinkly and probably in need of wheelchairs and couldn’t get changed or use the bathroom on their own, Yuuji would still be there. Looking in wonder, with a radiant smile, at Megumi whenever he told him he loved him.
Like he would truly never take this for granted.
“I don’t think I will tire of saying it, either,” Megumi confessed, cheeks reddening evermore. “But I really do, Yuuji. I love you.”
Yuuji sat up, then, taking Megumi with him and letting him sit daintily on his lap with the blanket wrapped around his hips. Immediately, his hand cupped Megumi's blushing cheek, and immediately, Megumi leaned into it, moth to a flame.
“I know,” Yuuji smiled, thumbs rubbing at Megumi's cheeks like they couldn’t quite help themselves. And maybe they couldn’t. Maybe Yuuji couldn’t, because containing this, them, would be nothing short of cruel. And impossible, probably. “I love you, too.”
Megumi let the words wash over him, a shiver elicited everywhere the words reached, deep down where Megumi used to believe he didn’t deserve them.
There would come a day again, many of them from time to time, where accepting those words would be more challenging than right now. And there would come a day again, many of them from time to time, where freeing the words from their permanent place on Megumi's tongue, uttering them, would be challenging too.
Megumi knew this, but he thought, now, that he was ready for those days. He knew they'd arrive every once in a while. But he knew now, too, that he'd be okay.
He had a hand to hold now that wouldn’t let go.
“I know,” Megumi replied, and meant it.
“So, as cute as that was, I feel gross,” Yuuji started, pecking Megumi's lips in the process, “shower sound good?”
“Yeah,” Megumi laughed. “Shower sounds perfect.”
Immediately, Yuuji gathered Megumi in his arms, hopping up from the couch and running to the shower, with laughter spilling from both their throats easily today.
(Laughter like that, unabashed and unfiltered, candid and honest, filled the four walls of Megumi's home quite often these days.)
(Megumi knew he deserved that, these days.)
--
(Megumi won, at long last.)