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Megumi knelt on the cool tile of Gojo’s master bath. The tub was filled to the brim, reflections from the water dancing in the beam of afternoon sun that spilled out of the window. His Jujutsu Tech uniform was creased and smelled faintly of sweat. He couldn’t remember the last time he washed it—couldn’t remember the last time he’d changed his clothes before he dug the uniform out of his hamper. No sentimentality dwelled in the midnight blue fabric or the swirling golden buttons, but it fulfilled a greater purpose—a cruel final jab at Gojo, his message in lieu of any note.
Gojo had read some internet listicle about suicide-proofing your apartment, so he’d thrown their expensive kitchen knives out weeks ago. What he’d failed to consider was that Megumi’s technique could hold a plethora of weapons, including the black sword that he now drew from his shadow.
Megumi closed his eyes. Listened for the steady drip of the spigot. Felt for the worn, wrapped grip of his sword. Wiped all thoughts of Gojo from his mind and opened the floodgates of grief, unleashing the tsunami that had been threatening to overtake him ever since he watched his sister’s face twist into a stranger’s. Let it wash over him and did not brace himself.
The act itself did not feel like a release. It was messy and pathetic, a too-long blade that slipped under his bloody fingers and fell with a clatter to the floor. He could have taken an easier route, stabbed himself through the heart and been done with it, but he didn’t trust his atrophied strength. And, more persuasively, the memory of watching his sister bleed out was still imprinted in his mind, scrabbling fingernails that did not even belong to her scraping against ruined concrete. She did not die quick and easy. He would not grant himself any mercies either.
Sinking into the tub was not the mind-numbing bath of his soul he’d hoped to imitate. It was freezing cold, since he filled it without any thought to his comfort, and the tense shiver that took hold of his body forced an alertness on him. He could acutely feel the blood seeping out of his hacked-up arms, his waterlogged uniform growing heavy and fusing itself to his skin, his teeth glancing together with every shuddering chill that ran through him. In a perverse way, his wish had been granted—he would be awake for a very long time before he died.
There was no good explanation for why Megumi did what he did next. Only that he was tired. And weak. And lonely.
He brought his shaking hands together and formed the sign for Divine Dog Totality.
Shadows rose from the floor and converged into their best approximation of a dog. It wasn’t quite corporeal, a misshapen amalgamation of ears and teeth and paws. As if in response to its pitiful form, it whined and nudged its nose into Megumi’s face.
“Sorry,” Megumi mumbled. The effort of bringing Totality into even the barest form of existence had drained him. His head spun and his eyelids fluttered closed.
Totality whined again. Megumi fumbled to pet it and missed it entirely, streaking blood across porcelain as his arm glanced off the bathtub. Or maybe his hand had gone straight through it, he was too out of it to tell. Totality reared back, its claws scraping against the tile floor, and then took off down the hall. Megumi just stared after it, uncomprehending. Before he could dismiss his haywire shikigami, he slipped into unconsciousness.
For a while, there was nothing. No pain, no guilt, no grief. The plan had worked.
But then Megumi woke up. That wasn’t part of the plan.
“Shit. Shit!” Even through the muffled ringing in Megumi’s ears, Gojo’s irritating voice was unmistakable. “Megumi!”
Megumi felt himself be grabbed roughly under the arms, and then he was dragged out of the tub. Water sloshed over the side as his limp body was deposited against the sink cabinet. It stirred up a forgotten memory, coated in the haze of half-consciousness: Sukuna gone and the water that immobilized him churned to a rushing current. Backlit by a halo of sunlight, its opposing force descended: a pair of hands reaching down for him. The hands grasped his shoulders.
“Megumi, look at me. Can you open your eyes?”
Megumi groaned. It came out sounding more pathetic than defiant. His eyelids fluttered open and a blurry Gojo came into view. As their eyes met, Gojo let out a shaky breath, his hands flexing against Megumi’s shoulders.
Back in 2015, Gojo had realized that Megumi and Tsumiki were embarrassed by excessive displays of wealth, and therefore set himself on a path to make their apartment as grotesquely expensive as possible. Most of the stuff had been too impractical to keep, but Gojo had decided that the custom embroidered towels were too funny to get rid of.
It was decidedly not funny when Gojo pressed the pristine white towel with his sister’s name on it against Megumi’s arm. Megumi jerked back instinctively. Gojo’s grip tightened.
“We need to stop the bleeding. You’re gonna hold that there, understand?”
Megumi was still trying to pull away from him. “It says… it says—“
Gojo’s eyes darted down to the towel and then went cold with realization. The bloodstains had already spread to Tsumiki’s name, forming a red blotch over the T.
“You’re gonna hold it there,” he repeated stiffly. He took Megumi’s other wrist and pressed his hand against the towel.
Megumi stopped fighting and let it happen. The phantom sound of Sukuna’s mocking laugh rang in his ears, an ever-present reminder of his lack of willpower. He banished it with thoughts of Tsumiki instead. He was so close, so close, to seeing her again, or at least to no longer living in a world without her. It wasn’t fair. Frustration stung at his eyes.
Gojo wrapped a second towel around his other wrist and then froze. “Oh, fuck. Don’t do that, don’t… Don’t cry.”
He reached for Megumi hesitantly, but Megumi flinched away from him. He felt hot tears trickle down his cheeks. “Jus’ lemme die,” he mumbled.
Gojo lowered his head, still clutching Megumi’s arms. It felt almost like a bow. “I can’t do that, Megs.”
“Hate you,” Megumi grunted.
Gojo let out a choked, wet laugh. “Okay, kiddo. Just keep holding that.”
Megumi’s hands rested, heavy and motionless, where Gojo had positioned them. He watched Gojo stand up and rifle through the shelf for the first aid kit. With a kind of harried impatience, he dumped the contents on the counter and shoved whatever he deemed unhelpful into the sink. When he kneeled back down, he was armed with bandages.
“Shoko’s out dealing with another mess in Kyoto,” Gojo said, checking Megumi’s arm as he spoke. “Gonna be a few hours before she can come here.”
When the blood ceased its steady trickle and slowed to a thick, sludgy ooze, Gojo tossed the towels to the side. He packed gauze over the wound and then began winding bandages around it.
“You need stitches and a blood transfusion, but I think this’ll be alright for now.”
It felt like the kind of unarticulated dismissal that Gojo would give once he’d decided he was bored with a training session. Megumi wondered whether he’d finally grown bored of playing caretaker. If he would leave Megumi to his own devices until Ieiri arrived. There was already a hasty plan B forming in his head and he chanced a look at Gojo, trying to suss out his intentions without revealing his own.
Their eyes didn’t meet. Gojo was moving around the bathroom in a near frenzy, as if compelled by some higher power and unable to stop. Megumi watched him, equally compelled into stillness. He put the first aid kit back together, drained the tub and tidied up the bathroom. The sword laid abandoned on the floor, its black steel stark against the white tile, and Gojo picked it up. With a sudden, violent assuredness, he shattered the blade in his bare fist. Discarding it once more, he began to pace back and forth, pulverizing the shards under the soles of his shoes as if to punish them. He kept shooting cursory glances at Megumi every few seconds, but he never quite caught his gaze until, without warning, he stopped.
There was something in his expression that Megumi had never seen on him before, twisting his face into an unrecognizable mask. It was something that Gojo never meant him to see, that was certain, and he felt a sudden rush of dread he could only liken to the cosmic horror of looking as an act you could never take back. Pandora, opening the box. Orpheus, turning around. Psyche, unveiling Cupid’s sleeping form.
And then Gojo shuttered that look and left the room.
When he came back, he carried a stack of clean towels and new clothes, and wore the more familiar muted look of faraway neutrality. He peeled off Megumi’s wet uniform and toweled him dry, maneuvering him into a baggy shirt and sweats like he was still the child Gojo first met. Shaken by what he’d seen on Gojo’s face, Megumi didn’t fight it. He retreated into the space in his mind that he carved out when Sukuna took over, the part that allowed him to mentally disconnect from all bodily sensation, and allowed Gojo to move him any way he wanted.
Gojo finished dressing him, but did not stand. He knelt in front of Megumi with his eyes cast downwards, so still it felt almost prayer-like. When he wasn’t remembering to rein it in, his cursed energy had a way of filling the space that turned the air heavy and oppressive. Right now, it wound itself around Megumi and enclosed him in a claustrophobic cocoon. His breath came in shallow, laborious gasps, and he couldn’t be sure whether it was a remnant from almost dying or if Gojo’s cursed energy was actually suffocating him.
Megumi hated it. He hated him. All the venomous resentment he’d been poisoning himself with churned to the surface and latched onto Gojo. Gojo, the Russian doll of falsities and facades. Gojo, the bad luck talisman that ruined everyone he touched. Gojo, the callous and calamitous god masquerading as a person for his own amusement. Gojo, the sole arbiter of Megumi’s life.
Gojo’s head drooped and he dragged a hand through his hair, damp fingers tracking in streaks of pink from Megumi’s watered-down blood. He lurched forward, shoulders hunching involuntarily inwards, and then began to shake. A wet, strangled noise escaped him. His hand rose immediately to stifle it, but it did nothing to hide the spasmodic heave of his chest.
Megumi’s mouth went dry. He was too aware of his own breathing, afraid of making a sound. He wanted to leave, but his back was flattened to the cabinets and the press of wooden grooves against his spine was the only thing grounding him. He hated looking at Gojo, but he couldn’t look away either.
Gojo was crying.
He was crying, and trying not to, and it was the only time Megumi had ever seen him weak. His hair stuck to his teary face in unflattering clumps and the cuff of his shirt was stained with snot. There was a helpless look in his eyes, even though all of heaven and earth was Gojo’s domain. But he wasn’t a god in this moment. He was horribly, damnably human.
He was Gojo, the irritating nineteen-year-old who forced an ice cream shop employee to give Megumi a sample of every flavor because he refused to believe a little kid didn’t like ice cream, then ate them all himself when Megumi refused. Gojo, the intense teacher who shouted dense lectures about his technique’s history while beating the shit out of him and tested him on it afterwards. Gojo, the irresponsible idiot who once got yelled at by a full procession of old men because he’d blown off all his missions to stay at home and join Megumi in his depression rot after Tsumiki was cursed. Gojo, the only adult who’d ever promised to take care of him and actually bothered to try.
His body contorted as if rent by physical pain and he sank low enough that his hair brushed the floor with every shudder that wracked his body. Prayer was too dignified a descriptor—this was a man begging. Megumi felt sick. A wrongness settled deep into his bones, the kind that could only come from plucking something divine from the heavens and picking it apart with a scalpel.
Suddenly, Megumi’s stomach lurched and the nausea turned from an emotional reaction to a tangible reality. He lunged for the toilet. Still weak from blood loss, he fumbled to open the lid and choked on vomit. Before he could throw up all over the floor, Gojo was there to help him. He hadn’t quite collected himself, still trembling and swallowing down tears, but he opened the lid and positioned Megumi over it smoothly. Gojo was always good at shoving down his emotions for the sake of practicality.
Megumi had no time to reflect on that before he was unceremoniously emptying the contents of his stomach into the toilet. There wasn’t much there, curtesy of his disordered eating habits, and he ended up uselessly retching out spit. Gojo’s hand rubbed circles between his shoulder blades. There was something eerily rhythmic about it, the way he performed each cycle with precisely identical timing. Even more so in juxtaposition to his shaky, off-kilter breathing.
“It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay,” he kept mumbling, and Megumi didn’t know if it was meant to reassure him or Gojo. He didn’t especially want anyone talking to him while he was dry heaving over a toilet. But he couldn’t shove Gojo away either, preoccupied as he was with said dry heaving.
At last, the nausea abated. Too pathetic to care how disgusting it was, Megumi closed his eyes and rested his head on the toilet seat.
Gojo allowed a generous thirty seconds to pass with no comment before saying, “Alright, Megs, stand up.” His voice was finally steady.
Megumi groaned in protest.
“We’re gonna go to the sink and you’re gonna rinse your mouth out. Stand up.”
He didn’t doubt that Gojo would physically force him to if he continued to refuse, so Megumi reluctantly dragged himself up. The moment he was on his feet, the world flipped and then went black.
Gojo caught him before he could topple over. “Gonna pass out?”
“No,” Megumi muttered.
He was loathe to admit that the after effects of trying to kill himself actually sort of sucked. It wasn’t the sharp sting in his arms that bothered him—Megumi was well accustomed to pain at this point. No, it was the helpless frustration of frailty. His arms hung heavy and useless at his sides, too numb to perform basic coordination. Fog coated his head and kicked up into a disorienting tornado with any small shift of movement. Decay was eating his stomach from the inside out and he kept choking on the mold spores.
Megumi couldn’t decide if the conclusion was don’t kill yourself or do a better job killing yourself.
Gojo led him to the counter, supporting most of Megumi’s weight. He turned on the faucet and then bumped up against Megumi’s steadfast refusal to do anything. There was no point washing the taste out. Ever since Sukuna, his tongue was permanently coated in blood and ash and unfamiliar saliva. Eventually, Gojo wet his hands in the sink and wiped the vomit from the corners of Megumi’s mouth himself.
It was humiliating. He felt like a filthy stray dog that Gojo had taken pity on. Which was a pretty apt summary of the nature of their relationship, Megumi realized begrudgingly. He wished Gojo had left him in whatever alleyway he scooped him out of. He wished he could stop the steady tip of the scales as the weight of his debt to Gojo grew ever heavier. He wished Gojo would just let him saw his arms open and puke his guts out onto the floor and crack his head open on the tile without swooping in to save him.
“I can’t give you anything back,” Megumi said, “You know that by now.”
“I know.”
“So why are you doing this?” he spat out.
“You’re my son,” Gojo said simply.
Megumi’s father used to say those kinds of things too. ‘You’re my son, I know what’s best.’ ‘You’re my son, you can handle it.’ ‘You’re my son, I won’t leave you for long.’
“That doesn’t mean shit.”
Gojo’s hand lingered on Megumi’s back even after Megumi shifted out of his arms to lean against the counter. “It means something to me.”
“I’m not even your real son.”
“Was Tsumiki not your real sister, then?”
The pain of hearing her name still hadn’t dulled in the slightest. Anger ignited in Megumi. “Don’t,” he hissed.
“You are my real son, Megumi,” Gojo said. “Blood or not.”
“Because you signed some fucking contract? You can’t buy yourself family, Gojo.”
Gojo’s hand slipped off him. “Tengen, kid. Are you serious? Are we gonna fight about this right now?”
“Why not?” Megumi snapped. “Since you seem to think owning me makes me your son.”
“Owning you? I don’t—“ With a sharp breath, Gojo stalked off to the other side of the room. “I am your legal guardian. I don’t own you.”
“How much money did you have to pay Zenin Naobito to get that status?”
Gojo visibly flinched. “That’s not—Okay, the money that I paid was only in the service of returning what they sent Toji. It wasn’t to buy you. It was to stop the Zenins from claiming you, which you explicitly said was what you wanted.”
“Just give me a number, Gojo,” Megumi pressed. “One million yen? Two?”
“I’m not telling you that, Megumi.”
“More, huh? They scammed the hell out of you. You should really ask for your money back—defective product and all.”
Gojo opened his mouth and then snapped it shut again. Through gritted teeth, he said, “Can we stop talking about the money?”
“I thought you liked reminding me how rich you are. You have more money than my life cost, isn’t that worth bragging about?”
“This is completely irrelevant. It was ten fucking years ago.” Gojo rubbed at his bloodshot eyes. He claimed he’d stopped getting headaches from Six Eyes after the Prison Realm, but Megumi thought it was more likely that he’d stopped allowing himself to let down his defenses. “And my guardianship was a legitimate legal process separate from all the clan bullshit.”
“That you probably bribed the non-sorcerer officials to sign off on,” Megumi said.
Gojo threw his hands up. “I don’t know what you want from me, Megumi. You’re pissed that I went about it the wrong way, whatever. I’m still your guardian. I’m still the one in charge of taking care of you.”
“Yeah, well, maybe someone else should have been,” Megumi said, caught off guard by the tightening of his throat. As much as he was annoyed by Gojo, he had always been grateful for him. Always aware of how much he owed Gojo for creating a comfortable life for his sister. But now, with her gone and his life in flames around him, he was finally feeling that bitterness of how bare his childhood had been. He’d never cared about missing out on normalcy, but Tsumiki had, and now she was dead without ever experiencing it. He’d never dared to ask for more, but Tsumiki deserved it, hadn’t she?
“There was no one else,” Gojo said harshly.
“I know. Can’t I be angry about that? Most kids got a real mom and dad that actually lived with them and took care of them, and we got fucking… you.” He filled the word with as much venom as he could muster. “Why did you even want us?”
“At first, I didn’t. But I couldn’t see a kid with as much potential as you crushed by the Zenins. I mean, you’re the only person alive with a technique that could actually kill me.” Gojo laughed, as if the concept of his death thrilled him.
It wasn’t funny to Megumi. Potential echoed in his head. He hated that word. “You’re disappointed, I know.”
Gojo gave him a strange look. “What? No. I had already decided that I wasn’t gonna push you to get strong at the expense of your youth. And when I actually started spending time with you and your sister… I don’t know, I guess I saw a future for myself that was more than killing curses. I thought caring for kids would be a huge burden, but with you two—ugh, this is embarrassing—I wanted to do it.”
He turned to look at Megumi with a rare sincerity and Megumi relished the moment where he knew and Gojo did not that he was about to shatter it.
“No, I don’t think so. You wanted us because you were bored and needed a shiny new toy after your psychotic ex-boyfriend stopping fucking you.”
A wall slammed down over Gojo and his face went cold with rage. “Your father is the one who ruined him. I should get a goddamn medal for taking you in when I can’t even look at you without remembering what that piece of shit did.”
Megumi grabbed blindly for the first thing he could reach off the counter and hurled it at Gojo with a violence that rendered him immediately nauseous again. “Here’s your fucking medal. Will you get out of my life already?”
Gojo just blinked as it glanced harmlessly off Infinity. “Oh, I get it,” he said, a breathless laugh rising into his throat. “You’re trying to get me to abandon you. Tengen, what is wrong with you?”
Off to the side, whatever Megumi threw gave a pink twinkle as it skidded under the lip of the cabinet. It was one of Tsumiki’s makeup products, he realized, another of her many things that Gojo had left untouched out of laziness or sentimentality, he could never be sure which. Megumi lurched to the side with a sudden, gut-wrenching regret, and hacked out several flemmy coughs over the sink. The guilt of disturbing even this pathetic and mundane shrine to his sister’s memory pressed down on him, so heavy it became religious. He felt more like a rabid dog than ever, snapping at any hand that dared offer him food.
“Just leave, Gojo,” he said, all too soft. Exposing too much vulnerability, too much want. “It’s fine. You can go.”
“I’m not going to leave you, Megumi.” Gojo’s hand was buried in his hair again. Exhaustion seemed to weigh down his entire body and he dropped into a crouch.
“Why not?” Megumi asked, his voice thin. He’d given Gojo every chance, every reason. It made no sense that Gojo had simply endured it all.
Gojo let out a soft laugh. “Didn’t I say it already? You’re my son. Not because of contracts or genetics, but because I love you.”
The spray of water from the faucet echoed in the silence between them. Megumi’s pulse thudded against his ears, warping the sound into something distant and alien. He found himself fixating on the semantic difference: ‘You’re my son, so I love you,’ compared to, ‘I love you, so you’re my son.’ There was nothing particularly poetic about Gojo’s words, but Megumi dissected them like a piece of literary analysis. It brought him to no great conclusion, no shocking revelation, only the impossible knowledge that somehow, despite everything, Gojo loved him.
Megumi wanted nothing more than to collapse, so he did. Gojo caught him. He always had.
“Don’t hit me,” Gojo warned. And then he lifted Megumi up, slinging him over one shoulder like he did when Megumi was a little kid.
Megumi sort of wanted to, just because Gojo told him not to, but his body felt impossibly heavy. He let Gojo carry him without a fight and didn’t question it when Gojo set him down on their living room couch. He wanted to go to his bedroom and avoid more reminders of Tsumiki, but he could guess that Gojo didn’t want him in the room he’d spent the last few months depressed and languishing in, so he didn’t ask.
Gojo reached for a blanket from the stack on their ottoman. At the top was the fluffy blue one, the one Megumi and Tsumiki always fought over during movie nights, and Megumi watched him briefly freeze in place. He pulled out the forest green blanket instead. “Cold?”
Megumi shrugged. He couldn’t really identify any sensation in his body other than numb. Gojo tucked the blanket around his shoulders regardless.
The two of them sat in silence for a while. Gojo’s arm was still wrapped around him, but he’d stopped rubbing Megumi’s back and was just staring off into the distance.
“You’re going to tell me one thing you want,” he suddenly announced. “Doesn’t matter how outlandish or simple. One thing, Megs.”
There was only one thing Megumi wanted. He wanted his sister. He couldn’t say this, though, both because it was impossible and because he thought admitting it would shatter him. So he said nothing.
Minutes dragged by and Gojo’s gaze didn’t move from him, unblinking and unsettling in its singular focus. “Gojo, I really don’t want anything,” Megumi finally said.
“Everyone wants something. I can think of thirty things I want.” Gojo lounged back and pretended to consider it. “Let’s see. I want world peace. I want Digimon to become more popular than Pokémon. I want those taro ice cream bars we got in Sendai that one time. And—“ He reached over and flicked Megumi on the forehead. “I want my kid alive and happy.”
Megumi bit back a retort about the likelihood of that ever happening and tried to actually consider what to ask for. It proved just as futile as before. Eventually, he decided to pick something at random to appease Gojo and his eyes landed on the kitchen kettle.
“Tea.”
Gojo raised an eyebrow. “Tea? My godlike power is at your disposal. You could bend the universe to your whims and you go with tea?”
“The extra ginger kind,” Megumi said, doubling down mostly to defy him.
Gojo sighed dramatically and strolled over to the kitchen. “You’re the most boring sixteen-year-old on the planet, you know,” he called.
Megumi elected to ignore him. He let his eyes drift closed as he listened to the sound of Gojo preparing tea from the kitchen. Once the kettle was on, he started speaking in a hushed voice. On the phone with Ieiri, Megumi guessed. The thought prompted a lurch of anxiety within him—there was an outside world beyond Gojo’s apartment, and he was going to be made to face it. Gojo wouldn’t tolerate his self-imposed isolation any longer.
“Hey, kiddo, you gotta stay awake.” Gojo shook him in a way that was probably meant to be gentle, but fell short. “I’ve got a ginger tea, extra bitter and gross just for you.”
Megumi blinked and straightened up, accepting the mug from Gojo’s hand. “Was that Ieiri?”
“Yeah,” Gojo said. “She’s still swamped, but she’ll be over in an hour or two. I’m not supposed to let you fall asleep before then.”
Megumi sipped his tea. It really was as strong and bitter as he liked it. Kind of surprising that Gojo was capable of paying attention to anyone else’s preferences.
Gojo sank into the couch next to him. “It’ll be fun. Like New Year’s or a sleepover.”
The audacity of telling someone that had just tried to commit suicide that staying awake until a doctor could come would be fun would have been astounding if anyone but Gojo had said it.
“Really fun,” Megumi muttered. “I love having suicide watch sleepovers with twenty-nine-year-olds.”
“That’s the spirit,” Gojo said.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. Gojo’s fingers thrummed in time against the arm of the couch, a habit he’d seemed to pick up from counting seconds in the Prison Realm.
“You wanna watch something?”
Megumi shrugged. It was difficult to judge the appeal of any activity when his metric had a baseline labeled ‘would rather be dead.’
“I can’t do this sitting-in-depressing-silence thing, so it’s either we watch something or you listen to me talk,” Gojo said.
That, at least, made the choice easier. “Watch something.”
Gojo grabbed the remote from the coffee table and began rapidly flipping through streaming services. “I see your game, Megs,” he said. “This has all been an elaborate ploy to expose that I don’t know what you like to watch.”
Ignoring the implied question, Megumi grunted out, “Yep.”
Hovering over a nature documentary series, Gojo checked for a reaction. “Is this anything? I feel like an old man that only knows his grandkids by one trait from when they were little. Megumi is the one that likes animals.”
“I still like animals,” Megumi mumbled, even if it felt like a half-remembered characteristic belonging to someone else. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d read a book or watched TV. The two month gap he spent out of time and drowning in the depths of himself left the rest of his prior life locked behind a sheet of translucent ice. Very cold and very far away.
“Documentary it is, then. I’m ready to learn.”
Megumi rolled his eyes, sinking further into the couch despite himself. He must have been even more exhausted than he thought, because after a few minutes, his head fell onto Gojo’s shoulder.
The moment he processed it, fear shot through him like a strike of lightning and he flinched away. His skin burned at the point of contact and he could hear Sukuna laughing again, could picture the manic look on Gojo’s face when Megumi sheared his throat open and more blood than he would have thought possible sprayed out. His body still remembered how to hurt Gojo. His hands still spasmed in a muscle-memory imitation of Cleave when Gojo turned his back, when Infinity came down for him.
Gojo offered no reaction. He was probably used to his freak-outs by now, having been subject to seven-year-old Megumi’s biting phase. The documentary droned on at a low volume, painting a dreary account of climate change and its effects on the coral reefs, and Gojo watched on with glassy eyes that suggested he was only half absorbing it. Megumi abandoned any pretense of paying attention to the TV and looked at him instead.
The scars were as jarring as always. His bare eyes were still unnerving, and the bags underneath them seemed new despite the fact that he had no way of knowing if they’d been a regular fixture before. Even though he’d brought Megumi dry clothes, it struck Megumi that Gojo still hadn’t changed out of his own. The front of his jacket was drenched and blood-stained and his hair stuck up in wild directions. He was still wearing his shoes and the heel clacked noisily against their floor as he bounced his leg. He must have been in the middle of something when Totality found him. Gojo was always busy.
For all his flaws, Gojo gave so much of himself to everything he did. Megumi felt he’d been given more than he could hold and wished he could hand it all back to Gojo. Or hand it off to someone else, someone more deserving of Gojo’s efforts. Someone who would have appreciated it, who could have given something back to him. He wondered if having the Ten Shadows had cursed him irreparably—it seemed he could do nothing but swallow up Gojo’s light.
“I’m sorry I’m like this,” Megumi said quietly.
Gojo let out a deep, pained exhale. In a rare absence of words, he swept Megumi into his arms and held him against his chest. To Megumi’s embarrassment, tears immediately prickled at his eyes. He hid his face in Gojo’s shoulder and tried to choke them down.
The instinct to shred Gojo to pieces burned anew, incinerating any momentary solace found in Gojo’s solid presence. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, and tried to pull away.
“Shh,” Gojo said. He held Megumi tight, keeping him in place.
Kill him, Sukuna said.
Leave him before he leaves you, his father said.
Tell him you love him, Tsumiki said.
Megumi ignored all of them and pressed his forehead into Gojo’s shoulder, feeling as if he was bracing for a storm. It reminded him of being six years old and seated on Gojo’s shoulders, watching space and time rend around them as Gojo put on an inordinate show against a couple grade two curses. Gojo told him to hold on tight, but he swore he wouldn’t until the air crackled with blue energy and he found himself clutching Gojo’s head for dear life while Gojo lept around and cackled like a maniac, unfettered by the tiny hands laced over his eyes.
“Alright, you can push me away now,” Gojo said. “I know you want to.”
Half contrarian denial, half accidental vulnerability, Megumi said, “I don’t want to.”
Gojo made a show of turning towards the documentary. “Whoa, look! Is that…? Yes, it must be pigs flying!”
“Fuck you.” Any affection he might have harbored for Gojo evaporated instantly. Megumi shoved out of his arms and retreated to his corner.
Gojo reached a hand over to ruffle his hair, laughing and stretching out to take up a good three quarters of the couch. As if him and the universe were conspiring on the world’s worst practical joke, the tears that had been threatening Megumi all night chose that moment to breach containment and slide down his face. He held his breath, horrified at the notion of Gojo catching him in the act. But time stretched forward and he seemed to have escaped Gojo’s notice.
Just as he was steadying his breathing and surreptitiously wiping his eyes, Gojo’s laugh stuttered to a halt. “Oh, shit.”
“Don’t say anything.”
“It was just a joke, Megs.”
“I’m not crying about your stupid fucking joke,” Megumi snapped.
“Okay. Sure.” Said like he didn’t quite believe Megumi. “Whatcha crying about, then?”
“Nothing. Fuck off.”
“Want another hug?” Gojo asked, probably trying for sincerity but incapable of hitting anything but mockery.
“Don’t touch me!”
Gojo retreated, spooked. “Tengen, I thought we were getting along.”
“We never get along,” Megumi said. It sounded as hollow as he felt.
Gojo seemed under the impression that he could fight off the more serious turn to the conversation if he only committed to a lazier sprawl and a wider smile. “Never? What about all of our precious father-son talks? Do my excellent baseball analogies mean nothing to you?”
“Would I have tried to kill myself if you were such a great father figure?” It was out of Megumi’s mouth before he could determine whether he meant it or, even if he did, whether Gojo deserved it.
The storm was here at last. He watched the words whip through Gojo like a gale force wind. They curved his spine, hunched his posture, and flattened his expression. Megumi held on to his safe haven of a corner and let Gojo take the brunt of it.
A new episode of the documentary series had taken a morbid turn and was now describing how desert spider offspring cannibalized their mothers for nutrition. Neither him nor Gojo said anything more until the door handle jiggled and Ieiri let herself in.