Chapter Text
The night was cold.
A stormy summer had resulted in a damp climate filled with desperate winds that chilled the air like a snowless winter.
"A snowless winter…" thought Fushiguro, gazing at the window above them. The rain fell lazily, slowly, and sadly against the tempered glass that looked out onto the street and the neighboring buildings. The light from the streetlamps illuminated the droplets with a yellowish hue, as if it were golden rain blessing the homes; it felt so domestic and melancholic at the same time that the debate had kept the young black-haired man awake.
But, far from the outside world lay his center, his being -him-sharing that small bed with the love of his life.
Their limbs were intertwined, like two beings seeking to become one, an experimental chimera. Lying that way allowed him to face him, sharing the edges of the mattress with that young man with pink hair who slept peacefully.
Being so close, he could clearly see his face marked by two significant scars: the first at the corner of his lip -caused by a fight with bullies- and the second on his eyebrow -from a bicycle fall-.
Megumi loved tracing them with his finger, like a brush on a canvas; it felt so intimate to recall moments before that stillness. The way his hand cradled her cheek made him look like Atlas holding up the world, until, in a sudden movement, Yuuji pulled him toward him, pressing him against his body, treating him with tenderness because the way he held him wasn’t human; there was no way…
For someone to see him that way.
That was what he wanted to say, but his heart refused to accept it.
To see someone from the position of superiority imposed on him by someone who considered him something more than just a freak…
It was strange.
And now, after that moment of ecstasy, he had a strange feeling in his heart -was it satisfaction? Fulfillment? Comfort?
Carefully, he moved just a little to reach the nightstand where several things were scattered-a pack of Seven Stars and his lighter, a Keihin from his afternoon at the pachinko parlor; he carefully lit a cigarette and lay back down, his body covering his boyfriend’s to be closer to the ashtray.
Yuuji didn’t seem to mind having his boyfriend’s body on top of him; even if it was keeping him from breathing, he didn’t seem to show it. He just hummed as he hugged him around the waist, under the large T-shirt the black-haired man had picked up off the floor.
“Give me some please,” the boy asked in a sleepy murmur, a request that was immediately granted when Fushiguro moved over to make room for him to breathe in and out without choking.
“Did you get any sleep?” the pinkhead asked, and when he saw the boy shake his head, he sighed. “It’s three in the morning. God, are you going to close your eyes for a few minutes?”
Fushiguro pinched his nose.
“I told you my…” he swallowed, “uncle was coming to pick me up; we’re going on a family trip.”
“Bruh, boring,” Yuuji laughed. “You should’ve asked for more days off.”
“I have a limited number of absences,” he explained. “They’ve already told my tutor, one more skip and I’ll have to repeat the year.”
What Fushiguro was referring to was the list of unexcused absences Gojo had shown him the last time they went out for breakfast together, that and a “Anything to say?”
The boy said nothing but calmly ate the waffles and milkshake he’d ordered.
“Seriously… nothing to say?”
“Nothing.”
Gojo grew frustrated. “Grandpa Yaga says you have a boyfriend,” he began, stirring his milkshake with his straw, “and it’s not just him, Panda, Inumaki, Maki, everyone’s saying you have a boyfriend who came to visit you; Kusakabe found out from the guys, and with that, Mei Mei and Utahime too, so even Kyoto knows.” Everyone knows except me, and why? Why do they know and I don’t?” His drama was more than obvious.
“I’m not interested in them,” he muttered disinterestedly.
“Who are you really interested in, Meg’s?” the man asked, leaning back in his seat, disheartened by the pleasant conversation they were having. “In recent years, I thought that…”
“Don’t you dare mention her,” he interrupted angrily.
“Miki was an amazing person, Megumi, but whether she’s here or not, she’d be disappointed if you didn’t tell her anything especially at this stage in your life, when you’re getting to know someone.”
“Oh God, we’re not having this conversation…”
“Megumi,” Satoru declared, pointing at him with his straw, far removed from all the trappings of his character, “you’ve had so many moments in your life; good and bad, relapses and diagnoses. What I want, kid, is your happiness, and if that guy your classmates told me about is real…” What I’m saying, Megumi, is that I love you and I want you to understand what a relationship entails, with all its peculiar situations -breakups, fights, pregnancy…
“Let’s drop this conversation,” he ordered.
And just as Satoru was about to continue, he stopped; a thin line formed on his lips, and with that, he went back to eating his breakfast in silence.
Thinking about the conversation again made the black-haired boy feel a bit queasy; erasing those moments to enjoy these with Yuuji seemed better, and that filled him with a certain calm.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” said the black-haired boy, stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray.
He tiptoed out of the room, taking great care not to run into anyone in the hallways. Yuuji had sworn that his brother was with his girlfriend and his grandfather was sleeping in the back room where no noise could disturb him. If that was true, he hoped the old man wouldn’t suspect anything from the alternative R&B-Hip Hop remix that had been playing on the pinkhead’s phone since 8 o’clock, the scent of air freshener, and the towel propped against the doorframe.
Now he didn’t want him to suspect anything as he tiptoed to the bathroom.
He could use the shadows to move around, but he felt so tired and so… safe in this place that he only used his shadows in dangerous places.
How dangerous could a simple home be?
The place wasn’t spacious; the toilet and shower were so close together that there wasn’t a defined space for each fixture. The light bounced off the tiles, turning them yellowish. The smell of dampness, masked by air freshener, wasn’t disgusting, unlike the bathrooms Fushiguro had stepped into before.
Besides, he wouldn’t lie he was tired of going to the bathroom. His thighs were burning hot and his neck was stiff; it was hard for him to sit down, but it hurt even more to stand up and fully take in the state he was in. He smelled of sweat, and he hated smelling that way, mixed with the sweetness of the grape lubricant.
When he finished washing his hands, he started looking for some mouthwash to get rid of the taste of tobacco for the rest of the night. As he opened the drawer, he saw a small bottle of activated charcoal-flavored mouthwash and took a quick swig before spitting it out, noticing Yuuji’s small contact lens case.
And to his surprise, there was nothing there.
“This idiot forgot them,” he muttered, putting them back and going to scold him.
He found him just as he’d left him. Lying on the bed, smoking another cigarette, staring at the ceiling.
That’s when he snapped.
“You idiot, you’re going to fall asleep with your contacts in again,” he began, sitting on the edge of the bed. “You’ll end up with another eye infection if you keep this up.”
“No…” Yuuji shifted to get a better look at him. “Right,” he hesitated. “I forgot. I’ll take them out right now when I go to the bathroom.”
“Or until you go blind…”
“Come on, Meg, it was a slip-up. I’m just really forgetful,” Itadori admitted. “The other day I remembered a friend I used to know, the one with the music box. He used to be really forgetful, too.”
“And what was he like?” he asked, settling onto his side.
“Very strange, actually,” he said, somewhat surprised by his own words. “My grandfather described him as taciturn, as if he longed for something but at the same time repelled it. They’d always go play pachinko, and he’d win a nice sum.”
“You’re talking almost as if he were dead,” Fushiguro didn’t know why his mind wandered to the book of poems Nanami had given him by Blake and other English authors.
“I hate my family, Megs,” the dejected pinkhead blurted out suddenly; it seemed the sleepiness had completely vanished from the room.
“Don’t worry, I hate my tutor too.”
“Not quite…” he confessed. “The other day, Choso was telling me about his siblings, well, technically they’re my siblings too, but I don’t really know them.” The thing is… well, when we talk about family, it’s weird to say this, but I don’t like it when people talk about them; my father… my mother, or anything like that. My friend said I should just accept the idea of my family instead of avoiding it; acknowledging it is part of moving forward.
“I don’t understand a word you said,” the dark-haired man admitted. “Tolstoy said in Anna Karenina that all happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
“Oh, Meg,” he kissed the top of his head and replied with a chuckle, “my family is the most peculiar one that could possibly exist. I have a great-uncle who’s truly terrifying, and my biggest fear is running into him one day on the street.”
“What could be so creepy?”
Then Yuuji’s expression changed to a grim look. “They say my great-uncle and I are connected; we’re like a hurricane -chaos- always follows us. She said it… my mother told my grandfather when I was born, and my friend confirmed it.”
For the first time, Megumi stopped seeing his teenage romance as something childish and idyllic and began to view it through the lens he hated so much: shamanic reality. Why would his mother say that? Who was his friend? How dangerous was that great-uncle he was referring to?
It wasn’t as if his familiar was Ryomen Sukuna himself.
The fact that Yuuji was crying only made the situation worse.
“I really don’t want any of this,” he said, sniffling, “I never asked for it… I only agreed because I had no other choice.”
Megumi didn’t know how to comfort him. From her earliest memories, he could picture Tsumiki running a hand through his hair or hugging him while assuring him with comforting words that everything would be okay. He rarely cried, but when he did, he became an unstoppable typhoon of tears that he longed not to shed out of the shame he couldn’t contain.
With his sister gone, he sank deeper into silent despair. He used to turn away from the situation, avoid it by default, and wait for the tide to recede so he could leave entirely.
He did that for a long time, and once his body gave out, his brain said no and forced him to face reality.
The result?
He doesn’t remember exactly, Gojo wouldn’t tell him directly, but based on what Nanami and Shoko said, he could say he had a suicide attempt and was diagnosed with persistent depressive disorder.
At first he was reluctant to accept it -he wasn’t sick- but as the doctor explained more and more, and Satoru’s expression grew more serious, he knew immediately that things would never be the same again.
But.
Yuuji.
Yuuji was his sun.
For the first time in his life, he tried. He moved and gently cradled his head in his hands to wipe away his tears. The gesture surprised the boy for a few brief moments, and he threw himself into his arms to cry his heart out.
Far from cigarettes, sex, or sorcery, it showed that they were both teenagers.
And that was sad.
Nanami came to pick him up around seven. The former employee went beyond a simple greeting and asked if he was okay, because the dark circles and red eyes suggested otherwise.
“I didn’t sleep a wink,” he admitted, lying down in the open spaces, which meant resting his head on the legs of his second father figure.
“I can tell,” said the blond man, running a hand through her hair. “I didn’t want to force you to come, but Director Yaga’s ruling on your offenses made Gojo and me come up with a way to ensure it wouldn’t affect you so much.”
“Nanami,” Megumi said, closing his eyes, “do you think we bear the sins of our parents?”
For a long moment, the man didn’t answer; perhaps processing what had been said, he simply replied, “No, I don’t think so.”
“Sometimes my boyfriend feels that way,” he admitted, “and I don’t know how to help him.”
“No young person should feel responsible for someone else’s burdens, Fushiguro. You, of all people, should know that. Your boyfriend should seek professional help, and you should go back to therapy.”
That’s what he wanted to believe.
And with great care, Nanami said, “You do love him.”
Fushiguro didn’t deny it.
His mission was in Kanagawa Prefecture, where there had been sightings of first-class and possibly special-class curses lurking in the area.
The main clue he had was the massacre committed at the local movie theater; the only witness, a shy boy named Junpei, had simply said that a monster with a stapled face was responsible for what happened.
“Curse or sorcerer, we know that his cursed technique involves the manipulation and deformation of the body.”
While Nanami handled the investigation, Megumi kept a close eye on the witness. The boy wasn’t a bad person; he was more shy, easily frightened; a leaf in the wind of reality.
Junpei was a movie fanatic; he discovered this when he accompanied him home and saw the collection of framed posters alongside the collection of DVDs and VHS tapes on the shelf against the left wall.
He reminded him of Yuuji.
He wondered why he wasn’t replying to his messages.
“Recommend a movie to me,” he said as she examined a cover that looked interesting to him.
The boy, trembling at the thought of living with a sorcerer, showed him his latest acquisition.
“Junpei wasn’t a bad guy,” Fushiguro remarked, trying to make sense of the movie about a failed marriage, infidelity, and a tentacled monster. But the boy knew Fushiguro was hiding something from him, and that something was the connection to the curse responsible for the massacre.
“Do you have a partner, Fushiguro-san?” the boy asked with his characteristic nervousness.
“Yes, I do,” he said, settling himself on the bed to get a better view of the movie. “His name is Yuuji.”
“And have you been together for a long time?”
The black-haired boy hummed his reply as he watched the female lead have a psychotic breakdown on the Berlin subway; it reminded him a little of the scene he’d caused days after his sister’s coma, when he’d destroyed his house and she still hadn’t woken up.
Junpei lent him five movies to keep him entertained when he got to school. It was an interesting mix, ranging from comedies and musicals to the most exotic horror he could ever have imagined.
“My boyfriend likes this one,” he pointed to the Blu-ray of The Human Worm 3.
That seemed to amaze the boy.
“Your boyfriend has good taste,” he said sincerely.
The mission didn’t last beyond the week because, as Nanami had predicted, the curse would strike again.
The situation exploded.
He had brought with her one of Sukuna’s fingers an easy way to summon the curses. Junpei fell into the trap when he brought the object home, and the curses attacked his mother, leaving a traumatized teenager who had asked the worst of demons for help.
He made a deal with the curse to unlock his potential as a sorcerer.
This led to the confrontation at Satozakura High School.
The special-grade curse was named Mahito, and it could manipulate and alter human souls, turning them into abominable beasts devoid of any conscience.
Fushiguro didn’t realize the magnitude of fighting something like that until he saw firsthand the problem that could arise when Junpei was affected by the curse and his body mutated.
Caught off guard by the initial shock, he didn’t realize that Mahito was coming after him with his ultimate attack: his expansion of dominion.
He heard Nanami scream, Junpei’s pitiful cries begging for mercy, and that thing laughing at him.
He thought about that brief period of his life. Like a movie playing in reverse, searching for a beginning and an end.
He thought of Tsumiki, of the years he lived in misery until Satoru took them in to live with him.
He remembered his coma.
He thought of Yuuji and how disappointed he would be if he saw him in this situation.
He didn’t want to die.
The domain ended up killing Junpei and trapping him alongside Nanami. Like a wolf cornering a sheep to eat it, perhaps it would be a quick and painless death; perhaps he would suffer in agony like the boy.
He didn’t want to die.
He longed to be reunited with his sister, with his mother, and to meet the man who had abandoned them.
He didn’t want to die.
“His shadows were an extension of himself,” Satoru used to say. “It's like looking into the depths of your soul; the meaning goes beyond my understanding, but not yours you give it whatever meaning you choose.”
Since Yuuji had given him the box, Megumi had started carrying it everywhere with him, hidden within his shadows.
It was his comfort.
He had never found the courage to open it.
Let the ghosts inside that box remain at peace where they belonged.
He didn’t want to die.
The Domain Expansion completed itself, its sure-hit effect activating instantly.
And then, impact.
The moment it tried to touch that weak, fragile soul, something else stood between them.
The sheer violence of the collision sent both fighters hurtling toward opposite ends of the domain, the shockwave of cursed energy rupturing the barrier from within despite its enclosed nature.
A monstrous feat of sorcery.
“Fushiguro!”
Nanami rushed toward him, carefully lifting him to check his condition. He was breathing, but so slowly it warned of a collapsed lung.
Megumi struggled to keep his eyes open. He blinked, fighting to remain conscious without understanding what had just happened. His strength was fading.
If this was death… then he would accept it.
Soon, Nanami’s brown eyes began to distort, his figure blurring into someone else with the same hairstyle, though in the darkness, or perhaps through the haze clouding his vision, Megumi couldn’t tell the color properly anymore.
Eyes as red as blood stared back at him, exhaustion carved into the line of his brow, his heavy eyelids, the faint dilation of his pupils. It was like looking into two gemstones marked by spirals of gold.
The Yellow King, he tried to think, but he was so deeply entranced that the words dissolved against his numb tongue, while memories unearthed themselves inside his mind, new ones, old ones, false ones, real ones.
“Meg’s…” the voice murmured, touched by a trace of concern. “You fell asleep holding that thing again.”
By pure instinct, his fists tightened around it.
And then he felt it.
Resting in his left hand was something small, circular attached to a chain loosely wrapped around his wrist.
“I…”
“I…”
“I…”
“I…”
“Ijichi, we have to get to Shoko right away, Megumi’s lung has collapsed,” Nanami ordered, carrying an unconscious Fushiguro in her arms as he kept muttering incoherently.
The journey was slow and tortuous. Kento tried with all his might to concentrate the cursed energy and turn it into positive energy, but he could never overcome his own body, and at that moment he began to lose hope that any miracle would occur.
Another young man…
Defeated…
By a system…
Fushiguro showed a sign of consciousness when he began to cough; blood and something else came out of his mouth, a pitiful moan that seemed to utter a name or a faint prayer. To whom? No one knew.