Chapter Text
Shoko was, without a doubt, an alien.
Gojo had always been suspicious of their resident medic in that sense — her perpetually neutral demeanor, her monotonous way of speech. Now, with the speed in which she flitted around his bedside, taking blood and measurements and notes, it stood to reason that she couldn't be human. Not that he was one to discriminate. Her presence was still a welcome one. Steadfast. Calming, even. It starkly contrasted to whatever calamity his students would inevitably bring in with them. And so if there was an ache he could play up, a sensation to hyperbolize, he was lamenting over it like a dying man in wartime. When that didn't work, he tried anything else that came to mind. Her work, her love life, the story behind the crack in the ceiling that he'd been staring at for hours now. Shoko knew better, but that didn't stop him. Anything to keep her in the room for a bit longer and the tenacious sources of his dread out.
Just then, as if on cue, a crash sounded suddenly from outside the door.
Far from the first.
"You can't just hide in here forever," she reminded him, jabbing yet another needle into his arm with a force that felt premeditated. "You have to let them in eventually."
The Six Eyes hadn't recovered to their total capacity yet, but the scene unfolding outside the room was as plain to him as the bags beneath her eyes. He had to give the principal credit, and the longer he spent occupying Shoko, the longer Yaga had to fend off his unrelenting students like a linebacker. It was an image he'd have liked to savor as a treasured memory, but today, it only raised his blood pressure. What a shame.
"I only just woke up a few hours ago," he argued petulantly, watching the scarlet liquid rush into the tube. "Be kind to me, Shoko. I've been through a very traumatic experience."
"Yes, you keep reminding me."
The chaos outside ascended to a new decibel, as did his heart pounding in his ears. Surely, there was a backlog of curses that needed exorcising, some special-grade nuisance far across the continent that required his immediate attention. Except, of course there wasn't. Or maybe there was, and the higher-ups wanted to prioritize the scenario that yielded the highest level of his suffering. That seemed more plausible.
His head thunked against the headboard behind him.
"You should have just let me die."
Shoko raised a gloved hand to flick him in the temple.
"Grow up, you big baby," she scolded him. "Look, I'm all done. At this rate, you'll be back to normal in a few more days. We can talk about moving you back to your place sometime tomorrow. Until then, you're still on house arrest," she ordered, gathering her things in her bag. "I'll be back in the morning."
"What, so you can steal some more blood from me?"
"Now that you mention it, yes. I've actually been secretly creating a Frankenstein version of you to take over the world. My very own Franken-Gojo."
"Frankenstein was the doctor. You're talking about Frankenstein's monster," he corrected. "Read a book."
She shrugged, reaching for the door like the pin of a grenade. "By the way, I'd suggest getting your technique back up quickly. It sounds like those two aren't afraid to get physical, and I'm not sure you've recovered enough to stand your ground just yet."
He crossed his arms petulantly, the familiar embrace of his technique enveloping his body.
"You ready?"
The question came exactly one millisecond before she flicked the lock off, and the two teenagers crashed into a tangled heap on the floor, groaning and cursing at each other. Gojo resisted the urge to scowl at her as she stepped easily over them, sparing not a single glance behind her.
"Shenshei!" cried Itadori, his face smooshed against the floorboards by Kugisaki's weight on top of him. "Yer'awake!"
Gojo sat forward, taking advantage of the time it took the pair to untangle themselves from one another to collect himself and shrug on a grin. "You didn't think you were getting out of class for the whole week, did you?"
"I did," Nobara grumbled as she dusted off her uniform and sat in one of the chairs beside him. "You kind of owe it to us after that whole disaster. Talk about traumatizing. You're paying for my therapy, you know."
Teleportation in his current state would be risky, but he was tempted to give it a shot anyway. He'd been hopeful that the elephant in the room would go unacknowledged for at least a few minutes. It was a tall ask, of course, but he'd been cautiously optimistic given the general attention span of teenagers. Now that the topic had been breached, he wanted nothing more than to dissolve through the floor beneath him.
Itadori plopped himself down in the chair on his opposite side. "Yeah, it was pretty scary seeing you like that. It was like you were gone and had been replaced by a different person," he said. "A much crazier, sweatier person."
Where was he even supposed to begin? Everything he had prepared fell so pitifully short. It didn't help that he could hardly recall the day's events. It felt like the distant memory of a dream of which he could grasp the frayed ends. There were a few images, however, that stood crisp at the forefront of his mind. Itadori sprawled on the floor with blood dripping from his nose was one of them.
That was probably a good place to start.
"Yuuji, look..." he began sheepishly. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to... I shouldn't have..."
"Oh," the boy interjected. "You don't have to do that, sensei. I'm not angry or anything. Nanami explained what happened, how your technique punched out your guts like Swiss cheese." A shudder rippled through his shoulders. "I think I would have been in a bad mood too, if it had been me."
For a moment, Gojo wondered if he was still dreaming. When that was debunked, he wondered if this was the best-case scenario he'd envisioned this whole time. It didn't feel like it. It felt like a get-out-of-jail-free card, one that he didn't deserve. He wasn't one to seek accountability on a typical day, but today something inside him longed for it. For whatever reason.
The more he considered it, the more he decided he loathed maturity.
"Yuuji, I —"
"Really, sensei," he insisted, eyes glittering like a damn cherub. "You and I, we're good."
Satoru inhaled and nodded. It didn't feel like justice, but he supposed the choice wasn't his to make. There was something freeing about that.
"Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. You're just gonna let him off the hook like that?" Nobara stopped him in disbelief. "You aren't even gonna make him buy you something expensive to make up for it?"
Itadori peered at her, clearly not comprehending her sentiment.
"Your loss," she shrugged. "I just can't imagine how awkward you must feel around us now, sensei. It was pretty hard to watch. I mean, the way you just went on and on and —"
A pillow to her face, courtesy of Yuuji, interrupted her with a soft oof.
"Stop trying to get him to buy you things!"
"If you'd let me finish," she growled and whipped the pillow back at him in one swift and practiced motion. "I was going to say we're glad he's feeling better now!"
Itadori snatched the fluffy trajectory out of the air with ease, hugging it into his lap. "Yeah, we were all really worried. Especially Fushiguro. He's been kind of a mess since you went down. We only just managed to convince him to leave for the morning to get some real food and a proper rest."
Gojo swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry.
"Hopefully he managed to take a shower, too," Nobara added, pulling mindlessly at a loose thread on her hoodie. "He was starting to smell."
Yuuji waved her off. "You know, he's slept in that chair every night since you went down. Though I don't think he's been sleeping much," he said, each word sending Gojo's heart further into his stomach. "I'm pretty sure I heard him talking to you while you slept the other day... Oh god, don't tell him I told you that!"
A devilish grin crept across Nobara's face. "I'm gonna tell him."
Satoru was only half listening by that point, too preoccupied with the depth of the shit he was clearly wading in. In a perfect world, he'd have had some time to process any of the information being fed to him, to formulate more of a strategy now that he had some context surrounding Megumi's presumably volatile state. But of course, there wasn't time. There was never any time.
At that precise moment, the Six Eyes honed in on a familiar presence approaching from down the hall.
Gojo inhaled deeply, and braced himself.
Moments later, Megumi appeared silently in the doorway like a ghost, his gaze like ice and locked firmly onto his sensei from across the room. Despite the hours he'd spent agonizing over this moment, it somehow ended up being much worse than he'd imagined. Gojo's mind raced, searching for the right words to diffuse the tension, but he found himself subdued. Thoroughly so. The sentiment seemed to be shared by the two students on either side of him, who looked like they preferred to melt into twin puddles on the floor.
That settled it.
Shoko should have let him die.
"Uhhh, Kugisaki!" Itadori suddenly exclaimed, eyes flicking between them uneasily. "I, uh... totally forgot that we are supposed to, um... that I was supposed to help you, uh..."
"Reorganize my closet!" she concluded for him. "I can't believe you remembered!"
Itadori groaned. "Right," he said, and tossed a wave over his shoulder as she all but dragged him out the door. "See you soon, sensei. Glad you're feeling better."
Then it was just the two of them.
Gojo wondered how hard it would be to knock himself back out inconspicuously.
The silence became even more oppressive as talk of color coordination and fall fashion trends faded down the hall. He desperately wished Megumi would say something. Anything. Hit at him, curse him out, tell him he hated him or that he wished he had died on that training room floor. Unable to endure it any longer, he mustered up the courage to open his mouth, praying to any deity that would listen to supply the words that came out of it.
But Megumi beat him to it.
"How do you feel?"
That wasn't the first thing he expected to hear.
Which meant he was almost certainly walking into a trap.
Gojo cleared his throat, treading cautiously. "I mean... a little tired, but not ba—"
"You selfish prick."
He winced.
"You're a piece of fucking work. Do you have even the faintest idea of what you just put us through?" Megumi hissed. "You can barely stand and thought it would be a good idea to spar? You didn't think to mention the fact that you were sick? That you'd been puking up blood for god knows how long?"
"To be fair, it wasn't bloody until after Yuuji punched me," he corrected, and regretted it immediately.
"The fact that he even landed a blow is insane all by itself. For fuck's sake — you're Satoru Gojo, capable of taking down an entire country without breaking a sweat, yet somehow you still got your ass handed to you by a kid who just started Jujutsu a few months ago. Do you even realize how insane that is?"
He did, but that didn't mean he wanted to think about it. Much less talk about it.
Megumi's eyes bore into his own, demanding his gaze. "Tell me right now. Why didn't you say anything sooner? Why did you lie?"
It was a good question, one that Gojo couldn't confidently supply an answer to. The workings of his own mind during the whole ordeal were still a mystery to him, and the more he mulled it over, the more he wondered if he'd like to keep it that way. There were an overwhelming number of layers to pick through, and to put it bluntly, he didn't have the energy for it right now. Maybe ever. That would certainly not fly with the teenager that currently had him locked in his sights. Megumi would not be leaving without answers.
"I just figured everything would work out somehow," he replied honestly. "I didn't know it would get that bad, but... it worked out. I'm all patched up, good as new. A little worn out, sure, but I'll be back out in the field again in no time."
The way Megumi stared at him meant that must have been the wrong answer.
"You've gotta be kidding me," he exhaled incredulously. "No way, you aren't getting off the hook that easily. I'm sure you'd love for all of us to move on and forget it ever happened, but I can't do that. You didn't see what I saw."
Gojo couldn't argue that. Most of that day felt like a dream from which his memories were scant. What he could recall, he wished he couldn't for the sake of his dignity. It physically pained him that he'd allowed his walls to come down so easily, that he'd laid his soul out bare for all of them to see. Perhaps that was the reason he still felt so vulnerable, so disgustingly naked. He wondered how long that feeling would haunt him for. He probably deserved it.
"I know it was probably... hard to watch, and for what it's worth, it was wrong of me to put you through that. I'm sorry."
Something dangerous flashed in Megumi's expression.
"Shut up," he hissed, low and venomous. "God, just shut up."
In honor of keeping his shitty-decision streak alive, he didn't.
"I mean it, Megumi. I'm sorry —"
"You don't get to do that," he snarled, and Gojo resisted the urge to shrink back. "God, you're the worst. It doesn't work that way, you don't get to nearly die and then apologize like nothing happened. The others might be able to get away with that, but not you."
He was unsure of how to take that. Something always separated him from the others, but despite his best efforts he couldn’t bridge the gap to understand Megumi's meaning. Everything had been fixed and even so, his illness was just another obstacle to manage. There was clearly a massive piece of the puzzle that he was still somehow missing.
Oh.
Just like the fingers that had yet to be found.
"Is it Sukuna you're worried about?"
He felt foolish for not realizing it sooner.
After all, he was the only person alive who had a fighting chance against the King of Curses reborn, the only thing standing between Sukuna and the world. It might as well have been his entire purpose for being born into the world when he did. While he'd never pegged his student as particularly philanthropic, preventing the brutal execution of millions was certainly enough of a cause for him to rally behind. With that in mind, Megumi's disappointment in him made perfect sense.
"It's gonna be a while before he becomes any kind of problem for me," he continued confidently. "I'll handle him when the time comes. Don't let that guy stress you out."
That was it.
It had to be.
"What the hell does that have to do with anything?"
Fuck.
"You think that's what I'm upset about? Your stupid special-grade dick-measuring contest? Are you really that much of an idiot?"
Gojo didn't think so, but the universe seemed hellbent on proving him wrong lately.
"Look," he said carefully. "All I'm trying to say is you didn't have to worry."
Megumi laughed — a cold, harsh sound.
"Oh, good! So I didn't have to worry when you, Satoru Gojo, literally the most invulnerable person on earth, collapsed on the floor like your strings had been cut? How about when blood started pouring out of your mouth, or when I had to keep slapping you in the face just to get you to stay with us? That was no big deal to you, right?"
He raised a brow. "You slapped me?"
"And I wasn't fucking gentle about it, but you barely noticed," he said. "What about when Shoko cut you open right on the floor of the training room? You were awake for that, so you must remember. Remember how your insides had been obliterated by the stupid technique that you love to brag about so much? You even managed to delete an entire chunk of your spine, you dumbass."
Ah. That explained the uncooperative limbs.
Or better yet, remember when you started talking to me like I was your dead best friend welcoming you into the afterlife?" Megumi continued. "Did I have to worry then?"
Gojo cringed. "I'd really been hoping I had imagined that part..."
"Yeah? Well you fucking didn't," the boy shot back. "What about when Shoko had to warn us that she didn't know if she could bring you back?" he revealed, sounding suddenly strained. "What about the days and nights I spent in here preparing for the worst, fucking mourning you? All of that must have been pointless. I'm such an idiot. Like you said — there was nothing to worry about. I should have known everything was going to miraculously work out, right? That's what you always say, right?"
Megumi had to be talking about somebody else. Certainly, he couldn't be talking about himself. It couldn't have been as dramatic as he was describing. He had to be exaggerating, as teenagers often do. Except he wasn't exaggerating. In Gojo's heart, he knew that, but he couldn't acknowledge it just yet. It didn't matter. Right now his priority was Megumi, who was looking close to hyperventilating, balling his fists in his hair with a grip that looked painful.
"Megumi," he ventured carefully, hands raised in surrender. "Please, just calm down and listen —"
"No, you listen! For once in your damn life, just shut the hell up and listen!"
In an uncharacteristic moment of wisdom, he clamped his mouth shut.
Silence fell over them again, save for the boy's rapid breathing, but it was silence of a different sort, with a new significance — less volatile, heavier. Megumi dropped his head as his breath began to slow, though his fists remained wound tightly in the sheets. In the time that it took him to get there, Gojo didn't move, unwilling to tempt the boy into another fit of rage. Recovery was going smoothly enough without adding a brawl with Mahoraga into the mix. More so, he hated seeing Megumi like this, hated the pain that he had so clearly caused him.
Even if he didn't fully understand it, he wanted to try.
"This... this type of thing isn't supposed to happen to you," Megumi said after a time, calmer now. "You aren't supposed to get sick, or wounded. You aren't supposed to die, you stupid asshole. What were you thinking? How could..." He swallowed noisily. "How could you leave me behind like that?"
Gojo watched in stunned silence as he fell into the chair with a deep sigh. As he sat there, his head buried in his hands, the weight upon his shoulders became agonizingly evident. It was the very same weight Gojo had fought and failed to protect him from all these years. He had worked hard to ensure that solitude would never be Megumi's burden and yet here they were. Still, he had friends. He had Tsumiki, as sore of a subject as that was. Gojo himself had little to offer, save for financial provision and constant agitation. That truth had lurked in his subconscious for a long time. To finally bring it to the forefront felt like a knife between his ribs.
"Everyone always leaves," Megumi said, eyes growing distant and cold, disconnecting from the world around him. "One way or another, they always do. I learned to expect it, easier that way. But then one day your lanky ass waltzed in and god, you drove me insane."
Gojo winced.
"...but you kept showing up," he concluded, as if confessing a secret. "My baseball games, Tsumiki's chorus recitals. Not all of them, but enough that I knew you were trying. We both knew." He dropped his gaze, pulling mindlessly at the callouses on his knuckles. "You were the most obnoxious guy in the crowd; with the screaming and that giant JVC camera, and those god-awful poster board signs that got glitter everywhere... you embarrassed the hell out of me... Looking back, I guess that was kind of your job. It's always been your job."
Megumi lowered his head.
"I thought about those times a lot while I sat in this chair over the past few days. I didn't know how things were going to play out, so I wanted to think about stuff like that. The good stuff."
An unexpected warmth spread out from his chest at that. A tiny, treasured flame.
But... all I could think about was how much I hated you for it," the boy confessed, exhaling sharply. "I fucking hated you."
It felt as though he'd been punched.
It probably shouldn't have been a surprise. It probably shouldn't have stung as much as it did. After all, he'd heard those words or something like them a thousand times before, usually when he was antagonizing the boy for one reason or another. Often for no reason at all. Still, something about his tone told Gojo that he meant it this time. Maybe he always had. As much as it felt like getting shot point-blank in the chest, he wasn't about to force his presence on anyone. Much less someone he cared about. If Megumi wanted him gone, he'd honor his wishes. Gojo owed him that.
He opened his mouth to say as much, painfully aware of the vice that was closing around his throat.
"I hated you, and yet the thought of losing you made me want to throw up," Megumi cut him off. "I hated how I couldn't tear myself away from watching your stupid face and listening to your stupid breathing. I hated how the image of you drowning in your own blood was burned in my brain, how it made me terrified to go to sleep. What if something happened to you while I was out? Why did it even matter so much to me if it did?"
Gojo was unsure if he was supposed to respond or not.
"Holy shit, you really don't get it, do you?" Megumi pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. "It's because you tricked me into caring about you, you idiot."
There were precious few moments in life that made Gojo's brain thoroughly short-circuit.
This one far outclassed the rest.
"All these years and I still don't understand who you are to me — a father, an annoying older brother, maybe some weird hybrid of the two. But the past few days I've realized that it doesn't matter. You're the one that stuck around, and I can’t... I can't lose you, too," he spilled out with a shake of his head. Suddenly his breath hitched, a red rim forming around his eyes. Again, he shook his head. "Please… I don't... I can’t —”
A hand around his wrist cut him short as Gojo pulled him swiftly into his chest.
And after a moment of shock, Megumi melted.
Silent sobs wracked his body as he buried his face in Gojo's shoulder, and Gojo responded by pulling him in closer, a protective hand on the back of his head. If he were to think about it too much, he might have wondered if such an intense reaction meant that he'd somehow made things worse. If he was squeezing too hard or holding on for too long. Part of him wondered what possessed him to embrace Megumi in that moment to begin with. Like many things over the past few days, he had no answer. It had been autonomous, without thought.
It was just an instinct.
"I'm here," he found himself muttering into his ear. "I'm still here with you. I'm okay. I'm not going anywhere, I promise."
A more forceful sob ripped through the boy's body, hands balling into Satoru's shirt as if fearful he would disappear into dust. At this, Gojo found himself blinking back tears of his own. It was agony of an entirely new sort. It branched outward from the center of his chest like a flesh-eating disease. Somehow, however, he still struggled to believe this was a real, actual moment they were sharing. It felt too much like a dream and yet he couldn't deny the warmth of the small body against him, couldn't deny the wetness of the tears soaking into his shirt.
It felt impossible – dangerous, even – to consider that he could be more to someone than just a means to an end. More than a tool. More than a weapon. The grand sum of his worth was in his power and his power alone, that truth had been instilled in him from the moment he emerged from the womb and every moment since. It was as undeniable as it was unforgettable, as factual as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. Strength was all he had to offer.
But also, maybe it wasn't.
Maybe Megumi was the only one who actually saw that.
And now he was suffering because of it.
"I'm sorry," Gojo stressed, though it held a much different meaning now. "I'm so sorry, Megumi."
Not a weapon. Not a god.
Just the one that stuck around.
They stayed there for a long while, frozen in time. Minutes, hours, it was all the same. Megumi's sobs died down slowly to an occasional hiccup, becoming so still that Gojo wondered if he'd actually fallen asleep, his small, exhausted body heavy against his own. It wouldn't be a particularly comfortable position to spend the night in, but he didn't mind.
"For the record," he eventually mumbled into Gojo's shoulder. Lethargic, but not asleep. "You desperately need therapy."
Gojo laughed. A tired one, but his first honest laugh in days.
"One to talk, aren't we?"
Finally Megumi pulled away, wiping at his face as though remembering his he had a stoic persona that needed maintaining. Gojo, admittedly, did the same. Though he liked to think he was cooler about it.
"Also for the record," he began, "I'm, uh... sorry I beat the shit out of you guys."
Megumi stared at him expectantly, crossing his arms over his chest. "And?"
"Aaand I'm sorry for trauma dumping all over you."
"And?"
"And... I'm guessing I can expect a bill for the mess in the training room?"
Megumi rose to his feet. "A bill? Ha, no. Yaga hasn't let anyone touch it," he answered. "He said that was your punishment for the drama you caused once you woke up. He has his dolls guarding it and everything."
Gojo whined, his head dropping back against the headboard.
"And how many days has it been?"
"I think you know how many."
Fuck.
Megumi shrugged as he moved toward the door. "I'd make that a priority once you're mobile again. Just a suggestion."
"I'm still very weak and fragile, you know!" He coughed lamely into his fist. "My immune system is probably down; I think I feel a tuberculosis coming on — Wait, Megumi? Megumi! Don't you turn your back on me. Show your father-brother some respect!"
"You're an idiot," said Megumi, turning in the doorway with an easy grin on his face. "Welcome back."