Chapter Text
PRESENT DAY
“Gojo? Are you in here?” Ijichi called out, snatching Satoru away from the wisps of the past that always haunted him — the last images he ever saw that grew fainter with each passing year.
He quickly wiped at his face to get rid of any tears that had fallen, and then he shoved his sunglasses back onto his face to hide any redness. His scars itched, and a pang of pain went through both of his eyes, racketing around his skull.
“Yeah, in here,” Satoru called back as he pushed himself off the bench in the bookshop’s bathroom. He heard Ijichi’s footsteps before he felt the other man’s hand on his elbow, guiding him as Ijichi collected Satoru’s things and locked up the shop.
The ride back home was quiet, but Satoru hoped that Ijichi would simply chalk it up to it being so late in the evening. His mind was still clouded even as the other man walked him up the path to his front door, but not clouded enough to miss the way Ijichi slowed his steps. Satoru tilted his head with the intent to question him, but he stopped himself whenever he once more heard a familiar gait approaching him. This one belonged to Megumi, who Ijichi passed him over to with a small bow before quickly departing. Satoru figured he must not have wanted to be around for the fallout of the conversation that was about to happen.
“Hey,” Megumi said, his voice cold but also concerned for the man who had raised him. He had made himself scarce for the past two days to deal with his anger toward Satoru. It was the angriest he had been in a long time — so much so that it had surprised him some. “So have you thought it over?”
The silence following his question only flared his anger more, further proving the earlier thought true.
Finally, Satoru replied, “Let’s just avoid Yoshino Junpei. Okay?”
“Why?” Megumi snapped.
“Those people will result to killing to get what they want, Megumi,” Satoru said. His arm not in Megumi’s grip raised so he could rub his hand harshly across his mouth, a way to distract the nerves in his face from the painful itch higher up. “Also, I want to move the bookstore.”
Again, “Why?”
“Look at me, Gumi. I don’t have any courage or strength left in me. I don’t have it in me to fight them,” Satoru answered sullenly. “I just want to live the rest of my life in peace, teaching you the things I want to teach you, and giving you all the things that… That I want to leave you whenever I’m not around anymore. Those are the only things I want right now.”
Megumi scoffed and shook his head, dropping his hand from Satoru’s elbow. He stepped back so he could face the older man fully, and he said, “Stop speaking like you’re some old man who could die any day.”
“This is not a joke,” Satoru barked out harshly, and it was worse than the tone he held when scolding him in the bookshop the other day. Megumi scanned over his face, and his eyebrows furrowed when he realized just how much tension was there. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Instead of responding, Megumi took a step forward with a sigh and wrapped his arms around Satoru in a crushing hug. At first, it only further shot tension through the older man, but then he settled into the hold and wrapped one of his arms around Megumi’s shoulders. Satoru rested the side of his head against Megumi’s, confident that he had gotten his point across.
“Thank you,” he said.
But he was unable to see the expression that Megumi wore the whole time. The expression that made it clear he was far from just giving up on the matter. It was something he had to relent on for the time being, though.
Two days later, Yuuji and Nobara led Megumi down the side alley to the udon shop, easily chatting amongst themselves without forcing him into the conversation. The wind was particularly strong that day, the turbulence of the wind tunnel no worse than that of Megumi’s mind, though. While he had listened to every one of Satoru’s words, that didn’t mean he had to agree with them whatsoever. So Megumi had spent his time trying to decide if he would act upon his disagreement.
“This place has the best curry udon in the world!” Nobara enthused, turning to look at Megumi over her shoulder with an intense look on her face.
“It’s really that good?” He asked.
“Yup!” She cheered back with a bright grin, but it fell away as soon as she pulled up the door to the shop.
The inside was completely trashed, with several tables overturned and chairs broken. There were cups and plates and other items scattered all over the floor and on surfaces they otherwise wouldn’t have been. The trio had missed it upon walking up, but a few of the windows were even broken. They all took in the sight with a wave of shock washing over them, none of them sure where to look first amongst all the damage and chaos.
Nobara’s head perked up whenever she heard soft cries and whimpers coming from inside the kitchen, whipping in that direction. She rushed to the back and braced her hands on one of the counters to stop the momentum from her speed. “Auntie?”
The older woman jumped in fear whenever Nobara came so suddenly into view, but she relaxed as soon as she realized who it was. Her sobs immediately started back up, except that time much louder than before once she knew she wasn’t alone. Once she knew that she was safe. Nobara dropped to her knees in front of the woman, and she pulled her into a tight hug while whispering comforting words. The woman clung to Nobara’s shirt, shaking like a leaf.
“What happened?” Nobara asked gently.
“I-I took out a private loan,” the woman explained with a choked up voice. “They told me to pay them back, but I told them I couldn’t because I didn’t have any customers today. I don’t have any money at all right now. So they smashed everything.”
Even from the front of the shop, Yuuji easily heard the woman’s words and sobs. His fists clenched at his sides, growing tighter and tighter as his eyes scanned over the wreckage. Overlayed on top of present day were flashes of Yuuji’s past — flashes of Gramps’ destroyed shop.
“I’m so scared, I don’t know what to do!” The woman cried out, her panic and fear starting to get the better of her. “I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do. I’m so scared, Kugisaki. What do I do?”
Nobara pulled the woman back to her chest, squeezing her arms around her in a comforting vice. Her amber eyes remained fixated on the wall in front of her, though, narrowed into slits to contain the fires of rage that flickered there. It simmered just beneath her skin, but there was no place for it right then. So she simply held the older woman as she sobbed. Meanwhile, Megumi and Yuuji had already started to pick up the dining area. They turned any unbroken tables and chairs back over, collected any trash they saw, and tried to keep all of the glass and damaged items to one area. The two of them worked in silence that was only broken by slowly quieting sobs and whispered words from the kitchen.
After cleaning up the best they could, the trio had made their way back outside to the parking lot with Megumi’s car. He sat in the driver’s seat with the door open, one foot hanging out, and not far from where Yuuji sat on the curb in front of the car. Yuuji had a far away look as he repeatedly stroked the scar on his face with a single finger, a bad habit that he had picked up now that his stitches were gone and the scar was free. Further away, Nobara paced back and forth in short rotations while yelling into her phone.
“How is she supposed to operate her business if you smash it up?!” She screeched at volumes that neither man had heard from her before. The two of them shared an uneasy look before turning their full attention to her. “How do you expect her to pay you back now?”
“She already wasn’t paying me back, Kugisaki. What was I supposed to do?” Kusakabe asked on the other end of the line.
“You should ease up on them!” She continued to yell, her free hand slashing through the air with each word. “Everyone is having a hard enough time as it is!”
“So how am I supposed to make a living then?” Kusakabe barked out a laugh and said, “You know what? Why don’t you pay for her if you’re so interested?”
Nobara let her head hang, and her free hand finally stilled into a fist that punched into her own thigh once— twice— three times. She was furious he had even suggested such a thing when she had been in his office not long ago with Yuuji. “Come on. You know I don’t have the money for that.”
“Then how about you shut your mouth and stop wasting my time?” Kusakabe asked coldly. “Mind your own fucking business. Got it?”
“Whatever,” she spat out before hanging up on him without such much as a goodbye. She took a deep breath as she held her phone to her chest, then she spun around and stomped over to the other two. Yuuji pretended as if they hadn’t been listening the whole time, but Megumi stared directly at her with a questioning raised brow. Nobara rolled her eyes before explaining, “It was Kusakabe. I used to work for him back in the day.”
“I’ve heard of him before,” Megumi said with a grimace. “And?”
“And apparently he just got conned by someone he lent fifty-five million to.”
“Is Yoshino involved?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask for details,” she answered, “but it was a homeless person’s ID that they used to open a fake account. Just like Junpei.”
“It’s definitely him, then,” Megumi said.
“I say we go after him,” Yuuji cut in after remaining mostly silent since they first saw the wrecked shop. Nobara and Megumi hadn’t dared to bring it up, both of them well aware of how he must have been feeling. “I can’t just sit around and do nothing.”
Megumi sighed and pushed himself out of his car to stand up fully, and he closed the door behind him as he replied, “Satoru told us to lay low. Said that Rainbow Dragon is really dangerous.”
“I think it’s wrong to do nothing after what we just saw,” Yuuji said. The muscles in his jaw twitched violently whenever he paused, more memories flooding his mind. “After what Nobara and I saw the other night, especially.”
Nobara crossed her arms and shrugged, asking, “What if I just call Kusakabe and tell him it was Junpei? Then he can catch Junpei himself.”
“If our goal is to just capture him, then we should be the ones to do it. Maybe we could even make some money from it,” Megumi said.
Yuuji couldn’t help his reaction of shaking his head at the mention of profit, and he looked away from the other two to stare off into the distance. As badly as he needed the money, he hated to think of only going after Junpei for that reason instead of going after him to prevent him from doing further harm. But Nobara threw in, “If we do make money from this, can I use it to help out Auntie?” She jabbed a thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the udon shop, her voice tight with her still lingering anger.
“It would be split evenly between the three of us, so you can do whatever you want with your cut,” Megumi explained.
“Cool,” she said with a smirk.
“Then I want to help her, too,” Yuuji told her, and the two of them shared a small smile. Any bitter feelings he had about this venture had instantly been sweetened by Nobara’s desire to help the woman she wasn’t even related to. His small smile grew until it took up most of his face, and he spread his arms wide with his head thrown back, expecting the other two to join him for a group hug as he said, “Okay, come here!”
When he continued to sit there without anyone shoving themselves into his arms, Yuuji cracked open one eye to peek. Nobara stood exactly where she had been with an uninterested expression, and Megumi had an eyebrow raised a step further from where he had been. Yuuji deflated in disappointment, even going so far as to pout at them. But before they could react, he charged forward to wrap one arm around Nobara’s shoulders, pulling her with him until he could grab Megumi as well. He wrapped his arms tightly around the two of them so that they couldn’t escape, eliciting grunts of discomfort from both.
“Stoooop!” Nobara groaned, trying her best to pull away but left unable to when trapped between them.
“No,” Megumi said dully, also trying to get away. He was no match for Yuuji’s strength, though. “I did not agree to this.”
After enough struggling, Megumi and Nobara finally relented and went slack in his grip. Yuuji felt satisfied after a few moments, and he let them go. Even while they grumbled and adjusted their clothes and hair, Yuuji continued to grin at them. He did whatever he could to ignore the knot forming in the center of his chest, even if that meant annoying his friends.
The next few days passed without much fanfare. Megumi had insisted that they at least pretend to listen to Satoru until they could regroup and gather more intel on Junpei’s group. He had them make a few visits to the bookstore under the guise of it being a meeting spot before they went to go hang out, and Satoru used some of their time to discuss the plans to move the bookshop. Even with Megumi trying to convince him it wasn’t necessary, the older man was determined it seemed, and Yuuji and Nobara were still technically on payroll to do any work Megumi — and by extension Gojo — needed done.
“Where are you headed so late?” Satoru called out one night from the living room whenever Megumi tried to leave without drawing attention to himself. He should have known better than to expect Satoru to have finally relaxed enough to not question him on everything.
So Megumi closed his eyes and shook his head lightly as he lied through his teeth.
“Nobara wanted to go out to a club, but the ones nearby have all banned her for fighting,” he said, loud enough to be heard in the living room without walking all the way there. “Her and Yuuji need a car, and they somehow convinced me to go out. I’ll be back at some point, but there’s no telling with those two.”
“Oh!” The simple reply was weaved with both surprise and excitement, and Megumi rolled his eyes. “Have fun then, and be safe! If you end up drinking, just call Ijichi to pick the three of you up.”
He knew he should have felt guilty for how easy it was to lie to Satoru, but the anger over the older man’s inaction far outweighed any possible guilt. As the front door clicked shut behind him, Megumi couldn’t find it in himself to regret the lie at all. If anything, he just felt an overwhelming responsibility to try and fix whatever mistakes Satoru may have contributed to.
Which was how he ended up reclined back in the driver’s seat of his car, barely able to keep his eyes open with how long the trio had been waiting. They were parked in the shadows across the street from the building that Junpei’s group operated out of, and they had been there for hours while they staked it out. Nobara had fallen asleep in the passenger seat after only an hour of waiting, unable to keep her mind occupied when Megumi had forbidden both playing on their phones and verbal conversation. Her soft snores were the only thing that broke through the silence, and a randomly loud snore woke Megumi up enough to check the dashboard’s clock again.
Yuuji was the only one still on high alert. He remained as relaxed as he could in the backseat, even as he wanted to jerk forward and look closer at every small movement. He had done so at first until Megumi scolded him, claiming that it would draw attention to the car if he was constantly twisting and moving.
Eventually, a familiar looking van turned onto the street and pulled into a parking space in front of Junpei’s building. Yuuji had to restrain himself from immediately jerking forward, and he instead reach a hand forward to tap on Megumi’s arm a few times, his eyes remaining firmly on the van. The other man rubbed at his face and glanced backward, but the expression he saw quickly redirected his attention. Megumi smacked Nobara’s thigh roughly and adjusted his seat again as he said, “Wake up. They’re here.”
It took another twenty minutes of waiting before three shadowy figures exited the building and piled into the van, reminiscent of the other night. When the van pulled out of its parking spot, instead of turning around to go the direction it came from, it continued down the street right toward Megumi’s car. As soon as Megumi realized that, he quickly pushed Nobara’s head down to force her to bend over the same way he was, doing his best to prevent them from being seen and ignoring the way she was whispering curses at him. Yuuji watched them duck, glanced up to the street, then threw himself as flat as he could in the backseat. The inside of the car lit up as the headlights got closer, and Yuuji held his breath as if it would help keep them all hidden.
Then the headlights passed them by, and the car was filled with shadowy darkness once more. None of them moved for a few more seconds just to be safe. Megumi was the first, letting go of the hold he had on Nobara’s hoodie and sliding up his seat slightly. Just enough to to peak out his window and into the side mirror where he watched the van continue on down the lengthy road. With that confirmed, he started up the car’s engine and motioned for the other two to sit back up, pulling out of the parking spot to follow their targets from a safe distance.
The van took several turns, leading the two vehicles to end up on a road that made it hard for Megumi to keep his distance, especially when the van seemed to go five miles under the speed limit no matter what. His fingers drummed impatiently on the steering wheel, grateful that Yuuji and Nobara were still respecting the ‘no verbal conversations’ rule as his stress slowly built. He tried to figure out what the feeling was that settled heavy on his shoulders and furrowed his brow, but Megumi shook the thoughts away to focus on the task at hand.
He continued to follow the van until it led them to a subway entrance, and by the time Megumi parked several cars behind it, Junpei had already jumped out of the van by himself. The trio watched as he headed down into the subway tunnel and the van pulled away with the others of his group still inside. Megumi could remember very few times that Junpei went somewhere without his group, but he tried to push away the thought, reasoning that since it was a small subway station, the others were going to other hot spots.
“Okay, since he’s by himself tonight,” Megumi spoke softly as he turned to face Yuuji and Nobara, “if you get the opportunity to snag him without any witnesses, do it. Otherwise, stay out of sight and stay uninvolved.” His blue-green eyes darkened when he focused fully on Yuuji. “I don’t care what happens tonight. Do not get involved.”
Yuuji held the eye contact for a brief moment, his own eyes darkening slightly. But then he nodded once in agreement, which Megumi mirrored back to him. Megumi planned to leave it at that as Yuuji and Nobara climbed out of the car to head down into the subway themselves, but that weight settled on his shoulders again.
So he rolled down the passenger window and leaned over the seat to call out, “I’ll regroup with the two of you once I hide the car.”
They nodded in agreement, and Megumi pulled away from the curb without another glance in their direction. Even though he had reassured the two of them that he would be right there, the weight on his shoulders increased the further he got from them. Thankfully, there was a parking lot nearby full of vehicles that had been left overnight by the owners, and he easily parked his car alongside the others. He reached into the middle console to grab the taser there — the same one that he had used on Yuuji during the first real meeting. But as soon as his hand wrapped around it, the sound of screeching tires cut through the otherwise silent night. Megumi’s head snapped toward the road once more, and his eyes widened at the sight that greeted him.
He sunk down into his seat until he could just barely peer over his steering wheel in hopes of not being spotted by one of the three black vans that had just pulled up outside the subway entrances and exits. Yuuji and Nobara were no where to be seen above ground, so Megumi could only assume that they were already down the stairs, leaving them trapped. The doors on all three vans opened up, and more than a handful of men dressed in all black piled out of each of the vehicles. Some of them even had weapons ready to go in their hands, others clearly energized by whatever fight they were about to get into.
Megumi dug his phone out of his pocket as quickly as he could, dialing out a call from his recents with the same insistence. The ringing tone only further heightened the panic that started to flood his veins, and he whispered, “Come on! Fucking pick up.”
“Gumi?” Satoru’s sleep thick voice finally answered, and Megumi let out a sigh of relief as his eyes slipped closed.
“Yuuji and Nobara are in trouble. You’ve gotta help us, Satoru.”