Work Text:
“I’m leaving.”
Yuji blinks at him from his place in the hospital bed, sure he’s heard his friend wrong.
“Leaving?”
Megumi stares at his hands, clasped so tightly together his knuckles are turning white. “All of it. Tokyo. Jujutsu High. Being a sorcerer. I just… I can’t do it anymore.” He takes a shaky breath. “I can’t watch you die a second time.”
“I didn’t die, Megs, I’m just fine, see,” Yuji lifts his arms to show the bandages across his chest, where a particularly nasty cursed spirit had impaled him only hours earlier. The movement makes him wince, but he means it. He’s fine. Always fine. Still kicking.
But Megumi is standing up. He looks like he might be sick.
“Your heart stopped.”
“And Ieri-san got it started again.”
Megumi’s face crumples a little as he shakes his head.
“I can’t Yuji. I’m sorry.” He slings his bag onto his shoulder, stopping to refill the flower vase that sits by Yuji’s bedside with water. “We deserve better than this. You deserve better.”
“This is better. It’s not so bad,” Yuji returns. “We do a lot of good here, don’t we? Aren’t we obligated as sorcerers to make the world a better place? To keep fighting?”
Megumi shuts the water off. He gives Yuji a hard look before crossing back to his bedside.
Yuji shifts in his sheets, waiting.
“The only reason I am still here is because of you.”
His stomach drops.
Megumi continues, adjusting the flowers delicately, with a sort of stillness and grace that only he carries.
“And not because of your powers, or you being a sorcerer, or even you defeating Sukuna. Because of you, Yuji. Just you. Because of who you are. Because I couldn’t bear to see you hurting.”
“But–”
“I’m tired of fighting. I’m tired of losing people.” He pinches a flower petal between his thumb and forefinger. “Aren’t you?”
Yuji frowns. “Of course I am, but it’s not that–”
“Then let's go.”
Yuji stares at him, and this time Megumi stares back, deadly serious.
“Let’s leave. You and me. Let’s live.”
Yuji makes a move to respond, to protest, but looking into the certainty– the fierceness– in Megumi’s eyes makes all the words dissolve in his throat like sand.
He almost died. Again. He’s seventeen years old and he’s almost died twice.
His heart beats faster.
His chest aches.
Without further conversation, Megumi takes his bag and walks out, leaving a gaping cavern of silence in his wake.
***********
It only takes a day for Megumi to pack his things. Yuji sits on the edge of his bed and watches, passively pairing his socks so he won’t have to wear mismatched ones anymore once he’s gone.
He plays music through his shitty iPhone speakers and pretends his entire world isn’t shattering around him.
Megumi doesn’t ask again. Still, the question hangs in the air like thick, rolling rain clouds– like the electricity in the air before lightning strikes.
He believes Megumi will leave without him. He also knows that if he asked, Megumi would probably stay.
But he doesn’t want that.
Because Megumi has never wanted this. He knows now, from scattered conversations, the very beginnings of his friend’s journey as a sorcerer. How he had nowhere else to go– no other way to protect his sister. How Gojo’s offer had descended like a delicious, deathly, silver platter before a boy who had spent his whole life scavenging for scraps, and he had taken it. How their sensei had taught him how to protect himself, protect others, and had made sure Megumi ate well and trained hard. How he taught him to fight, because what other way of life was there in a world trying to eat them alive?
Now, Megumi stands in the morning light passing through his blinds, folding clean laundry and humming under his breath, and Yuji thinks to himself let him go.
The world does not need a Megumi that tears into flesh with sharpened teeth. It does not need the boy that has to wash his clothes twice a day sometimes because they’re always covered in blood.
The world needs this. Megumi breathing. Existing. At rest.
Yuji needs this. Him.
The realization hits him suddenly, with a weight that steals the air from his lungs.
He hands Megumi another pair of socks and realizes there’s only ever been one answer.
“I want to go with you.”
***********
The others take the news better than he thought they would. They tell Nobara first, after she’s done training for the day. She grins at them once they’re done speaking, shaking her head as she refills her water bottle.
“You’re really doing it?”
“Yeah, and we want you to come,” Yuji breathes.
She sighs, looking back towards the field where Maki and Panda are still sparring– Yuta and Inumaki on the sidelines cheering them on. “I better not,” she says, with an easy sort of lilt. “Someone’s got to keep an eye on these idiots. Make sure they don’t burn themselves out before we’ve graduated.”
“And after that?” Megumi adds quietly.
“I’ll think about it.” Nobara swings her water bottle loosely at her side. “It’s not that I’m a big fan of all of us killing curses endlessly until they kill us first. But I also like what I do. The money is nice, plus I don’t get sent out on solo missions like the two of you. There’s always someone else who’s got my back.” She looks again at Maki, who waves this time, before twirling her weapon through the air and diving back in.
“Are you sure?” Yuji asks, a little hesitantly.
Nobara smiles. “Yeah, I’ll be alright.” She elbows Megumi lightly. “I promise not to die.”
“You better not,” he replies, seriously, and she snorts.
“Keep a guest bedroom open for me though. If things ever get bad, I’ll call a cab and join you in your life of solitude. Or maybe I’ll stop by just because. To keep you on your toes.”
“I’d like that,” Yuji says, and Megumi relaxes a little.
“We’ll try our best, but no promises. Unless you pay rent.”
She smacks him on the shoulder, and Yuji laughs, suddenly far less fearful at the idea of upending his entire life. Some things won’t change, at least.
“Where are you going, anyways?” Nobara asks, as they make their way towards the rest of the group. “Somewhere in Tokyo? Further?”
Yuji looks to Megumi, who shrugs, adjusting his shirt collar.
“We actually don’t know yet.”
“What?” Nobara exclaims. “And you’re leaving, what? Tomorrow?”
Megumi shrugs again.
“God, what would you do without me. Look, why don’t you go tell the others and I’ll start looking for airbnb’s. After that you’ll probably need Shoko or someone to help you get an apartment or a house or whatever.”
“Thanks Nobara,” Yuji says, a little sheepishly. His head swims. Apartments and houses. Tokyo and beyond.
They’re actually doing this.
“Of course you dumbass teenagers think you can just walk up and buy a house. I swear…” Nobara mutters under her breath, already typing into her phone as Megumi grabs Yuji’s sleeve, gently pulling him along to the training grounds.
Megumi explains to the other students, tone just as clipped as it always is, but with an underlying sense of confidence Yuji isn’t used to. He speaks evenly, features smooth and eyes bright. Hopeful.
Their friends’ responses vary, from confused to shocked to unsurprised. Once Megumi is finished though, Maki claps him on the shoulder and tells her she’s proud of him. And that’s that.
None of them accept the offer to leave, though Yuji was anticipating that. It doesn’t bother him like he thought it would. He looks at Maki and the others, the sheen of sweat on her brow and adrenaline making her bounce lightly from foot to foot, and suddenly understands that the future of jujustu sorcerers doesn’t have to be all sorrow and sacrifice. There is empowerment, and purpose there too, for those who would choose it.
There will always be more curses, he thinks, and there will always be more sorcerers, but only now will there be Megumi’s hand at his back as they make their way across the grounds, chatting about packed lunches for the train ride, and what color to paint their walls.
***********
Kusakabe pays for their train fare, waving them off from his office after muttering something about declining graduating classes making him look bad as a new teacher. He doesn’t say much else, nor do any of their other mentors. Higuruma offers to refer them to a good real estate agent, and Shoko promises to sign off on (or forge) any paperwork they might need to get settled. It’s nice, having the adults’ mostly silent support, even with them having spent the past year or more bringing Yuji and Megumi up as proper students and sorcerers.
He tries not to think of the civilians they are also leaving behind, the lives that will be lost due to their decision. Because as much as he’d like to avoid the truth, he knows there will be many.
But then he pictures putting Megumi in the ground sometime in the future the same way they did Choso, Nanami, Gojo, and Tsumiki, and he’s reminded in the way his chest tightens that even he cannot save everyone. No one can. But he can stand at his best friend’s side as they visit gravestone after gravestone, for what might be the last time in a long time. He can pluck the weeds from around Tsumiki’s final resting place and promise that he will take care of the little brother she spent her life trying to protect.
He can place the same flowers his grandfather always hated over his tired bones and finally feel that he’s making him proud.
He can introduce him to Megumi. Who he couldn’t really save, not in the way he thought he could, but who stands here, alive, and breathing simply because this man taught Yuji to love.
And Yuji does love. He loves Megumi in his casual clothes, all his edges somehow softened now that he’s out of his school uniform. He loves stopping at a corner bakery to try their new pastries because suddenly there are twenty four full hours in a day. He loves making Megumi laugh, or roll his eyes, or knock him with his shoulder. He loves living.
They ride the train to Sendai, and walk down the streets of Yuji’s hometown until they find the airbnb, which happens to be a short walk away from where Yuji grew up.
They order takeout, and spend far too long trying to figure out how to work the TV before giving up and pulling out an old chess set from the bottom of a nearby closet.
Yuji isn’t very good, but it’s enough to see the familiar curve of Megumi’s frown appear, not because Yuji has ended up in the infirmary again, or because he can’t quite figure out how to master a new part of his technique, but because Yuji keeps coming up with tragic backstories for all the chess pieces Megumi has captured, as a way to guilt him into giving them back.
It’s enough to lie together on two twin mattresses pushed together with their faces turned upwards, listing all the things they would like to do once they reach adulthood.
Drink. Travel. Try new foods. Go to a regular college. Buy a car. Start a personal library. Have sex. Go sky diving. Get married.
As they talk, the realization washes over Yuji.
They’re going to reach adulthood.
Only a year ago that seemed like a faraway dream. A near impossibility. A year ago they had nearly lost themselves and each other. But now…
He thinks of an older Megumi, with his divine dog curled up beside him in front of the fireplace like their shared bloodshed had been nothing but a bad dream. He thinks of Megumi with wrinkled, uneven skin that blends right into his scars, with the beginnings of smile lines whispering in the corners of his eyes.
“Yuji, you’re crying,” Megumi says, and he is.
Warm tears run down his cheeks the way snow melts in the spring and he doesn’t make any move to stop it. How could he?
“What’s wrong?” Megumi asks, worried. “Do you want to go home? Did you change your mind?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Yuji assures, turning to face Megumi. Seventeen year old Megumi who is still far too young to bear the sorrow he carries, but is growing older. Two years older than when they first met. Two years older than when Yuji was sentenced to death.
“I’m just really glad you’re here,” he manages, sniffling.
Megumi blinks at him, shocked, for a few moments. Then he pulls him into a bone-crushing hug.
“Me too,” Megumi mumbles back, burying his face in his neck.
And Yuji can tell that he means it.
It warms him, somewhere deep and hollow, fills him with liquid gold until he almost feels whole again.
Megumi strokes his hair as they take stilted, shaky breaths together– the weight of living sitting heavy in their chests.
Yuji watches him, memorizing his features with a new sense of sacredness, his heart in his throat. He thinks of dark water, of tar-black tattoos, of the innocence of a child, looking up at him through long lashes.
“Thank you for staying,” he says, and it’s not enough. It’s not all encompassing for how he feels now, how he felt when Sukuna’s foot pitched into the shadows, how he felt cradling Megumi’s beaten body, finally free from its unwelcome host for the first time in months, but it’s a start.
Megumi doesn’t say anything at first, face gone forcibly blank, like it hurts too much to move– to remember. Then he’s nodding, mouth pinching at the corners. His lip trembles.
“It’s okay,” Yuji says, and Megumi nods again. Blinks back the tears that threaten to spill over. “No one is upset with you.”
“They should be,” Megumi chokes out, but already Yuji is shushing him, hands moving to cradle his face.
“What you went through was horrible.”
Megumi shakes his head. “I should have fought back.”
“You did,” Yuji assures, brushing away a few stray tears with his thumbs. “And even if you didn’t–”
“I just laid there, waiting to die. Wanting to die.”
“Megumi.”
“I should have been stronger.”
“You really were raised by Gojo, huh?”
That snaps him out of it, if only for a moment. His face reddens. “What?”
Yuji traces the line of Megumi’s cheekbone, taking extra care where the scars disrupt the skin. Megumi doesn’t flinch away.
“You two were always so obsessed with strength. With proving yourselves. Living up to expectations,” he says, gently. “But in the end, I don’t remember Gojo-sensei for his strength, I remember him for showing up late to lessons with treats for everyone, and for his dumb jokes, and for how much he cared about helping us students. Don’t you?”
Megumi’s lips part. Close again. “I guess so,” he admits softly. “But that didn’t save him in the end.”
“No,” Yuji says thoughtfully. “It didn’t.” He continues his gentle touches. Cheekbones, brows, forehead. Megumi closes his eyes.
“Because I think even Gojo valued his own expectations of himself above all that. I think he thought that fighting was all he could do.”
Megumi frowns. “Someone had to.”
“Yes, maybe so. And it was very noble of him. But I don’t think you need to be like him. No matter how much anyone has expected that of you.”
Megumi shifts uncomfortably. “But what else is there?”
Yuji smiles softly. “Just you. Megumi Fushiguro.”
Megumi’s eyes flutter open, wide and unsure.
“I don’t think I know how to be just Megumi Fushiguro yet.”
“That’s ok,” Yuji says. “We can figure it out.”
Megumi swallows. “What if Megumi Fushiguro isn’t enough?”
“He will be.”
“I’ve only ever been good at being a sorcerer, Yuji. What if I’ve just made a massive mistake?”
“You beat me in chess,” Yuji says, and Megumi looks even more confused.
“What?”
“You said the only thing you’ve ever been good at is being a sorcerer, but that’s not true at all. You’re good at lots of things.”
“Like… chess?”
“Like chess,” Yuji repeats. “And reading people. And taking care of animals. And making me feel better when I get sad.”
Megumi looks away, shoulders hunching. “Yeah but–”
“And smart school stuff like science and math, and picking the really ripe watermelons from the store, and predicting when it’s going to rain.”
“But those things are so…”
“Cool? Unique?”
“Inconsequential.”
Yuji shrugs. “Not to me. To me they are all very important things that make up Megumi Fushiguro. ”
Megumi sighs, and Yuji grins. “I think you just need to practice being you, Megumi. That’s all.”
“That sounds scary,” Megumi admits shyly, poking Yuji with his socked foot.
He chuckles. “Well we better get started then. It won’t be so bad.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
Megumi hums, the tension in his shoulders gradually easing away as they lie together in silence.
Yuji shifts to lay on his back, gazing up at the popcorn ceiling.
Megumi breathes evenly beside him.
“Yuji?”
“Yeah?”
“If you could go back and do it all over, would you still choose for us to meet?”
Yuji doesn’t even have to think.
“Yes.”
“Even with everything that came after?”
Again. As easy as breathing. “Yes.”
He looks to Megumi, who squeezes his eyes shut. Yuji waits patiently for him to speak.
“I just can’t help but feel that I’ve ruined your life.”
The words catch him so off guard he can only manage to blink at him in silence for a few moments.
Megumi’s eyes stay shut tight. “You could have lived a normal life had I not stepped in that day. You could have been happy.”
“I am happy,” Yuji says, and finds that he’s not just saying it as a means of comfort. Here, with Megumi safe beside him, with their legs brushing under the covers, he is happy. He’s happier than he’s been in a long time.
“But you lost so much,” Megumi breathes, brows furrowed.
Yuji reaches for him, and Megumi shudders, startled enough to open his eyes again.
A sudden hand on his chest keeps Yuji from drawing any closer. Then, after a moment, it travels upward. Lithe fingertips brush over his collarbone, throat, jaw, then settle on the mottled scar at the corner of his mouth.
“You’ve hurt so much. Because of me.”
A part of him wants to crawl inside Megumi’s mind and sort everything out. He’d wait there as long as he needed, soothing the painful crevices and mending the dark pathways left by Sukuna until everything was whole again. Until the guilt was gone.
But he knows all too well the stubbornness of guilt. And grief. The way it holds on past the point of words and logic until you look in the mirror and see nothing but blood, ichor, and death, hanging on you like a second skin.
He knows now that Megumi is not a thing to be saved or fixed. That even in the wake of the end of the war, with boundless power and potential at his fingertips, he is only human.
So instead of forcing his way through muscle and bone he turns his head and presses his lips to the pads of Megumi’s fingertips– guides his hand to let him feel where his wounds have healed.
“I’m okay,” he murmurs, letting the touch travel from his cheek to his split brow. “I’m okay.”
Together, they trace down his eyelid, then further. The torn shell of an ear. A hand with too few fingers. Then, with a sharp inhale and a comforting look– under the hem of his T-shirt. Fresh bandages. Warm, uneven skin.
Megumi’s hand trembles where it rests on the center of his chest. The same place his heart had been brutally torn out years ago. Still, he doesn’t pull away.
“I’m okay,” Yuji says again, his long-healed heart beating against Megumi’s palm.
Megumi inhales, then exhales with him, his face open, searching.
“Please don’t die again,” he says, and Yuji laughs softly.
“Okay.”
“Okay,” Megumi repeats, the corner of his mouth quirking upwards.
And then Yuji kisses him.
It’s messy, and uncoordinated, and neither of them seem to know where to put their hands, but after a few seconds he feels Megumi smile against him and suddenly none of it matters. He barely has time to pull away before Megumi is drawing him back in, crawling over the top of him with an eagerness he usually only sees when he’s beating Yuji in a sparring match.
They take turns kissing and laughing and smiling and kissing until they’re both panting and red in the face, foreheads pressed together.
“It took way too long for you to do that,” Megumi says breathlessly, brushing Yuji’s slightly overgrown bangs away from his face.
“You could have kissed me first,” Yuji defends, without any bite, and Megumi huffs.
“I thought you only liked girls.”
“So did I.”
“Until?”
“Until you, obviously.”
“So why didn’t you? Before?”
Yuji closes his eyes, leaning into Megumi’s touch. Remembering.
“Well… in the beginning I spent so long thinking I would be executed that I couldn’t wrap my brain around liking anyone. It seemed useless.” He shrugs. “And then after Shibuya, it was all so confusing and twisted, I just figured anything I was feeling was better off ignored. I assumed getting close to you would only get you hurt, even though that’s the one thing I wanted.”
Megumi frowns, but says nothing, continuing his ministrations.
“But when Sukuna took over… and I saw you like that and had to let you go– it felt like my insides were being carved out. Like I had forgotten how to breathe. I knew then.”
Megumi lays his head down on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. I’d never fault you for that.”
He kisses Megumi’s temple, then shifts to wrap his arms around him.
“I wish we could have met like normal teenagers,” Megumi mumbles into his chest. It makes Yuji smile.
“I bet there’s a world where we do. Where like– we got to grow up together, or met at the library while we were studying and became high school sweethearts.”
“What if you didn’t like me in those worlds? What if we didn’t become friends?”
“We would. I know it.”
Megumi snorts. “No you don’t.”
“I do,” Yuji insists earnestly. “I just know in every universe I would see you and think, ‘wow his hair is so cool, and his eyes are so green and I’ll bet he’s really good at picking out watermelon.’ And then I would stick around until you finally let me stay. And we’d be friends.”
“Okay, I’ll take your word for it,” Megumi says, amused. “I’m glad.”
“But I like this universe too,” Yuji continues, feeling the way their chests rise and fall together. “I’m glad I get to have you in this one.”
“Even with these?” Megumi lightly pokes the scar on his brow, then the one on his chest.
“Mhm,” Yuji replies, catching Megumi’s finger to kiss across his knuckles, then, because he can’t help it, both of his cheeks.
Megumi wrinkles his nose– playfully trying to squirm away from the attention, so Yuji kisses there too, which makes them both dissolve into quiet giggles.
It’s the lightest he’s seen Megumi in a long time.
He’s drowsy by now– they both are– but not the way he used to be, where exhaustion would make him quiet and irritable and he’d disappear long before anyone else to go to bed. He’s warm and pliant and content, melting into the pillows and shaping himself around Yuji’s body like he’s filling in all the gaps in their shared puzzle to make them whole again.
Yuji tells him so– that he likes seeing him like this– lighter. Megumi tells him to go to sleep, but he smiles through it, which only makes Yuji want to stay awake longer, to preserve the moment between the pages of his memory.
Megumi kisses him goodnight– soft and sweet, with the unspoken promise that there will be more tomorrow, and the day after that. Because for the first time in seventeen years, they have time.
Time to move into an apartment with green walls and a communal garden for growing flowers and vegetables. Time to combine two bedrooms into one, with the spare decorated by Nobara for her weekends off. Time to walk the streets of Yuji’s hometown, trading stories of their childhood until they’re both laughing or crying or both.
There will be time to heal, plant new roots, and regrow.
To live, and love, and forgive.
But for now, there is Megumi’s hand in his, and air in their lungs, and that is enough.