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Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table ;
Forward — Prophecy: Foreshadowing Through The Use Of Symbolic Objects
Tsumiki had these garbage romance novels. She collected them. It was a hobby of hers, to go to second-hand book sales with nothing but the loose change in her pocket and the desire to find the raunchiest and most ridiculous covers. By her hospital bed, whenever he had the time, Megumi would sit and read them aloud to her. Punishment for wasting her money, for wasting her time, for wasting away among the sheets and pillows and machines.
There were always these oh moments between the characters, where all of a sudden they would understand their own damn feelings and realize their undying passion and become useless sacks of hormones and meat for the rest of the damn story. Megumi thought they were idiotic. Illogical. Impossible.
“His scent was deep and musky.” Megumi reads, his voice now hoarse and raspy. He runs his dry tongue along his drier lips. “It intoxicated her like nothing she had ever drunk before.”
The only reply he ever received was the steady, ever-present beeping of the machines. It sounds in the back of his head, like a memory, like a ghost, whenever he pulls the books out from under his bed and turns them over in his palms. It lingers long after he’s put them away.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo
Chapter One — Desire: What Do You Want?
Yuuji’s hands, calloused and warm, wrapped around his own. Yuuji’s face, split wide with a smile that seems to shine brighter than the sun painting a halo around his head. Yuuji’s voice, ringing as clear as church bells in the valley with sparks of joy like fireworks popping all the way through. “Careful Fushiguro!” He laughs. His eyes sparkle like pennies in a fountain. “You almost fell!”
I did. Megumi thinks, helpless and hopeless and hours after the echoes of Yuuji’s palms have faded into static. Dear God did I ever.
His world ends with neither a bang or a whimper, but the pounding of his heartbeat somewhere in the space between his ears, louder than thunder in the dead of night.
+
Yuuji cooks them dinner, and breakfast, and lunch on the days when they don’t have leftovers to do so. It’s not better than what they were being fed before, nor is it worse. But it’s warmer, like it was cooked over the hearth instead of a rickety old gas stove in desperate need of upgrading. Megumi wakes most mornings to the smell of butter on the pan and to the sound of off-key singing to the radio.
Yuuji grins when he walks in, apron tied in a bow that settles on the band of his basketball shorts. The sun is just beginning to rise, orange light filtering through the clouds, burning like fire on the edge of the horizon. “Good morning!” He smiles. It burns like a bonfire to the tips of Megumi’s fingers. His gaze shifts from Megumi’s face to the window, eyes wistful and fond. “It’s gorgeous, isn’t it.”
Megumi swallows, his mouth dry. “Yeah.” He rasps. “It is.”
He watches Yuuji watch the sun rise, and feels his knees give way, melting like butter on the pan at the crack of dawn.
+
“You divide by six on both sides, right?” Yuuji asks, open and earnest, like Megumi’s supposed to give a shit about algebra in this moment. He can’t quite hear the words that Yuuji’s saying, it’s more like he feels each and every syllable resonate deep in his chest. They’re sat next to each other, close enough for their ankles to brush underneath the table, close enough for Megumi to count the freckles scattered across Yuuji’s sun-kissed cheeks. He’s almost too scared to breathe, this close, chest tight around something too warm and bright to name.
Yuuji turns. His brown eyes are flecked with gold in the sunlight streaming through the library window. There's a streak of blue at the corner of his mouth from the pen he’s been pressing into his cheek. It makes his lips look that much pinker, that much softer. They part, and the breath Yuuji takes threatens to shatter Megumi right then and there. “Fushiguro?” He asks, voice as light as dandelions on the back of the summer breeze.
“Guh?” Megumi replies intelligently, trying to remember how to breathe.
“Is this right?” Yuuji pushes the paper over. Megumi barely manages to tear his eyes away from the edge of Yuuji’s jaw to stare at the page.
“Yeah.” He says, not registering a single thing written. Yuuji cheers beside him, bright and blooming like summer rain, loud enough for the librarian to shush them angrily, beautiful enough for Megumi to feel the world crack and shift beneath his feet.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Chapter Two — Obstacles: What’s In Your Way?
Megumi flinches away from the palm that presses against his shoulder-blades, whirling around to see Yuuji, palms open by his face defensively, expression one of sheepish shock. “Sorry!” He yelps. “Sorry, I just…”
He trails off. He doesn’t have to finish. Megumi’s skin trembles like the Earth does under lightning, skin sparking in the wake of Yuuji’s touch. The bump of the scar seems to burn, long and thin and curving parallel to his spine, up his back, all the way to the edge of his shoulder. It ends there like a set of broken train tracks, on the precipice of something Megumi doesn’t know how to name.
He could tell Yuuji that it wasn’t his hands that carved that mark into his flesh. It wasn’t even Sukuna’s. He could say the truth, that these scars are unrelated and unimportant but then there is the underlying implication of ‘these’ it would be salt in a wound that he is not yet fit to tend to. Because he cannot lie to Itadori Yuuji, cannot hide the jagged streaks of gnarled flesh that came at his hands, normally so kind and gentle but gripped with a malice far beyond their comprehension.
So Megumi lets the regret fester in Yuuji’s eyes. Lets the apologies spill from his lips. Accepts it with a hand wave and few sparse words, because he knows damn well that there’s no salve to soothe this kind of hurt.
+
The nightmares don’t stop after Yuuji’s return. Revival. Resurrection. Whatever the name it does jack shit in terms of taming the monsters plaguing Megumi’s dreams. If anything they seem to grow, evolve, diversify in misery and monstrosity. He sees Nobara crushed into the wall the way his shikigami was, eyes normally full of fire now hollow and cold. He sees Gojou’s limp body skewered on Sukuna’s nails, blood streaking out from under his blindfold like red tears. He sees Tsumiki, still in her bed, the same way he left her, but the ever-present beeping of the machines is gone, the air so silent he can only hear his own breathing.
He sees Yuuji, desperately reaching out to a body mangled beyond belief, something akin to mercy in his eyes. He sees Yuuji, jaw slack with a stunned sort of terror, staring at the blood gushing out from the stump of his hand. He sees Yuuji’s dead body, limp on the ground, staining the puddles of rainwater red. He never sees Yuuji in the potential, the way he sees everyone else. He always sees Yuuji in the past tense, because the nauseating moment always comes with the feeling that flashes through his mind, as clear as a cloud in the bright blue side, of undeniable and overwhelming relief.
Megumi always wakes with a start, sheets soaked with sweat and chest heaving with shaky breaths, his lips trembling with the residual warmth that comes from kissing a walking corpse.
+
It irks him, there, at that restaurant sat at that table with Nobara’s elbow digging into his side, that he can only be impressed. That he can watch the boy he loves effortlessly and unknowingly stop the heart of a maiden in love with nothing but some careless words and carefree kindness that Yuuji offers by the handful.
He’d offer his own heart, if he could, Megumi thinks as he watches Yuuji’s open and honest gaze. Yuuji would dig his nails into his chest and pry his heart out from behind his ribs and offer it, open on his palm, with the kind of earnestness most people don’t deserve. That’s what Megumi had thought, back then, the rain beating overhead and a pool of blood staining his shoes. That above all else he should have died because he didn’t deserve to live in Yuuji’s stead. But that’s the difference between them, the kind of distinction that carves canyons into the earth to separate what shouldn’t overlap.
Yuuji puts his bleeding heart on the table. Ozawa’s cheeks flush scarlet as her breath hitches in her chest. Nobara scowls as she begrudgingly mutters her praise, showing off her crimson stained teeth. Megumi agrees, quietly, whole-heartedly, turning the pages of his book with shaking hands, leaving vermillion fingerprints on every fucking page.
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
Chapter Three — Action: Why Should You Do It Anyways?
Tsumiki had these garbage romance novels. She collected them. It was a hobby of hers, to go to second-hand book sales, honing in on the most ridiculous and trashy of the lot with laser sharp precision, finding nothing but the worst of the absolute worst. By her hospital bed, whenever he had the time, Megumi would sit and read them aloud to her. Because there was never anyone else to fill the silence. Because the silence was so vast it threatened to swallow him whole. Because with enough inflection in just the right places, he could almost hear her laughter instead of the shallow breaths that she almost seemed to be fighting for.
There was always some sort of turning point within the main character, where all of a sudden they would put aside their waffling and whining and grow a goddamn spine along with a resolve and continue the story with a single-minded determination towards their beloved. Megumi thought they were absurd. Asinine. Absolutely fucking dumb.
“She steeled herself, straightened her spine and sucked in a deep breath.” Megumi had read, his voice scraping around every syllable. It sounds murky, here, under the static of his dream, spilling forth from Yuuji’s blood-stained lips. “She wasn’t going to wait a moment longer.”
Megumi wakes up, sheets stuck to his skin, the last syllables of Yuuji’s voice fading away until the siren song of cicadas drowns it out completely.
+
They’re spread out beneath the sun, sprawled across the grass on their backs, squinting against the rays beating down on their heads. Just the two of them, there, together, sweating cool on their skin, hands close enough that their fingertips could brush if Megumi reached for it. There’s laughter still dusting the edge of Yuuji’s little snickers that are sporadic and sudden, each one prompting a smile of Megumi’s own.
Dandelion fluff floats by on the breeze, dancing across the endless blue expanse for disappearing out of sight. Yuuji is saying something, aimless and harmless, voice ringing as clear as church bells in the valley with sparks of joy like fireworks popping all the way through. The burning heat from the sun high above seems to pale in comparison to the warmth by Megumi’s side, as familiar and steady as his own heartbeat in his chest.
“Fushiguro.” Yuuji is saying. Megumi turns his head and meets his eyes, flecked with gold and green, soft with something too big and bright to name. A pink tongue darts out to wet pinker lips, the freckles on his skin shift as he repeats, softer this time, “Fushiguro.”
Megumi feels the gentle brush of knuckles against the tips of his fingers, tentative and testing, ripples on a surface of a lake that has patiently laid stagnant through the winter. The ice cracks, and melts, giving way to depths that are as bright and blue as the sky above.
Megumi swallows his heart, and reaches out. Yuuji’s palm is thick with callouses and slick with sweat. It does not give way under the weight of Megumi’s hands, it does not crumble into ash in his grip.
“Itadori.” Megumi rasps back, watching something blossom on Yuuji’s face that makes the world seem to crack beneath him, and finding that he cannot bring himself to care as he crumbles away.
+
Megumi chose to save selfishly, that day, standing there in the rain, his hands curled into fists and his every breath sending hot flashes of pain straight to his core. It’s with his lips pressed to Yuuji’s pulse, in the heavy haze of sleep, that Megumi makes a similar sort of conviction about love.
He drinks in the warmth of Yuuji’s frame with the desperation of a dying man at an oasis. He knows not when the body bracketing his own will turn cold, after all.
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.
Afterword — Fulfillment: Symbolic Objects As A Means Of Foreshadowing
The edge of the book’s spine digs into Megumi’s scalp, but he doesn’t quite mind, the comfort of his head pillowed against Yuuji’s thighs outweighing any annoyance from their current position. Yuuji’s voice is not stiff nor is it steady, if anything it is an irritant — he tends to run words together and miss half the syllables, he puts on awful accents for the characters that he never manages to keep consistent, he never breathes at periods or the commas, he laughs his way through all the dialogue.
“They settled into each other's arms, content to lay there in the pale rays of the moon.” He says, and it’s only by the sound of the book snapping shut that Megumi knows it’s the end. The sharp pressure against his scalp lifts, quickly replaced by the steady and soothing motions of Yuuji’s fingers combing through his hair. “Man, that was terrible.”
Megumi presses his snickers into the folds of Yuuji’s sweatpants, swatting fondly at his leg. “I told you it was a waste of time.” He admonishes fondly. Yuuji flicks his forehead.
“I didn’t think it would be that bad!” Yuuji’s protests are as light as air, trembling the laughter that Megumi feels in his core. “Man, what a waste of money.”
Megumi hums, closing his eyes, letting the rhythm of Yuuji’s hands wash over him like a wave. “Fuel to burn.” He suggests, bursting into laughter when Yuuji blows a raspberry against his neck as punishment. “You fucking ass , c’mere—”
He lunges, knocking the book to the floor. It clatters, sending dust flying into the air, scattering through the path of a sunbeam like stars in the sky. Megumi doesn’t notice. Neither of them do.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.