Chapter Text
"Megumi must know."
"You’re right, Maki."
She says it with the finality of someone who’s made up her mind.
Nobara sits herself right down, across the table from Megumi. He doesn’t look up from his book. Maki sits down next to her and shifts sideways to cross her legs out from under the table. Megumi doesn’t look at either of them but Yuuji does, and he comes and sits at the head of the table, Megumi to one side, Nobara and Maki to the other. The two girls look at him and he gives them a smile which could be taken as fearful. At least cautious.
"Fushiguro," she enunciates every syllable like it’s a song. "What’s Gojo’s type?"
Megumi doesn’t look up from his book, not even when Yuuji makes a choked sound like that was not what he was expecting and he can tell laughing is also the wrong reaction.
"What, are you Todo-senpai?"
"Don’t be stupid."
Yuuji does laugh now. Both Maki and Nobara look at him and they’re not laughing so he stops.
"It’s confusing, right? He’s an anomaly of a person so his type must be some crazy, really weird one, right? Some very—"
"Inoue Waka." Megumi says. He still hasn’t looked up from his book, but he’s reread the same sentence about four times now. It’s a pretty simple sentence, too.
"Inoue Waka?" Yuuji joins in on the echoing of the name.
"I’ve never heard of her—"
"Her!?" Nobara shoves her phone right up to Megumi’s face. Megumi takes a glance. On the screen he sees she’s pulled up the Google Image search results for Inoue Waka.
"Yeah, her." He goes back to his sentence.
"Lemme see." Maki takes the phone, scrolls through some pictures. Meanwhile Yuuji’s googled Inoue-san on his own phone.
"She—" he starts saying, but gets interrupted by Maki.
"Is exactly what you'd think somehow and not at all."
"I think she's plain."
"She looks like Fushiguro," Yuuji finally says and all three look up at him, even the person in question.
"No, she doesn't—" Nobara takes her phone back and studies the pictures again. "Oh, yeah. I see it."
"Hm," Maki says. She nods.
Megumi grits his teeth and goes back to the sentence. "Was that all?"
"She’s got big boobs, too."
"Guess so," Nobara says.
"Megumi does have that early 2000s air," Maki says but not at anyone. It’s just an observation. "Shame about the no boobs."
"Was that all?" He raises the volume of his voice because he really hopes that was all and because he’s about to be extremely pissed off.
"Do you think any of them ever hooked up?" Nobara leans in, propping her chin on the back of her hands. She looks like an anime villain, like Ikari Gendo.
Yuuji opens his eyes wide and Maki has to look away, they actually sparkle. "Any of who?" he asks.
"Utahime, Mei Mei, Shoko, Gojo, them, they all went to school together right?"
"I think Iori-san is older," Yuuji says, scratching his chin.
"Besides," Megumi says as if finishing Yuuji’s train of thought but not taking his eyes off a new sentence in his book he’s only read once. "Why would they? It’s not like any of us are hooking up."
"Um."
Yuuji gasps. He might be slow on the uptake but he still gets it.
"What?" Megumi asks. He doesn’t get it.
"We are?" Nobara says, looking at Maki and then back at Megumi and Yuuji.
"Are you saying—"
"—it’s like that—"
"—between you two?"
Megumi and Yuuji speak as one, perfectly in tune.
Maki nods, waves a hand before crossing her arms.
"And Mai," Nobara says, "and what’s her name, the witchy girl."
"The witchy girl?" Yuuji sounds so surprised. He doesn’t mean to sound like someone on a reality show who just found out his housemates are getting it on on the regular but in a way, he is.
"Nishimiya," Maki supplies the name matter of factly.
"Hey, Itadori, are you and Todo—?"
"No!! That’d be in—No!"
"I don’t think so," Megumi says suddenly. Eyes on his sentence, running away from him.
"Hm?"
"That he hooked up, with any of them."
"Who’s he?" Nobara asks. Yuuji looks similarly puzzled. Maki’s smiling as if this were amusing. She should just tell them.
"Gojo," Megumi frowns. "Weren’t we talking about him?"
"Oh, yeah. You don’t, huh?"
"Maybe someone else, but he’s not around anymore."
"Oh," Nobara and Yuuji say at the same time.
"There must be a lot of those. Not around anymore."
Yuuji hangs his head and softly says "Yeah."
Megumi sighs. Third time on this sentence.
"Do you mean Geto Suguru?"
Megumi nods.
"I don’t think so," Maki says. She remembers waking up after all was over, on a bed in the infirmary ward, and Yuta and Gojo being there. "He was unchanged after the whole thing."
"You think he was unchanged?" Megumi can only see the shadow of Gojo, framed by the door, his shoulders hanging low, almost small, that Christmas Eve. He stunk of blood and smoke and debris and he smiled so sadly Megumi almost thought something had happened to Tsumiki. He had even placed his head on Megumi’s shoulder and closed his eyes, blindfold off, and whispered he was tired.
"I’ve seen him show more emotion when his ice cream melts."
Megumi looks at her, steadily, for almost a whole three seconds, before he looks back down. He’d been so angry at Gojo, who hadn’t told him about the battle, who hadn’t told him about Geto, who hadn’t waited until Megumi woke up to escape, as if he’d never shown up in the first place.
"Who else is hooking up?" he asks, eyes on his book.
Gojo comes at that exact moment and rests all the weight of his chin on Megumi’s head, a sharp pain right on Megumi’s crown, warm and familiar, that he knows better than to try to shake off. If he stays still and pretends it isn’t there, Gojo will move on to something else.
"What’s this about hooking up?"
"How long have you been eavesdropping?" Megumi asks, deadpan.
Gojo drops down on the chair next to Megumi, spreading his legs out in a way that makes Megumi cross his. He smiles widely at Megumi, all teeth showing like a cat with a wide mouth, eyes surely crinkled behind the blindfold. "Just when I heard you say hooking up. This is a school, remember?" he looks at the others, chastising. "Be more serious."
Maki groans. Dumbass blindfold probably just wants the dirt on everyone else. She’d admit defeat to the Zenin before she let Gojo know of her and Nobara willingly, he’d never stop teasing them.
"Maki, Kusakabe was looking for you. And you three," he looks at the first years, "we have training in an hour. Let’s go. I only came here to make sure you weren’t ruining another one of my shirts."
*
"Isn’t it suspicious? At a normal school showing favoritism would get him fired."
Maki looks at her like she’s lost her mind. And she might as well have. She’s crouched in front of the vending machine still undecided on what to get. Maki’s back is flat against the wall next to the machine and she has one leg up while she scratches her knee. It’s hot out.
"A normal school, Nobara, are you for real?"
"Whatever."
"Who’s gonna fire the strongest sorcerer, anyway? Besides, it makes sense, considering."
Nobara grew up in a small town. There are few things that get a small town going than gossip, and one of that’s the whiff of scandal, scandalous gossip. There’s little else to do, after all. It destroyed Saori, even. Nobara grew up in a small town and she grew out of it the minute she was born and still sometimes her ears perk up at any hint of impropriety.
"Considering what?" she asks, having finally chosen, pressing the button on Milk and Coffee in a can. She’s an expert in the art of indifference.
"You know, that he helped Megumi escape the Zenin, and all."
Nobara’s jaw drops. The can of coffee drops to the bottom of the vending machine for her to rescue. A shoe drops somewhere, too.
"What!?"
"You don’t know? It’s not my place to tell if so. I figured he would’ve told you."
A million thoughts race through Nobara’s mind and there’s a million questions she needs answered.
"Why didn’t he help you?" she asks, her voice not even a millimeter softer. Maki appreciates that she doesn’t soften it, that she doesn’t treat her like a fragile thing whose past defines her.
She looks at Nobara and shrugs. "I don’t think he knew."
Her fingers brush Nobara’s as she steals the coffee can from her and takes a sip before giving it back. "Too sweet," she makes a face.
Nobara brings the can to her own mouth and tastes the coffee. It’s just right.
She stands upright, in front of Maki, and gets so close the only option for Maki would be to melt into the wall.
"I like it that way," she says, slipping Maki’s lifted leg between her own, her face close enough her breath must be steaming Maki’s glasses, unflinching from her position.
"Just shut up and kiss me."
"Make me."
Maki groans and leans forward, kissing Nobara’s lips, wet with too sweet coffee and her own distinctly tasting saliva. She finds herself smiling into the kiss and feels she doesn’t even recognize herself.
They both called it hooking up and implied it was as casual as what Mai has with Nishimiya—who are probably using each other—and she pretended it hadn’t stung that Nobara hadn’t even tried to talk to her about it, later, and the first conversation they get to have after they were both called away by their respective teachers is about whether one of those teachers is laying his hands on a student. But she smiles all the same and she bucks her hips all the same—to be blessed like this that just her muscles tightening are enough to get her off, something Nobara adores and envies, it drives her insane—and her hands wander beneath Nobara’s shirt, over her abs, close to her bra, under the wire, her nail just slightly grazing her nipple, that’s hardening to her touch, before Nobara breaks away from the kiss, gasping, her voice rasp.
"Let’s go to my room."
And Maki says "Yes," obediently, not even Yeah, and feels she doesn’t even recognize herself.
*
"What!?" Megumi yells. He’s tired and defeated and bruised because Gojo won’t stop winning—it was him who asked Gojo to train him, so it’s all his fault—but he didn’t come here to be insulted, too. "Are you saying I’m not trying my best!?" He’s sitting legs crossed on the tatami floor and Gojo’s still standing after another round that’s ended in his favor, looking down on him behind those stupid thin sunglasses. How many different pairs of those dumb things does he need, anyway?
"No. I’m saying you don’t know how," Gojo raises his hand, index finger pointing upwards. "You sacrifice yourself so others can advance, good for you, but people like Yuuji and I," Gojo lowers his sunglasses, just a tad, "we never do. Being a Jujutsu sorcerer is an individual sport." Gojo crouches down in front of Megumi, their faces at eye level. "You’ll always die alone," he says looking Megumi straight in the eye. "Right now, you're just trying to match up to those around you instead of picturing a stronger, future you. Maybe it’s because of that ace up your sleeve you think it’ll all end well if you sacrifice yourself. Keep that up and you can forget about becoming stronger than me. You won’t even match up to Nanami. Give it your all, Megumi." Gojo flicks Megumi’s forehead with his index finger, putting enough cursed energy behind it to blow Megumi’s hair back but absolutely no physical strength so it feels like a light, playful touch. "It’s okay to be selfish," Gojo says and smiles, looking at him from above the rim of his sunglasses. "Just try it, Megumi."
Megumi swallows. He swallows the way Gojo looks at him and their closeness and the words Gojo has just finished saying and the way Gojo makes his name, the stupid name his good for nothing father gave him, sound, like it was beautiful, like it was a crime.
If anyone could teach Megumi to be selfish, it would be Gojo. A whole course. Gojo knows Megumi would need intense training, to that respect, and even then he might never fully master it. But if he at least masters it as a sorcerer, Gojo’s job will have been done.
"I have something to say," Megumi says, almost breathless. Gojo’s still crouching in front of him, their faces at eye level, only half an arm’s length apart, and his hand is still suspended in the distance between them, as if he didn’t know where else to put it, because he doesn’t.
"Sure."
"I love you," Megumi says.
It’s not as heavy as he thought it would be, it rolls off his tongue and slips out his mouth so easily, as if all the years the words have been powering up inside himself just made it easier for him to say them, for him to push them out. It feels like relief and pain applied to the same area, like when you stub a toe and the pain is unbearable but then it ends and the relief is enormous except it’s all happening at once.
Gojo tilts his head so that his sunglasses will cover his eyes once again and he doesn’t say anything for a while that’s far too long for either of their comfort.
"It doesn't concern you, though," Megumi says. He doesn’t look away from Gojo even though now he can’t see Gojo’s eyes. "I just wanted to say it."
Try to be selfish. Gojo guesses Megumi might actually be pretty good at that course.
"How does it not concern me?" He knows he’s told Megumi his own personal theory of love.
"There’s nothing for you to do. As I said, I just wanted to say it."
Megumi puts his weight on his knees and stands. He watches Gojo watch him from his crouched position and then he bows.
"Thanks for training with me," he says and walks away.
Gojo catches his head on one hand and smiles like a madman at the emptiness of the room. He scratches his head and then hangs it, covering his mouth with his hand, the weight of his other arm supported only by his knee now, limp and tingly like his heart, like his stomach.
Megumi’s already this strong.