𝘖𝘱𝘦𝘯.

[unequally]

s h a d o w;
1. a dark area or shape produced by a body coming between rays of light and a surface.
2. used in reference to proximity, ominous oppressiveness, or sadness and gloom.
OTA 25/8 - Action, Texts, Etc.
( art )

Comments

【 self-neglect, externalized. 】

[resignations]

[ toji doesn't reach out.

what he does, instead, is this: ask gojo for money. every year, without fail, since the day that that silver-haired monster almost ripped his torso in half, toji sends gojo precisely one text message with the details to his newest bank account, and waits for the zeros to fill. simple. transactional. a promise in numbers that the kid with the blessing in his name is, at the very least, alive.

(toji isn't expecting photos, or updates, or well-wishes. the red in his ledger stacks up.

every year, he does what he always does. pretends not to see it.)

toji remains invisible. takes the occasional job in between his betting, his floating, his self-destruction. when his wallet starts to thin, he remembers the vague outline of a sullen child sitting in the corner of their shitty two-bedroom apartment— cashes in his pachinko earnings for a six-pack of beer, and falls asleep on bare tatami.

all this to say that this year, gojo is late with his payment. toji's heard something through the jujutsu community grapevine (his knife half an inch into his mark's neck, fingers stained red) about the kid being kept busy by some unfortunate circumstances, something about a teenager and ryomen sukuna's finger, something about a vessel, whatever whatever.

doesn't matter, really. toji just wants to get paid.

so he meanders through tokyo, through familiar routes and pathways until he reaches the jujutsu technical college, because— well. who knows? maybe he just wants to see gojo squirm. remind that shitty kid of ghosts in his past and present. make him uncomfortable.

(maybe he thinks he'll get a glimpse of black hair, the stubborn set of soft jaws that remind him too much of someone he'll never get back. whatever.)

anyway.

invisible and silent, toji threads through thick forest and, because serendipity is real and also a curse, winds up invading the silent halls of the boy's dormitory past sunset.

more specifically: he opens the nearest window and crawls in, which happens to be the window to megumi's room.

sorry, kiddo. ]

[unequally]

[ it's too early to sleep and also too late to be doing anything else. the room next door to fushiguro megumi looks like someone still lives there. the first time he'd woken up after the detention center briefly, recognized the back of gojo's head, and fallen under again.

the second time he was alone and more or less healed with a few bandages to his name, and he'd walked himself to where itadori should have been. he wasn't, of course and megumi did not go in, did not want to see or hear failure smile back at him as the memory of a person his own age who shouldn't have died.

the third time he wakes up, it's because a sound pries him out of his sleep with light fingers.

it takes him a moment too long to understand in the dim nearly dark out cast of things, that he is indeed seeing a man in his room. but weirdly or not, it's not the stranger in and of himself that puts megumi off.

it's his cursed energy. or lack thereof.

completely devoid.

this, he processes faster than the words, and he's on his feet with the modest distance of the bed and most of the floor between them, fallen immediately into a defensive stance. it's kind of weak, he'll concede, to go paranoid right away but what is this person?? he's never even heard of someone like this.

at the same time, he knows he's not dreaming.

he doesn't say anything, but there's a tightness in his throat that's not so much fear as complete bafflement with weights around its ankles. ]

[resignations]

[ toji casts a long shadow over hardwood flooring; a vague outline of a human stretching from window to bed. the only proof of him being real, tangible, and present.

cold green eyes swivel, and set on the thin boy with his hands folded in defense. if toji lacks presence, he also lacks urgency— the leonine set of his mouth is half-amused, half-indifferent. as if he's meant to be there, instead of being a suspect of a semi-home invasion.

he rolls his shoulders. slow, unconcerned. recognition comes slowly, and he doesn't dwell on how similar this kid's features are to his. ]

Ahh. [ a low drawl, almost a yawn. ] ...This your room?

[ like, literally obviously it is???? thanks toji. then: ] Boring. Not even a single gravure poster?

【 damned if you do damned if you don't 】

[unequally]

[ up until now, megumi hasn't asked gojou satoru for anything. he hasn't even asked him for finances because that was a mutual agreement when he was six and he's fourteen now and some things are long gone givens. will tsumiki be happy? no? then the zen'in clan and their name held no allure. by making that choice, with no skin off his own back, megumi had stupidly thought: we'll be okay.

the nature of tsumiki's curse is mysterious. and his illustrious his teacher of the six eyes and the limitless? he cannot help her. if he was a different person, megumi might wonder what good the godhand gojou was born to wield is. but megumi is megumi. he accepts that people — even the singularity known as gojou satoru — may have limits, and that things are unfair and that, for the moment, nothing can be done.

it would be a lie to say he doesn't wonder why it couldn't have been him.

toji might or might not know when tsumiki falls. megumi isn't sure if he's checked his phone or if the job he took has him entirely insulated from anything else happening. there's no set date for his return, since jobs aren't scheduled in stone (no doubt due to the nature of some if not all of them.) and, in an uncharacteristic turn of behavior, megumi...loses track of time. just a little; just enough.

was it yesterday? he's not sure. was it today? he's not sure.

gojou, in a rare fragment of being the adult he's supposed to be, tells megumi they'll dial it back on assignments, to which megumi tells him 'no', to which gojou laughs without even a ghost of humor, grips his shoulder a little too tight for plain comfort and tells him: megumi-kun should at least pretend to listen to me. it reminds megumi, a bit, of the bravado the man had crouched down in front of him with, of the disconnected laugh he had when they first met, and megumi thought: how annoying, how ridiculous, how stupid. all of that. even while recognizing without even trying how strong he was.

he doesn't want the expectations to lighten; he can't live with himself like that.

it's still the edge of summer however, and jobs aren't overflowing just yet.

one or two or three or however many days pass and megumi is 'home' though he doesn't remember coming home. tsumiki's room is neat and clean. the entire modest flat is clean — "clean" the way people make spaces when they're waiting for someone they already know isn't coming. if he goes now to visit her, hours are over but he could sneak in; he knows he could.

not wholly resolved, he tugs at the loose collar of a shirt that's too big all over (comfortable he had said to tsumiki who didn't hide her concern that her younger brother was going with the homeless aesthetic too far) and pads toward the door, shoving his foot into one shoe and...pauses. maybe he should try calling toji again.

outside he can hear signs of life from other people to a stray cat to whatever's rummaging around in the trash. nothing has stopped just because tsumiki has stopped; not even megumi, who, one shoe on, tugs his phone out and scrolls to gojou and then toji and then figures forget it and slips it back into his pocket before pulling his other shoe on. these pants are too short but they're again comfortable. they're clean too. tsumiki washed everything...

...just before that. he guesses.

he spaces out, not meaning to, faintly aware of his phone buzzing — gojou in fact, something along the lines of if you want to stay busy... which is not so veiled code for if you're up to it and if you need to kill your time productively. in his own way, megumi is aware, gojou cares. if he's 100% honest, he thinks toji cares too even if he doesn't want to, perhaps. but to say both the adults in his life leave a lot to be desire would be a severe understatement.

but, you know what they say; beggars can't be choosers. ]

[resignations]

[ toji has his knife an inch and a half in a sorcerer's side when he gets the news.

it's a series of texts from gojou that interrupts him mid-interrogation, curt and to the point: something happened to tsumiki. we're working on it, so don't jeopardize your current mission. megumi is okay.

"megumi is okay."

toji reads the texts. the man still bleeding on the chair in front of him whimpers, and toji remembers how the council of elders told him, before he said yes to the job, to keep the pathetic worm alive. (for his information? for his ties to a more rebellious network? for the potential in his blood?)

something happened to tsumiki, he reads again, and twists the blade in his mark's gut until he feels soft vitals yield to the upwards grind.

(like his son, maybe he wants to balance the scales: to make an underserving soul suffer for the injustice done to a girl bearing his name. sentiment, turned sour.)

toji suffers the consequences for his insubordination. his phone vibrates once, twice, and never again while he sits, seiza-style, in front of a group of old men who have always seen him as nothing more than a dog. bites back each and every threat of death loaded in the back of his throat until he's released, covered in invisible bile, and glances at his phone history. not a word from megumi.

it's difficult to know what he feels about any of this.

(he throws his phone into moving traffic as he makes his way home, watches a bus roll over the LED and smash it into bits; it doesn't give him the satisfaction he wants, but the act of destruction, at least, distracts him from himself.)

when he gets home— which feels less like a home than a destination, a point B to a point A— the place is dark. quiet, except for the stirring of a boy who, toji knows, is just as awkward as he is about knowing what to do with matters of the heart. this, he's come to understand in the handful of years he's spent in megumi's peripheral; this, he's finally come to terms with in the time he's allowed himself to be more than just the jujutsu world's invisible man.

toji still reeks of blood when he steps inside. red on the heels of his soft shoes, his black shirt weighted with rust and sticking to his stomach. ]

—Yo. [ he knows why megumi is here, dressed to leave with his shoes on. there's nothing more to say about that, so he doesn't. ] Let's go.

[ it's way past the visitation hours that are allotted to them, but when has toji ever cared about what he's been allowed or unallowed? he doesn't want to see the shape of megumi's grief in the pitch-black of the unlit apartment, so this, he doesn't bother with, either.

(it's too much, for now.) ]

[unequally]

[ despite having years 'together' under his belt, megumi still has a hard time sensing when toji is there or not there, close-by or far-away. today at least he can, in theory, attribute this shortcoming to grief. or, so someone who isn't megumi might say; but megumi himself can only feel that particular self-inflicted brand of criticism: stop being surprised; start noticing. never mind that the ingratitudes and regimented abuse of pure zen'ins and others of similar ilk have forced or compelled fushiguro toji into an animal beyond instinct. megumi's instincts aren't bad either. but there is a world in their divide.

the smell of blood drags the words out of him. ]

Change first.

[ he doesn't stop to think that he's ordering around his father, that he shouldn't expect toji to listen, that time here is wasted. megumi can't quite manage it still — thinking too close to the point of things, feeling too much in the eye of it all. he holds himself together with the misguided aspirations of adulthood, the shapechanger called responsibility, and the bedfellow for anyone involved with curses at any age: failure.

tsumiki would tell them to rest, to eat, to not worry. tsumiki would, even if she were barely conscious, say these things and smile and it's that stark absence more than the actual dark of the flat that closes up in megumi's throat like a fist. like a shadow something unnameable could crawl out of unsummoned; if it really wanted to.

if he really — bone and blood deep whatever his ethics on his skin and in his eyes — wanted it to.

whether or not toji listens to him, megumi hasn't thought that far; if he'll insist, if he'll just leave anyway, or if it will be neither of these things. in his pocket, his phone buzzes: gojou, looking out for him in his own weird irresponsible way. he knows who it is, because it's not like there's anyone else in megumi's phone other than him, toji, and tsumiki. he sighs.

even that seems strangely muted. ]

【 shadow 】

[unequally]

[ it isn't until maki takes him aside and tells — not asks — him:

"so you're just going to keep on ignoring your new stalker."

well okay it's sort of a question; sort of. maki doesn't let him off from close combat practice. if anything, she goes harder on him and megumi appreciates it even as he can't help but be distracted the entire time. he doesn't feel anyone following him but then why would he? the man who was in his room when he slipped under that night felt almost like a phantom of megumi's subconscious rather than a blood and flesh creature.

of all people though, maki would know and notice.

she makes him use the three part staff and megumi isn't the type to groan out loud but it shows on his face because that's the kind of thing that makes maki smile, which she does. he's not horrible with it; he just isn't good with it either, which in a real fight is as good as bad actually, so never mind. he's not a slow learner. what he started as on day one to where he is now in under a week is something ordinary teachers would remark on. but thankfully maki isn't ordinary — not to megumi anyway, not to nobara either if he's read her right. okkotsu too, respects her. and there's always a reason for that. she doesn't compliment and she doesn't let up and she does get the best out of him.

it strikes megumi that she and the man in his room are similar.

then he wipes that thought away.

how would he know.

father or not.

how would he know.

it's not memory that tells him anything after all. it's just having eyes and not being willing to blind himself too much to what is right in front of him. or was.

and apparently is, now, metaphorically or literally or both, somewhere behind him.

he sighs. maki lands three out of the four last hits she aims at him.

to inumaki's riceball coded query, he tells him he's fine. to kugisaki's much more veiled concern, he remarks on the number of throws panda put her through and she nearly throttles him ("next time it's your turn fushiguro!!!!!!") panda doesn't say anything to him but panda always Notices things and megumi sort of feels the attention until he's out of view.

his wing of the dormitories remains unoccupied except for himself.

he hasn't tried to go into itadori's room since that night all he wanted to do was keep that as good as stranger out of it.

rather than enter the hall, he finds himself peering up at the roof. the sun has already set. he's tired.

but maki isn't typically wrong about these things. and since megumi hasn't heard from gojou, he doubts his 'debt collector' has.

debt collector. what does that even mean.

feeling not a little foolish, megumi scales the modest height of the dormitory to the roof where he half expects to find no one and entirely expects to not know what to do either way.

not a great plan but he's under no illusion as such.

he just wants to know and go from there. ]

I'M STILL HERE FINALLY AFTER 500 YEARS!!!

[resignations]

[ so it's a zen'in that betrays toji― typical.

the invisible man, and the girl for whom curses are invisible. toji knows of maki, academically: in that vague interim period between a transaction and its failure to execute, he'd heard of naobito and his twin girls who were, from naobito's mouth, 'mediocre at best'. the elder, an echo of a failure that fled from the zen'in gate, ages ago. how ironic, that it should be him who brings a promising future generation to the family.

not that toji kept that promise. that's a recurring theme with him.

he knows that it's animal instinct that clued that so-called talentless girl in to his existence. that she's the one who poked at megumi's awareness and reminded him that debt collectors are persistent. that she's likely the only one who could relate to a phantom enough to understand that they can be self-destructive. foolish.

toji is lying on his back on warm tiles when megumi finds him, his limbs splayed and his clothes the same monochromatic ensemble from the top-down (he's been 'borrowing' the dorm's laundry room; if megumi's noticed the dwindling detergent, now he knows the culprit).

green eyes flick sideways to meet the boy's gaze. they close a moment later; a lion in repose. ]

Took you long enough.

/gathers you in this direction relentlessly!!!!!!

[unequally]

What are you still doing here?

[ point blank. what other questions could he have? well. some. a few. many. present this situation to a class and they'd have ten thousand opinions and most of them probably not particularly good. of course, as people often say: they don't have all the facts. megumi also does not have all the facts. he wonders which ones this man has, this person who somehow makes dozing on the dormitory roof look akin to sunbathing on an island beach, like he makes each space his own in sheer defiance of whatever it was supposed to be or actually even is. weirdly or not, he's reminded of maki and can almost feel her slapping him upside the head with the blunted end of any given weapon for even thinking as much. not that it's a negative thing. megumi doesn't know what it is exactly; just an observation.

before he closed his eyes, megumi caught the specific and too familiar green of them, felt like the sun scooped the iris into its hand and threw it at him as if to say: this is the truth whether you like it or not.

no wonder he's more comfortable with the shadows.

(that's a lie. but maybe the shadows are more comfortable with him.)

at the lower angle, looking up at him makes the sleeping predator impression even more....well, more. it remains hard to describe why this man who feels like 'nothing' feels more dangerous than anything else megumi has encountered so far — scratch that, almost more dangerous; there's just something about four red eyes and your responsibility's blood and your friend's heart in the grass that outstrips just a little. the nothingness, sure, has a component of danger; like not being able to tell where or if inumaki is around when he's on the other side. but it's not just that. something about it is...more personal.

i haven't seen him in years. i don't remember —

megumi feels his hands curl at his sides and forcibly uncurls them, makes them empty and limp and without much to say.

waits. ]

tfln!!!

[deathrow]

[from here!]

sea urchin is kinda cute! if thats what you wanna go for

oh!!!!! let me cut it for you!!!

<3

[unequally]

It's not what I want to go for but if that's how people see it I also don't mind?

[ path of least resistance much megumi... ]

Have you cut other people's hair before?

[deathrow]

that's pretty sweet of you fushiguro (*•̀ᴗ•́*)و ̑̑

be the best looking sea urchin ✶ out there!

well i cut my own hair does that help?

tfln.

[internalizer]

continued from here.

Well if we go out in the city we could have crepes or cream puffs... Or we can go to the music stores. Or the Illuminations!

Did you have an idea?

<3

[unequally]

I didn't. I was just curious what your ideas would be.

[ he realizes after a second that might not be helpful and adds, ]

Any of those sound fine.

[internalizer]

That kinda makes it sound like a test. But I guess that means I pass right?



You really don't have any preference at all??

that one au

[kugisaki]

Fushiguro.

Why don't you have a Facebook?

the judgment in her icon is palpable

[unequally]

Because it's Facebook.

( tfln )

[tepidity]

( from here )

[ nisaka hesitates. debates answering.

then ultimately decides to take a chance: ]

Often enough that I'll see you again?

[ this isn't at all like him, but he figures if the worst comes to pass, he can just delete this number and avoid that path home for the rest of his life. it's no more inconvenient than all the hiding his does on the regular. ]

[unequally]

Probably.

[ megumi likewise debates his answer. he knows the rules and generally abides by them (you know until he doesn't...) but especially involving a civilian like this...but if he's not explicit in what's going on that is fine? it makes it worse actually. hm. he knows what tsumiki would do in his situation, his sister being kinder and more open about it to boot. but tsumiki would never be in this situation in the first place so why compare? because he can't help it. even as he criticizes people for being kind or too soft, it might as well be the pot calling the kettle black. ultimately it is only a second later from the first text that he sends, ]

My part-time work brings me there a lot. It might be easier to just transfer.

[ that's not a lie. they send megumi out to this area at least once every two weeks if not more, definitely more in the winter. ]

i'm just as greedy 4 threads

[kugisaki]

( cont. from here )

[ if itadori has truly started doing that recently, she hasn't noticed. probably because she thought it was a thing he did already, before meeting her. alas— ]

Kugisaki can't help that she holds so much influence over certain people's habits.

BTW, Kugisaki won't stop speaking in third person until Fushiguro does it too.

/meme or photos out of wallet but it is...threads!

[unequally]

I'm not going to do it.

[ famous last word.s..... ]

[galling]

( con. from here! )

pretty heavy-handed word you got there

[ such is the grammar of faith. but from someone so young, it probably takes on a different meaning. ]

have any of that on you, megumi?

[unequally]

It was the first one that came to mind.

[ this feels like a trick question, but...well he's been told he takes things too seriously before. maybe this is the same. still... ]

Why?

[mightswitch]

[ con't from here!


... you're taking the invasion of your privacy so well. so sus. ]

Are you really not interested in dating?
Like, the general idea of it ... ?

[unequally]

[ one reaches a Point between formation B and time-spent-with-the-gang and just.... accepts one's fate? well that's a lie. but some days are more resigned than others........ ]

It doesn't seem to make sense.


[ probably only megumi would answer like this. ]