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 )

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[unequally]

[ for too long, when megumi wakes, he just lies there and quietly processes certain informations: itadori yuuji's death, the loss of divine dog white and orochi at the hands of the special grade and sukuna, the appearance of fushiguro toji through his dorm window. as terrible as it is to admit, the last of these is the most unexpected. he doesn't have time or the right to stay too sullen, at least not stagnantly anyway, so he gets up. he washes. he changes. he checks his phone and isn't surprised to find his messages unread and no voicemails to speak of. in a way, megumi wonders how much itadori's death has effected gojou and then he figures it's pointless to wonder that kind of thing.

he checks his window and then, as much as he doesn't want to, he does in fact open the door to itadori's room: also nothing.

the sense that toji is still here, however, he can't shake, foolish as it is.

closing the door to itadori's room, he pauses. he should go find kugisaki, see how she's doing. anything is better than nothing. there's training to be done with the second years too, though before that he has to return a dead son's nametag to the only person in the world who will mourn him.

at the end of the day he's noticed what he failed to the night before — the push of his hand through the shadows. it bothers him less than he thought it would, that it's sukuna's words which brought him to consider pushing further than what he knows. maybe he'll change his mind later; but for now it's just the slow thoughtful simmer of untapped potential, trying to make itself articulate.

still outside, he stops in front of the building.

it might be sentimental, or simply emotional, or something more complicated when megumi murmurs soft under his breath the incantation for the remaining divine dog. it hasn't fully manifested before it's in his arms and he presses his forehead to its nose in apology. aside from tsumiki, they are the ones who were with him the longest. and they aren't animals. they are his own energy. but megumi calls upon them, speaks to them, has faced death with them.

he hasn't lost until now though and...in its own way it's too much.

itadori above all, one would argue; because he was human, because this wasn't his world to begin with.

megumi tries not to be a selfish person and mostly, one can objectively say, succeeds in every category except one: the lives he saves. maybe it's karmic, this uselessness. but he's not one who believes in that anyway, so who cares?

under the moon, fushiguro megumi and divine dog black are two blots of shadow that steep into each other. the way he rested his hand on nue's head was no accident of compassion; he pushes his fingers back through his dog's fur in a way that is as grateful at least one is still here as it is sorry. but the loyalty of two dogs will be found in one now and megumi can already feel it, the intrinsic part of him that manifested so many years ago.

if toji has stayed somewhere, megumi of course cannot feel him, but even if he could it's uncertain whether he would go to him because again: what would be the point?

it doesn't stop him wondering. ]