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ππ±π¦π―.
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 )
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 )
no subject
the small rooms feel like absence, given form. toji should know. he embodies that same sort of nothingness, the vaguely unsettling feeling of missing what should be there. tsumiki, with all her exuberance and lightness of being, her love and forgiveness, should've been the last person on this unforgiving earth to share that trait with her stranger-turned-father.
(and, to think: they don't even share blood. maybe there's a kernel of truth to the zen'in's continued accusations, that a miserable existence brings misfortune upon others.
they haven't been disproven, thus far.)
toji, for the millionth time in the past whatever hours of their liminal sense of time, considers running. of doing anything but facing the inevitability of sorrow, and this time, not just his own: megumi's. ]
Megumi. [ he calls, and the tone is still to the tune of toji's carelessness. breezy in the face of everything that he should reasonably feel more about, be more about. the only thing that's warm about him is the palm he puts on the crown of his son's head.
outside, tokyo is unfeeling. through the windows of their apartment, oblong lights strobe in time to passing taxis. this is the reality of their suffering: the world continues to turn. ] Look alive.
[ "get moving", but phrased more specifically. toji's palm lingers for a fraction of a second, before he reaches for the front door. ]
no subject
Yeah.
[ there is nothing to say. there is always too much to say. but back when megumi was fairly certain life would be only him and tsumiki (and then gojou), something shifted in him. he's not egoistic enough to say he grew up and he's not forgiving enough to say that he was sad. but some things don't need to be spoken; plenty of things aren't that are true and plenty of others get said that are lies or halfway there. megumi keeps his words short and sometimes broken because he genuinely doesn't know what to say.
his disappointment. his anger. his love.
they're too big for him. he hasn't got the right shape but they inhabit him anyway.
tsumiki, even when they were kids, would throw her arms around him and press her cheek to his and tell him he didn't have to be so serious or grown-up. it's something she said not even a week ago.
he'd like to hear it again even if he knows his responses always leave a lot to be desired.
they leave the apartment building and the walk to the hospital isn't a long one. around them people who neither can see nor believe in curses go on about their lives and megumi doesn't hate or envy them. life isn't as simple as that. he walks a little behind toji, consumed for whatever reason by the forward motion of his feet. maybe because he can't hear him, and certainly can't sense him. or maybe because the invisible line between them feels a little more visible tonight.
he raises his head eventually, still walking, watching as other people notice toji and then move out of the way, the berth wide and void. that megumi comes in his wake is a lost thing, like a shadow; too natural to be of consequence.
his hands almost come together out of inarticulate nerves before he shoves them in his pockets, head lowered, gaze downcast once again, the repetition of toji's heels coming in and out of view all the direction he needs for the moment. ]
no subject
light pollution dims the moon above them as they walk. each of toji's strides is roughly equivalent to two and a half of megumi's. it's this distance he maintains until the concrete fortress of the general hospital looms in front of them, sterile and symmetrical; halogen lights paint the corridors beyond glass doors yellow-white, and the few smattering of the elderly in wheelchairs look sickly under the artifice.
toji makes no moves to go beyond that transparent gate. has no reason to. isn't interested in seeing tsumiki buried in bleached-white sheets, smelling like cheap antiseptic and wholesale shampoo.
that's for megumi. the sentimental gestures, the holding of hands. the shared grief, the familial ties. ]
Alright.
[ "go on". toji, hands in his pockets, angles his jaw towards the building. ]
no subject
megumi doesn't argue, doesn't try to convince him.
tsumiki won't know. the only good thing about her 'sleep' is this unavoidable oblivion.
and megumi...
...he's fine. ]
You don't have to wait.
[ megumi isn't a fan of breaking hospital rules or policies but everyone has an exception. someday he'll know how to use his shadows to make such things even easier; dangerously easier. tonight he sticks to the advantage of trained stealth, agility, and a familiarity with the lightless kind of dark.
he's no toji, but then, if he was, this would be a rather different situation, wouldn't it?
the amount of time he spends in tsumiki's room is nebulous in feeling and concrete in minutes because that's how the real world works. all the things happening on the inside of someone can't expect the things outside of them to compromise or yield. and megumi doesn't. he reaches for tsumiki's too cold hand and doesn't actually take it; he doesn't deserve to.
why wasn't it me?
he's gone through the mental motions. maybe because of his own cursed energy? sheer dumb luck? that worldly evenly distributed unfairness; the inequality you experience simply by being born. and it's not lost on him that the bits of information and rumor about his own father he's collected over the years like scrap, point to the reality that tsumiki is not his first example. the people around fushiguro megumi suffer both before him and after him.
curses love this kind of thing.
but megumi's mind is a quiet, windless sea in the middle of the night. or maybe the earth after it rains. or maybe a shadow.
he's calm. he doesn't cry. and when he leaves he doesn't make any promises or apologies.
if toji is outside, megumi will walk right past him, and if he's not, well, he'll still be walking; won't he. ]
no subject
he doesn't think of much at all, in that stretch of time. circles the same vending machine once, twice, until a tired-looking hospital employee approaches him asking if there's something wrong with it; mistaking him for a grieving young husband, she buys him a 110 yen can of black coffee.
the aluminum warms his palm. toji waits until it turns lukewarm to break the tab, put it to his lips, and bite the bitterness through his teeth.
he still doesn't think of much at all.
maybe later, he'll visit tsumiki. scale the walls and find her hospital room among the row of identical-looking windows. marvel at her stillness, and wait for her to open her eyes and scold him for his bad manners.
maybe later.
he's lost in maybes when megumi reemerges, dark and faded in the night. the kid looks worse coming out than when he walked in, and whether or not that's projection, toji doesn't contemplate.
he does, however, crush the now-empty can of coffee between his fingers, and toss it into the trash. this time, he's the one following his son like a wraith; a living shikigami with megumi's eyes. ]
How was it? [ terrible question. he doesn't expect an answer. ]
no subject
what was made nebulous and strange as if being underwater on the way to the hospital is made more-so on the way back to the apartment. he actually had put his phone on silent once inside the hospital's unseeing walls, and he fishes it out now to change that before slipping it back in. just in case.
he thinks, logically, if gojou satoru cannot do anything for tsumiki then there is nothing fushiguro megumi can do. that should just be obvious, a given in this unbalanced world. but he can't quite do it; can't quite accept it or accept not accepting it; both.
much like before, people give them space for one reason or another; despite the fact that the sidewalks and streets are by no means empty, they never run into anyone or receive jostling. it's like there's a particular orbit the fushiguros inhabit and everyone else is on the next one out or inside. and it doesn't matter if the son or the father ends up ahead; the footpath is the same even if everything else isn't.
they're almost back when it occurs to megumi to ask, not looking backward but voice audible, his tone the same as still water, ]
Have you eaten?
[ tsumiki would want him to make sure, and if he's honest with himself, he wants to ask anyway, even if toji will probably just...be toji about it. ]
no subject
megumi's grown. become unknowable in some aspects, but still obvious. he was a child that never cried, not even when he was too small to know up from downβ his mother'd marveled at how peaceful their nights were in his infancy, how megumi would sleep until morning.
"it's almost like he's letting us sleep", she'd laughed.
funny, how toji'd forgotten about that until now, until this moment, with megumi's quiet have you eaten?
something between toji's ribs tightens, but he doesn't the vocabulary for it. ]
βIdiot. [ two steps is all it takes for him to overtake his son. megumi, as always, is upright and understanding. diplomatic, under the guise of his so-called selfishness. as if a child stating his preferences is the same as whining. ] You're still just a kid.
[ "so stop fussing over adults". toji doesn't bother finishing; instead, his palm goes back on top of his son's head. ruffles, like before, but the sentiment lingers this time.
fingers bury in black, curling just slightly. careful. ]
no subject
gray areas aren't relegated to whether or not you have cursed energy; they're relegated to whether or not you're human.
they also aren't trapped in the confines of what the population considers 'gray'; because there is the gray area of, for example, killing a horrible person and then there is the gray area of having feelings that β
β what feelings?
unasked for, tsumiki's voice comes to him. some years ago: it's okay if you care, megumi; he's your dad. it's normal. she'd told him it was a relief, kind of, to know he cared, and then she'd put him in a half-hug half-headlock and bullied him into making dinner together.
it bothers megumi that he can't remember what time of year it was β the smell of the air, the weather, anything.
toji's hand in his hair feels both heavy and light.
" β just a kid. "
it's...a little hard to breathe. ]
I...
[ fushiguro toji is the last man on earth who would expect an apology from him, probably. followed just barely by gojou satoru.
so why is that what sits behind his teeth?
megumi is pretty sure he's the one who cares about tsumiki the most. so why?
he swallows it down gracelessly.
none of this makes sense; not the palpable pain in his chest, not tsumiki's death like sleep, and maybe most of all toji's touch. the faux adult in megumi doesn't know how to respond; and so he doesn't. ]
no subject
there's probably (definitely) truth to that. but fushiguro toji isn't a particularly understanding person, when it comes down to itβ wasn't built to be. ask him, and he'd say that megumi is the one that cares for tsumiki 'the most', and fuck anyone who tries to take that away from the kid.
his palm slides from megumi's crown to his nape, down to his back. a moment passes in which toji braces his son's weight, and eventually, that anchor removes itself.
an errant breeze plays at the hem of megumi's oversized shirt. the scent of lingering hospital antiseptic carries in the air.
(his old mantra: i don't care. i'm trash. i'm garbage. invisible. it isn't worth it. nothing is worth anything.
it's getting harder to hear it.) ]
...We're going home.
[ home. the word burns on its way out. strange and entirely too much to contemplate.
but it's too cold outside now, the streets are too wide and the neon signs are too bright, and tokyo paints megumi in colors that are too gaudy, too checkered for his current sadness. ]
no subject
then it's gone.
but megumi can still feel him.
strange.
also strange:
'home'.
megumi thinks and doesn't think about that word all the way back. he understands the sense of it β no stopping for food or piecemeal ingredients megumi could certainly cobble together into something if toji wanted or asked him. and god part of megumi wishes he would; part of megumi wants to be the kind of person who demands that he eat rather than asks. but he's not. just as well. the temperature only continues to drop as they return and once stepping inside the dark flat, the cold is pervasive.
...it's kind of a relief too, the way physical discomfort often is when compared with other kinds of hardly managed distress.
he shivers while toeing his shoes off just inside the door, then turns on one light because he knows they should, before heading to the bathroom to check toji's clothing, probably wring it out once more before leaving it to hang again for the rest of the night. his eyes feel heavy but he doesn't want to sleep; he doesn't want to be still; he wants to do things.
and really that's the other reason for his phone being on all the time, as close to begging as megumi has ever been: give me something to do.
anything. everything.
as he pulls toji's shirt down off the side of the shower, the thin tremors of before are back, their subtlety like figments of imagination for the tired and the unprepared. he turns the water on and kneels to rinse it through once more, frowning at the very slight muddiness of it; well, he had been in a hurry before, he supposes. ]
no subject
this apartment is a far cry from that short-lived ideal. megumi drifts away and buries his sorrow in running water like a burial at sea, and tojiβ
βwhat does toji do?
(he doesn't try to reach inside of himself for references, because he won't be able to find any. the month after that woman died and took the last shred of his human empathy with her is a blur; did he scream? did he cry? did he fill his days and nights with casual murder just to feel the pulse of life and death under his palm?)
ultimately, toji gravitates to his room. pulls open his closet, and starts rummaging through the chaos of his monochromatic clothes and gifted amenities to find something he hasn't even thought of in years.
a faded box, with a toy inside. something gojou thrust into his hands one day, and hasn't remembered since.
("would it kill you to spend some normal time with your kids? ugh.")
toji pads to the bathroom. pops his head in through the entrance. ]
Oi. [ plastic knives rattle against his palm. ] Come to the living room.
[ they both need something to keep their hands busy; why not toy with a plastic pirate's mortality to pass the time? it's suitably morbid enough. childish. stupid.
grief is like that, sometimes. aimless and ridiculous. ]
no subject
stepping out of the bathroom shouldn't feel so weird but nothing feels right and maybe it's more that than anything else. when he looks at toji, his gaze falls to the toy and he can't help but stare, brows rising in question. ]
What β
[ his steps are silent but not as silent nor invisible as toji's (of course not.) sometimes megumi thinks about asking toji to train him; it can only be a boon to move as undetected and not all of it has to do with cursed energy. there's something or many something elses about his father; megumi knows just enough to know how little he really knows. but being aware of a gap doesn't mean knowing how to close it. he truly doesn't. not that one.
but this one is the mere matter of human bodies; this one he can close.
one hand goes to the odd little toy and one would think megumi had never seen any toy at all given how he looks at it; but that's not true. rather, megumi with stones and stones of reluctant and unavoidable human empathy in his shoes in his soul with the body of his mother and his father shaped around it, megumi is struck by the feeling under his fingertips β always sensitive.
how old is it? who was it for?
did he ββ
ah.
he must be very tired for his thoughts to do as they please.
in his head: how do you play this?
if he knew gojou had been the procurer of it however long ago, it would slot into place beside the times gojou has shown up unplanned and unannounced. but he doesn't, so, of course, despite his best attempts not to ββ
megumi wonders. ]
no subject
the contact leaves a faint red mark on megumi's skin. friction breaking fine blood vessels that'll heal by morningβ if only everything were that easy.
and, well. megumi doesn't quite ask, but toji likes to think that he knows what the unasked question is. 'what is this, and why do you have it'. he could lie and say that it was his idea, that there was a moment of paternal impulse that made him stop by the toy store after his half-days spent at the pachinko parlor, but they'd both know that toji was never so sentimental.
not back then. not without years under his proverbial belt to temper some of his bad habits. ]
The Gojou brat foisted it on me, ages ago.
[ so megumi has gojou to thank for this, too. (sometimes he really does wonder if his own addition to this strange equation was really necessary; if it wouldn't have been the same, either way, with or without him. megumi and tsumiki and gojou, surviving on their own merits.)
with that explanation out of the way, toji crooks his finger. urges megumi, yet again, to follow his footsteps into the space of their living room, where he lays the plastic knives to scatter on the surface of their coffee table.
he tosses one up into the air. it spins, graceful as an acrobat, and settles into his waiting palm.
toji gestures again. sit down. ] Come on. We might as well.
no subject
if asked, megumi would not label himself as a particularly affectionate child at any age. but face value affection's absence is not the same as being unfeeling or incapable of certain core spaces to be filled. maybe....maybe megumi closes his eyes at first for the most splintered of seconds, because any touch from toji is a little unbelievable.
because in those moments megumi feels cared for even if he could never prove it.
the slight sting is not unpleasant.
he does his best to place this moment in a box on a shelf he doesn't look at too much, the curious toy against the curve of his hand until toji is walking the rest of the way to the living room. following is automatic and he sits adjacent to his father with the same sort of silent obedience reserved for all the moments he doesn't know what to do with otherwise.
tsumiki once told him he just 'cares too much' which he'd been blindsided by; didn't believe her, especially coming from his sister of all people. but she had leveled him with a wry tone that still laughed a bell sound and said this too: being nice to people, being kind, is sometimes about caring about yourself. the look she'd had on her face had made him incredibly uncomfortable and he'd left to find gojou for once, rather than the other way around. (didn't find him either.)
with a red cheek and green eyes and minutely shaky hands, he reaches for one of the tiny plastic knives, quizzical. what is the point of this game?
give me something to do.
well he had said that in his head hadn't he. 'anything' too.
he drops the plastic by accident, picks it up again. ]
Gojou is so weird.
[ his tone lacks sharpness or bite even if it isn't exactly warm. that he forgets 'sensei' to tack on is the most telling thing of how out of it he is, compounded by the rest. not even noticing it himself, he sighs and slides the tiny sword into one slot β
β nothing happens. ]
no subject
sometimes, toji is struck by recollections of the kind of family that his wife had wanted to make. they hit him in nightmares, in the sinking sickness of waking up with his arms pulled sideways over an empty spot on his futon.
he knows what that bright-eyed, strong-willed woman would say if she were here.
god, just hug him already, toji-kun! you're so stupid!
toji swallows. reaches for the colorful weapons on the tabletop and tests his luck.
the pirate remains in his nest. waiting for the inevitable. ]
'Weird'? More like short a few screws in his head. [ a snort. ] Coming from me, that's saying a lot.
[ pot, kettle, etc.
he doesn't want for megumi's turn to impale the plastic barrel again. the poor little doll survives this one, too. ]
no subject
easier to talk about gojou, either way.
he picks up another piece of plastic.
this pirate just won't die apparently.
(a joke lost on megumi though it applies to the two primary adults in his life to a sick extent.)
"i bet your mom was really kind," tsumiki said one afternoon while megumi folded the laundry with his always sort of sullen look. and when he asked why she ruffled his hair and said, "'cause megumi is kind."
megumi doesn't think he's kind or good. but maybe tsumiki was half right.
maybe. ]
People 'short a few screws' are usually weird.
[ his kindness, if it exists, doesn't extend to general niceties and certainly not to soft-pedaling opinions about shady adults no matter the benefaction. yet the tone of megumi's voice belies his trust and his familiarity. a self-awareness. ]
This was probably a souvenir.
[ gojou satoru and his habit of buying random things everywhere he goes. megumi mutters this part and it might not be wholly articulate, but given the dead silence of the apartment, maybe it is. it doesn't occur to megumi that gojou would have bought this on purpose not as a spur of the moment souvenir but as something conscious and pointed, part challenge and part lack of faith and part something else totally wordless. some of this is, of course, because of how little he knows about their history; but some things are better left that way of course.
vaguely, megumi is aware that he is sort of tunnel visioning at the little barrel. his eyes are strangely heavy and his body aches hollow and dry except a low level nausea, now that he's still enough to recognize it. an uncatalogued number of hours is, it seems, finally catching up to him. ]
no subject
toji makes another attempt at inconsequential murder. he thinks he knows why gojou chose this, of all the toys he could've picked, to give to him.
click-snap.
at some point, the pirate will succumb to the inevitable. toji watches megumi out of the corner of his eye, and he knows that megumi wishes it were so easy. that he wishes there was a knife he could put between his own ribs to set a series of cogs in motion, to snap tsumiki out of bed.
click-snap. ]
He was trying [ toji says, with finality, ] to be a nuisance.
[ he gets up after one more knife to wooden plastic. abruptly, as if he's had enough of thisβ the game, the grief, megumi himself. his past dictates that this is his intent; once again, to leave when things start getting inconvenient. to not explain, to prioritize his own defense above others'.
silent, he goes into the dark of his room. maybe he won't come back. maybe he's left out of the window, out into the streets, leaving his son to sit with the possibility of popping that pirate out of its cradle or to sit in his own loneliness and his mercy.
seconds pass. there's nothing but rustling in the distanceβ curtains? clothes going in bags?
neither. toji comes back with a roll of blankets that trail against his bare feet, sweeping the length of the journey from his bed to the living room. once back, he loomsβ not quite indifferent, not quite understanding of his own actions, but still knowing, instinctively, that this is what he can do for megumi's grief.
funny, how he knows gojou would balk at this if he knew. ]
If you need to call him [ gojou, toji means. this is the most he'll ever do for the man who, even despite his own deep-seated dislike for the guy, saved his son from his surname, ] do it in the morning.
[ the blankets are too thick for megumi's frame, but they drop and drape over his shoulders. toji, still standing, nudges the nest around his son with his foot. ]
no subject
instead he stares down at the pirate and the unused swords.
really what was gojou thinking.
trying to be a nuisance toji had said but megumi thinks that's not exactly shocking or unexpected. isn't that gojou satoru's usual way? even when he's dead serious. megumi doesn't remember what he did yesterday or even when yesterday was β how long ago or if it still is and therefore is today instead still; fickle. but megumi remembers very clearly very keenly very sometimes confusingly: the white haired man in the alley with his sunglasses and his expression of distaste that made megumi judge him from moment one. he remembers tsumiki coming out onto the balcony and saying his name like she was waiting for him because she always was.
before toji comes back out, megumi almost accidentally lets himself have a second, two, three, four, maybe even five.
it hurts it hurts i'm sorry i'm sorry i'll always come back so please wake up i'm so sorry i'm so stupid i'll even tell you that i know that now so please please please β
his tunnel vision from before was just his vision blurring, which he realizes now, spotting with the dark of sleep's insistence as it is. yet he still hears the shift of not the only other living being in the apartment but the blankets he carries. megumi's head is down anyway; it probably doesn't matter the way his expression was but he calms himself down out of habit. almost placid. almost. it doesn't hurt. he can handle this. he'll figure it out.
a see-through lie.
the shoulders that bow beneath the weight of the blankets are rigid and sharp. brittle. toji said something. it came to megumi as if underwater and it takes him a moment to understand. ]
Yeah.
[ it's as if the blankets pull the thread the last bit to unravel in megumi's mind over matter stubbornness, as if he could stay awake forever until tsumiki is too. impossible. he slopes forward against the table, his arms folded there in reflex; and his mouth is partially pressed there so it comes out muffled, maybe barely intelligible when he adds, half awake, ]
Thank you.
[ how to be polite. how to read a situation. how to put one foot in front of the other.
how to be kind.
fushiguro megumi, 14, ten shadows, and a heart whose bleeding would lose all meaning if it didn't run so immortally.
he falls asleep not because he wants to but because he can't help it, and it's probably far too childish for a 14 year-old to wonder if the blankets around him are comforting because they belong to toji β to his father β but that's the last thought he has before slipping into his own shadows all the same. ]