unequally | 𝘖𝘱𝘦𝘯.

[ megumi doesn't know the word for what he's looking at. if he gives gojou grief for being irresponsible or what-have-you, borderline careless and certainly irreverent, it's nothing like this because this feels like nothing itself. he keeps his eyes on him, not sure where to begin: who are you? why are you here? what do you want?

none of that though.

the stranger plucks it right out of his hands and megumi is a riled black cat pretending it's not, the look on his face almost bored at odds with the tension in his body. ]

Obviously. Not that it matters.

[ both about it being his room and the lack of posters; but honestly the room is bare, period. anyone could live here -- or not live here. but it happens to be fushiguro megumi. his hands hover, not quite brought together but ready to touch and call one of the few left to him if he needs to. ]

[ maybe abandonment does that to a kid— leaves his room bare, because populating it and having to leave is just another wound to add to the pile. toji doesn't think about the consequences of his own actions in the context of this wary-eyed teenager with his hair literally standing on end, and instead...

...takes a step forward. closes the first few inches of the distance that spans between them, and breathes an open-mouthed laugh. ha. ]

Relax. I'm not here to steal your dirty mags.

[ or to do much of anything, really. his payment is still at the forefront of his mind, knocking at his skull like a persistent reminder, but.

well. change of plans. ] Where's the Gojou kid?

[ when he doesn't move more than a few inches, megumi holds his ground if barely, his body leaning back in angle just slightly even though his feet stay planted. the room isn't that big though he's suddenly aware of how much smaller it could be, how much different it feels with this person present.

then again, maybe it's just annoyance. first posters. then magazines. it's such a simple, base line of thinking he doesn't even know what to do with it other than ignore it.

compared with the mention of gojou, well, those things don't hold any weight at all.

his brows knit. ]

Gojou-sensei isn't a kid.

[ not the point but he says it without thinking. ]

Who are you?

[ it's not what he means. what he really means is what, not who. but he leaves it be, feeling inexplicably that no matter the answer, he'll still have enough questions it won't make a difference. ]

[ another step, another laugh. he can't tell if that immediate snapback was in defense of gojou, or if it was something else entirely; his grin turns a touch toothy, and it stretches at the small scar running up the corner of his mouth.

fine. the kid's cautious. stupid, but also smart. ]

Me? [ he rubs at the underside of his chin in exaggerated consideration, and shrugs. ] —Just a debt collector.

[ an obvious lie. toji doesn't even bother masking how ludicrous this claim is, but doesn't attempt to let megumi in on the joke. ] If you're not gonna tell me where the Gojou kid is, I'm gonna have to find him myself, you know.

[ is that a threat? toji kind of hopes megumi interprets it as such, honestly. ]

[ one step forward from the nameless man gets a step backward from megumi.

out of all the expressions he could be making in the dark here, the one that wins majority vote is simply bewilderment. it's that feeling and megumi's preoccupation with the 0 cursed energy coming from this more than likely crazy man that buffers his nerves.

maybe those words are a threat. or not.

he doesn't know if he should care more, but even if the answer is yes, he can't quite bring himself to.

it's not 'fear'.

apprehension though, well, sure. quite a bit. ]

You're off your mark.

[ it's not posturing; he really means it. and megumi doesn't realize how he is both very right and very wrong. gojou is off the grid for whatever reason; megumi hasn't seen him much at all. he couldn't tell this man anything even if he wanted to.

but, of course, he also doesn't want to. ]

—What, I came all this way and the brat's not even here?

[ imagine the INDIGNITY... how dare gojou specifically not be here when toji appears completely unannounced??? the absolute gall. megumi's caution and bewilderment is barely acknowledged in favor of toji's completely unconvincing show of disappointment, followed up by long strides that take him to the now-abandoned bed.

without warning, he sits. the mattress creaks under his weight. ]

Some teacher he is.

[ reclined, relaxed. not an ounce of urgency in his posture. the confidence of a man who knows that the other person in the room couldn't possibly hope to even lay a finger on him, even if they tried. ]

[ the annoying feeling has transitioned into a familiar type of annoyance and it only takes until the headache starts forming for megumi to recognize it as the is this really an adult I'm talking to irritation. god knows he's felt it enough in the past nine years to nail it down, but apparently not enough to suppress it.

his frown is more of a scowl now but even that's sort of kept in check without really trying.

what is he supposed to even do? A. call gojou? B. fight the stranger?

... ]

I think you should leave.

[ choice C then: none of the above...even if he kind of has an idea of the answer he's going to get already.

on the bedside table there is a half finished bottle of water, painkillers, and excess bandaging. a wastebasket sits beside that table, and then there's the counter closer to megumi with its neatly ordered dish-rack. clean, nondescript.

in the center of it on his bed, this lazy wildcard grates his every nerve without trying.

and something else. he just doesn't know what 'else' is. ]

[ the thing is— megumi's right. toji reaches over for that bottle of water and turns it over in his palm, idly using his hands while he mulls over how yeah, he really should leave. for all that he's tried not to connect the lines, it's obvious whose room he's found himself in; even his well-trained detachment doesn't keep him from recognizing family resemblances.

the best thing to do would be to split. to forget, the way he always does. a decade's worth of time hasn't made him a better or more empathetic person— just better at knowing when to call it quits.

(one mistake with the gojou kid'd been enough.)

but he. lingers. uncaps the water and tosses the plastic top at megumi, as if to test his reflexes. does this without looking at the kid, without thinking too hard about what he wants to be doing here. ]

I will, after I get what I came here for.

[ toji leans back, scoots until his back is to the wall adjacent yuuji's now-empty room. he closes his eyes. ] —No neighbors? [ the space through the wall feels void; toji should know. ]

[ catching the cap doesn't interrupt anything about megumi from his expression — still annoyed — to the tone of his voice — still even-keeled when he speaks. ]

That's going to be hard, considering he's not here.

[ it's weird. 'debt collector'? as far as megumi knows (not that gojou tells him much, but enough time being rare constants and certain observations just ring true), one of the last people in the world he'd associate with debt collection is gojou satoru. does he mean something else? not money? but what?

he's thinking too much about something he knows nothing about. bad habit.

fortunately or unfortunately, as he's about to press again for the man to just leave, he finds he can't.

it's time fractured into its smallest increment, but it's there in the dark: the paling of megumi's face, the thinning press of his mouth, the slight twitch in his hands still ready to summon if he feels it's necessary.

no, he thinks. pauses.

is it stupid to test this man he has exactly 0 data on other than his nonexistent cursed energy? maybe. is he doing it anyway?

yeah. ]

We're not exactly common.

[ with the room beside his empty, even less so. ]

Then [ toji stretches, long limbs splayed on clean bedsheets ], the room next door is mine until he comes back.

[ there's nothing in the world that's better than free, after all. if gojou isn't here to make good on his promises, then toji will collect in a different way: temporary lodging and leeching. he's never claimed not to be an opportunist.

toji pops his shoulders again. his grin, and the laugh that comes along for the ride this time, are distinctly patronizing. ]

But— ha. 'We', huh?

[ something derisive creeps into his tone. he knows for a fact that megumi's already caught on to the lack of cursed energy inherent to him, and the designation of 'we' (conscious or unconscious) curls his lips just a fraction wider.

the expression isn't exactly kind. toji knows it. ]

Funny. [ hilarious. he cranes forward, elbow on his knee and chin in one hand. ] So? How does it feel, being a sorcerer? Enlighten me.

What. No. You can't.

[ the response is whipcord. up to this point, megumi has felt confusion drag at his attempted analysis and exhaustion muddy it further; but none of that has really amounted to anything like this. or maybe he was pretending? sometimes megumi wants to laugh at himself; sometimes he actually does.

maybe that's a family trait too.

but tonight he foregoes the self deprecation. there's something else lodged in his chest too tight too small too large too much not enough.

there's no sense in creating a fight where there isn't one. he's still recovering. this is his ...home?

...

whatever.

but he can't help it. very suddenly, very deeply, he hates this man.

it was probably those words.

until he comes back

on the periphery of his thoughts there are more and more questions born because of the questions direct at him. and megumi doesn't ask, but it doesn't change that they're there: why are you asking, why do you care, what the hell is your problem???

to name a few. ]

[ the kid snaps back, and not in the way toji expects. you can't, he says, to the tune of a wounded teenager-- no, he protests, and the resentment is lined in the creases of his face.

it doesn't bother toji. or, well. he finds that tightly-shut lid in his psyche and slams his metaphorical palm over the top of it.

(memories of small hands that he can barely recall, of a day when he felt like he was blessed with something other than the limitless boundaries of his own flesh and blood; of a name he hasn't uttered in ten years. megumi.)

he sits, and stares, and finally

shrugs. ]

It's not up to you.

[ as always, being hated is the easier option. if no one expects anything of him, he doesn't have to expect anything of himself, either.

rules to live by. ]

[ he can't even lie. even the concept of such words as 'he's coming back tomorrow' are so vile megumi feels he could throw up here and now. ]

It's not up to you either.

[ get out. everything about megumi radiates this, but he knows that asking won't get him anywhere, and likewise telling him probably won't either, really. megumi can read the room that much, but he isn't in the mood to chat with this stranger whose handful of words take up all the space here from the window he came through to the door megumi's heel presses against. admittedly, he is well versed in people who think they are in control, but it doesn't make him good at it. he know, however, that they often feel for one reason or another or a hundred, that the situation isn't ever out of their hands.

megumi's hands, not quite touching, feel heavy; rain and failure and the strange twist of something thorned the longer he stares at this man.

the scant light from outside whether the moon or whatever, catches on his eyes and the words are out of megumi's mouth before he can stop them. ]

Who are you?

[ aggression and antagonism are easy minefields to navigate. toji eases back into himself after the few seconds of silence he affords himself to sit and think about the question that comes out of megumi's mouth, and his retort is... well.

he scratches at the back of his head. rubs his nape. drawls a long aah. ]

You won't like the answer.

[ it's the only bone he'll deign to throw. if the kid is so smart, he'll figure it out.

breezily, he moves on. night starts to stretch into the boy's dorm, and while he has no reason to feel concerned about walking back to the nearest station while it's dark, the prevailing sentiment is 'too troublesome'. ]

Anyway, I told you. 'Relax'. [ fushiguro toji, father of the century, tells a teenager to relax about having an incredibly suspicious stranger in their room. amazing. ] If I wanted to kill you, I would've killed you about 300 times already. [ TOJI??? ] I'm just here to get paid. Thought it would be an added bonus to see that smug brat squirm, but that's a bust.

[ the headache intensifies in tandem with the patience thinning, if one can call it patience. megumi supposes it's more a form of self-control, but even that sounds too lofty. if he has time to be frustrated with his own handling of this weird situation, he's not using said time correctly.

his brow quirks. that's not news to him really. no matter who the man said he was, megumi didn't think it would be a reason for him to become understanding of breaking and entering and taking up indefinite residence on his bed. ]

I already don't like you. So the answer --

[ relax????

it would be most surprising if this man wasn't at least half crazy. no one in their right mind would tell him to --

-- he thinks of gojou.

...

well he's not wrong. no one in their right mind. it still stands.

his thought is timed inadvertently with the stranger talking about him again. megumi tilts his head. 300 times. brat.

what a lot of nonsense.

that's what he'd like to believe. but there's just...nothing about this man that suggests any of what he just said is a lie. how can someone with no cursed energy whatsoever feel this...dangerous?

he doesn't 'relax' but he lowers his arms, feeling foolish even as he does so. ]

Why is Gojou-sensei paying you? What for?

[ given he has no read on this man, megumi asks his questions not expecting answers. it has to do with gojou though, so it would be a dead lie to say he doesn't want to know. ]

[ you know, toji really should be glad that megumi is so smart, that he's so resourceful and perceptive despite his odds. but that intelligence is also detrimental to him, personally, so he wrinkles his nose and rolls onto his side.

the bed is too small for his bulk; the mattress protests under his weight. ]

Adult business.

[ translation: i'm not gonna tell you, and you should've known that i wouldn't tell you.

but, well. since he knows he's just going to get more bristling and posturing from megumi if he leaves it at that: ] —Half the reason for making him pay me is repayment for collateral damage, and the other half is to piss him off. Happy?

[ no, megumi thinks irritably and takes a step towards the bed, still wary but also...not sure what to do. all the deductive skills in the world would be useful but he only has what he's honed, which while not insignificant isn't mindreading and isn't enough right now, period. he bites his tongue. thinks.

it's been gnawing at him, since the catch of light on the man's eyes moments before he turned onto his side. never mind that he clearly feels megumi is negative on the threat scale (300 times, was it?!) but it's a certain green. a certain sharpness. megumi doesn't remember.

but.

a second step. ]

That's an evasive answer.

[ the empty room next door is out of the question for this man.

it is also out of the question for megumi.

he sighs and moves back to the counter where his phone is, not entirely committed to even trying to reach gojou, not sure what else he's supposed to do either, frustrated with every facet of both. ]

Aren't you used to those?

[ evasive answers, he means. he toes off his soft shoes, and lets them fall from the corner of the bed down to the floor; making himself at home in megumi's small, bare space. fushiguro toji, a man who knows how to flit from place to place without ever staying.

he knows himself. even now, with his son finally in front of him after ten years of neglect, toji knows that he doesn't have the self-respect to try to make amends. megumi has grown, not despite him or because of him— toji doesn't harbor any illusions about the role he'll play (or won't play) in the kid's life.

still, instinct moves him quicker than reason does. when megumi is within reaching distance, his hand too close to his phone for comfort, toji closes his callused fingers around his son's wrist. too fast for normal people to perceive.

thin, he thinks. ]

—Shit, does this place even feed you?

[ the 'hn' that megumi offers in reply is a yes and a no. maybe nameless man knows that, maybe not. regardless, he doesn't expect him to stop him from touching his phone, much less so quickly. it's the speed of it that unsettles him the most, eyes widening. he's sure he didn't blink but that's the amount of time, or lack thereof, that it feels like it took.

he pulls and stops almost immediately.

forget a feeling of struggle; it takes one attempt for megumi to register the type of strength he's dealing with.

on the floor, the man's shoes have fallen next to megumi's slippers in a weird adjacent disarray.

his other hand remains motionless. even if he could grab his phone quickly enough, he wouldn't pull up a number or connect; it would be a waste. and he finds himself distracted anyway by the man's words. there's nothing about them that, in and of themselves, suggests real empathy or concern. but words come from somewhere. careless or not.

that gnawing is drawing blood in the middle of megumi's thoughts, but it's a stale kind of thing. ]

Do you care?

[ should you?

the fact that megumi prefers salads and black coffee makes him sound at least thirty years older than he is and even more humorless. add that to his training and his age. of course he's thin, is what he thinks.

though yuuji had said something like that to him too, come to think of it.

if there's a slight tremor in megumi's body it's not fear.

but whatever it is, it hurts. ]

[ here's something that toji tells himself on the regular: nothing in this world is sacred. not family, not money, not blood. at the end of the day, you either live on your own terms or die like a dog. everything in between is irrelevant.

he feels megumi tremble under his grip. tighten his fingers another fraction, and he knows he'd feel the flimsiness of bone and sinew under his palm.

life is transient. megumi is so weak, so slight. it's only his stillness that makes him powerful, the conviction in his green eyes that makes toji pause.

no, is what he should say. it doesn't matter to me, one way or the other. ]

—You're not the kind of kid that'd need me to, are you?

[ a mistake. selfish and self-serving. what does toji expect this fifteen-year-old to say? "i've been living just fine without you"? for what reason? his own peace of mind?

his thumb runs across the hard bump of megumi's wristbone. this is the first time he's touched his son, he realizes, since infancy. ]

[ if tsumiki was awake and here, she would tell megumi to be kinder, more forgiving. but even if she was, even if she said those things, that would not make it so. the first grader who stared a teenaged gojou satoru in the face and more or less said without saying so make it happen about his life, about tsumiki's life, is still here. fushiguro megumi is fifteen, sixteen this coming december, assuming he makes it there. the only constant adult in his life has been he of the six eyes and the limitless.

that should say plenty.

and even he couldn't save or heal or change tsumiki's fate.

megumi doesn't think about himself. even though he doesn't have a sister to look after except to see that she's still breathing in her sleep. so when anyone might ask him this, whether a man whose face is as good as new to him, or a complete stranger, it wouldn't matter.

he stays impassive as he answers, ]

It doesn't matter what I need.

[ what matters is his work. what matters is tsumiki's curse. what matters is itadori yuuji died and was it better to die like that or should megumi have never saved him in the fist place?

what matters is when toji traces against the jut of his wrist, that impassiveness glitches and megumi hates it — how he flinches, how he can't hide...

...not even from someone who, ostensibly, gave the answer to megumi's own question ten years ago.

this time when he bites his tongue he tastes blood. ]

[ "it doesn't matter what i need". spoken like a true fushiguro.

something drifts in toji's expression, vague and unreadable. it settles like resignation on his sharp features, dulling the preternatural sense of impassiveness he wears over his invisibility— it's almost funny how little he understands about how loaded Megumi's statement is.

toji, again, has nothing. no context, no idea, no direction. he's a beast living eternally in the present, running from self-reflection; the shape of megumi's emotional pain in that one flinch only resonates as distaste.

and, here's the kicker: ] Ha.

I know I said you don't need anyone to care, but brats like you should be a little more selfish at that age.

[ as if he's not directly responsible for some of that lack of self-worth. as if gojou won't tell megumi the same, at some point. as if this is some sort of sage advice, instead of an offhanded, irresponsible comment by a man who only knows how to be selfish.

he lets go. puts his palms in the air in mock-surrender. ]

[ when he and tsumiki surmised that tsumiki's mom wasn't coming back, neither of them really blamed her. he could tell tsumiki was sad but tsumiki was tsumiki and she made an effort to at least look like she got over it pretty quick — probably for megumi's sake, and he'd told her: don't bother. she'd told him it was okay to feel bad to be selfish. she said that after toji disappeared too, he remembers without wanting to.

and... it's weird. it's so...so weird. to hear these words now. from this man. megumi was so sure so absolutely sure with the perceived infallibility of being young and old and young that he was telling gojou the truth that day: i don't care.

he has of course no idea how often his own father has uttered those words in his head or otherwise.

he doesn't know either, what he means. and what he doesn't mean.

fushiguro toji hasn't let go of him but for half a second when his son makes what is probably a mistake but call it selfishness; call it youth.

two things people tend not to ascribe to him.

call it the exception, the bad kind in his room devoid of personality except that it's someone who likes things clean and unobtrusive and easy to clean away if he ever fails to come back.

call it family. maybe.

he doesn't expect to actually be able to hit him.

so why does he try?

'i don't care.'

not exactly.

i refuse to care.

as if he's ever been good at that. the almost-foil for the man he came from. ]

[ if toji knows that he contributes to the cyclical toxicity of jujutsu culture the more he tries to break it, he tries not to think about it; all his spite and hate and bitterness for the people who shunned him didn't spur the zen'ins to grow an ounce of empathy, and all his efforts to wash blood with blood didn't do much to release him from the curse of his own.

he sees himself in megumi's incoming aggression. that flashbang of anger that comes from wanting so desperately not to give a fuck.

(memories of being sequestered in the muggiest corners of traditional japanese housing, hands folded in kimono sleeves, listening to whispers of maids and branch family. shame, externalized. the thrill of killing the people who'd called him scum.

scratch that— megumi is nothing like him.)

the fist lands. right along his cheekbone, hard enough that it would make a normal person fly back and hit the wall.

to toji, it's about as painful as being scratched by a cat. his head whips to the side, but his lips are curved. "you deserved that one, probably". ]

[ there is a lot megumi doesn't know, more than he does know, in fact; and he's aware. that does not, however, make him more empathetic towards this man, does not make him the person tsumiki would have liked better, does not make him an itadori, does not make him anything other than what and who he already is. he registers as soon as he hits that he's being allowed, like a child in training and if he thought he was angry before he was wrong.

he was exasperated. he was upset. he was trying to be neither.

now he might as well be both, and angry to boot.

subsisting on his own resourcefulness alongside tsumiki's almost a decade ago, megumi came to the conclusion that adults could not be trusted. he still thinks that, and no wonder, given his influence. there is, he admits, nanami kento who is so responsible it's almost like he's trying to make up for the satorus and the tojis of the world but that's not true of course. nanami would never exert effort that's so futile.

megumi wishes for a hair of a second he could be more like that man and it throws into sharp relief who he's never wanted to be like.

his body feels both burning and freezing; he wants to yell; he wants to not say anything else to him; he wants to not want.

why can't he just leave? that's all he's good at.

just having that thought makes megumi feel small and childish and he hates it, hates himself. then he slides all of that into a long box that might be medicinal or might be for a body in the ground and shuts it away in his head.

quiet.

well if toji won't, megumi will. he retracts his hand and makes a grab for his phone even as he turns away. ]

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