( he doesn't even know who she is?? what did he do?? he's about to ask, but he receives an answer... which, really, doesn't answer anything! kyoto? what does he have to do with kyoto when he's currently abroad? )
( true, and he will come to realize, respect, and fear this )
oh ohhhhhhh haha... right. i did...
( "moderation" was a skill that had taken him more time to learn than a lot of far more complex cursed techniques. with where he'd been in his training post-rika at the time of the event last year... it'd essentially been the equivalent of trying to water one's lawn with a fire engine.
it had been a bit of a massacre. he's still embarrassed. )
i'm sorry... i had no idea it would impact someone's plans like this umm well, i would promise to do my best to make it up to you, but i'm kind of broke...
[ why is he acting like that?? like he FORGOT that he completely wiped out the other school? what the hell is wrong with him ]
Ugh. I guess it's fine? You couldn't have known I was going to be around now but if I was there last year, I would've stopped you from demolishing the Kyoto students!!
[ no, she wouldn't have.
besides, everything she's heard from her senpais make her want to steer clear of rika. ]
So is that a promise or not? Breaking a promise will result in fifteen years of bad luck! That's worse than breaking a mirror.
Ah. Wait, senpai. Why are you broke? Aren't you overseas? Don't you need money for that kind of stuff??
Edited 2022-02-01 05:29 (UTC)
his aura of faint patheticness saves him yet again
( it's not necessarily that he had forgotten; he just hadn't linked the goodwill event with one of his shiny new kouhai being denied a predestined trip to kyoto. it is that time of year, isn't it? )
if you'd been there to tell me that it would ruin your future travel plans, I definitely would have tried to tone it down a notch but, then again if you were there last year, you could have participated in the event and gone to kyoto then and there, haha
( i actually can't remember if the previous year's event had been held in kyoto but i'm pretty sure it was and i'm not looking it up in the manga to make sure )
well, i certainly can't afford any more of that...
( one can almost imagine the pained, sardonic laugh... )
i am, but technically i'm on school business... so they paid for everything, but i'm not exactly free to go sightseeing me being broke doesn't really have anything to do with me traveling... you can ask maki, toge, or panda about that!
( maybe it would encourage them to cook for the first-years (: wouldn't that be cute )
[ don't mind me crying over "shiny new kouhai" like she's a pokemon ]
If I was there it would've been a completely different story, you're right! Maki-san would probably have bonked my head if I had asked you to tone it down, but on the other hand you're also right - I would've had the chance to see Kyoto in all its glory regardless!
In the end, I guess I only have my parents to blame for conceiving me a year later.
In any case, did you have a chance to explore Kyoto while you guys were there?
[ i'm not going back to read either but i'm p sure it was in kyoto and if not... TOO BAD IT WAS!! we say so!
anyway, a deep sigh can be heard all the way from tokyo from... wherever he is. not to mention, her parents are also nowhere to be found. who knows where they are? only gege does and only time will tell if he'll even... say anything about them... ]
That's so boring... My condolences. [ to your free time ] Ah, you mean you want me to ask the second-year senpais to take me sightseeing??
( listen it's exciting he's never had a non-megumi underclassman before...
and megumi would never text him about something like this. )
yeah, haha... that's probably true
yes, we had some time to explore, but the kyoto principal asked their students to accompany us, so... as you can imagine, things were intense? i had to enlist toge and panda to help me run interference for maki and her sister which was difficult because toudou was being very persistent about questions... and no one could agree on where to go so maybe it's best that you weren't there last year... it was a strange trip
( yes, he can hear her from... somewhere in africa! but nowhere specific because gege didn't want to go to that much effort in research. )
yes, being a jujutsu sorcerer unfortunately isn't great on either your free time or your vacation opportunities it seems, haha... but i'm sure we can manage one good trip to kyoto one day
hm maybe! they will certainly know where all the good places to eat are!
( the structure of the culling game doesn't make for much downtime. though meant to last as long as necessary to run its course and accomplish its goal, taking time to rest or refuel really only opened one up to the risk of attack. many players have already been overcome, stretching themselves to their physical and mental limits to avoid such a thing β yuuta personally doesn't have the same qualms. somewhere outside the barrier of the sendai colony, late afternoon begins to wind into evening, and he finds a place under a half-demolished overpass to take a breather. he removes his sword from its place at his belt, sliding down a crumbling concrete pillar to sit with the sheathed katana resting at his shoulder. they rise and fall as he heaves a long sigh, his eyes slowly lidding shut. he's not going to sleep now, though he wouldn't have any concerns doing so; one of the first dozen sorcerers he'd killed had been one who'd thought himself clever in sneaking up on him when he was resting. big mistake. )
What do you think about all of this, Rika?
( he doesn't really project the words; he just mumbles them to himself, his lips barely moving around the syllables. this isn't an uncommon occurrence for him β after all of these months, he still talks to her like he'd used to. perhaps it was the only way he had to cope with the distinct absence of something that had once been there, which had been there since they had been kids lording over the local playground or when her last living remainder had been caught around the spool of his unwitting curse until he'd finally unraveled it and let her go.
he'd let her go, but letting go is so much harder than that. he would've never imagined it would feel lonelier after he'd set her free than when she'd made it her personal mission to keep everyone away from him. so when others weren't around to hear him, he'd kept talking to her like normal, and that had been that.
until she'd spoken back.
it doesn't happen often, and he has no way of anticipating when it will, but sometimes the things he says seem to catch and transfer, drifting between the veil of the here and the hereafter in a way that she can reply. how he feels about that is still something he's working through. he worries it means that he's still doing something to her that keeps her tied down to the mortal world (though he does enough of that simply by being alive), but on the other hand... he's only human. he always wants to hear her voice again, and when he does, it gives him the strength to keep going on. he carries her final wish for him with a quiet and determined devotion β he's no longer in any hurry to cut short his time here, not with the new family that he'd found at jujutsu high, but...
yes, he's still only human. ) A world of jujutsu sorcerers... ( how he feels about it wouldn't change anything about his goals. obviously, he would flatly disagree with the goals and justifications of the culling game β it came at far too high of a cost. even though people had only ever turned fearful or blind eyes to him in his very worst years, he just couldn't sense those feelings of alienation transforming into contempt and scorn. he just pities them. they are out of their depth, just as how they had been (how he had been) when his curse was at its worst. it was only natural for people to fear and flee from what they didn't understand. )
...Would you have liked to have been a jujutsu sorcerer? ( he only wants to rest for an hour, hopefully less, but thoughts of a world where they could have fought alongside one another in that sort of way could keep him company for that time. )
[ death has limits. in that, it is not so different than life, and it is possible that therein lies the common ground of jujutsu sorcerers and ordinary people. none of them are exempt, and all of them can, given situations and details, be quite powerful. what drives an individual is their selfishness and their selflessness; creatures of contradiction whether they know it or not, whether they admit it or not.
in her life and her not-quite-life, for rika it has always been okkotsu yuuta β a heartbeat and a fatality all in one.
her happiest years were with him, and the form simply did not matter; likewise now, it does not matter. that she can be near him, that she can protect him within whatever limitations they encounter, it...well no. it isn't enough. it would never be enough to 'try', only to do, to well and truly save him when he needs saving, help when he needs help, and blot out in no uncertainty that which would threaten him.
to rika, it has never been a question of whether or not it is okay for yuuta to live; it has been, rather, been the desire to make sure he can live.
in a perfect world, she would always be with him.
even in an imperfect world, here they are.
sometimes yuuta speaks and she can hear him as if under deep water, comforting in the way even his unhappiness was a comfort because it meant he was alive. she cannot always understand, cannot, even if she understands, always respond. even before he let her go, it was sometimes this way, but the water was her own haze of inhumanity narrowed down to the head of nail where thrived only yuuta: her cat's cradle of existence, wanting to pull at his threads and yet also make the shapes he wanted without being able to touch the part of her that was still a person under all that curse. if before it was a near madness, now it is like the consciousness of desire with less desperation.
if she cannot reply, it breaks the heart a curse and a girl might have. there is only this: to keep trying.
even when she doesn't understand, she tries.
understanding is, of course, better.
rika is rika.
a jujutsu sorcerer? the presence of her settles near and never near enough all at once, unseen even to yuuta at this moment yet she is there. and she thinks: yes. because certainly someone like yuuta was going to become one, given his cursed energy, given his far-back lineage despite not knowing it at the time. she doesn't have to have 'grown up' to know: they were, in the best of situations, not going to have any normal life. without being a jujutsu sorcerer, she would not be able to protect him, would not be able to be at his side. in the end, she would rather be a curse than nothing at all, if it means staying with him like this.
love was telling yuuta not to come to where she truly resides too soon, and love is also yuuta permitting her to exist in this way with him after that.
who else would understand that?
it doesn't matter.
this culling game reeks. she dislikes the danger it puts him in, but yuuta was always resolute in his feelings even if he did not know whether he was allowed to have them. she knows he will not disappear from things, and indeed there are rules here. not formed but present, her words come to yuuta and only yuuta, even if someone else were here. ]
Together.
[ sometimes, to make sure it comes through without confusion, one word both suffices and is strongest. this one especially: the clarity of a shrine bell. with it: the thin fingertips of winter, because even when she's subtle, she's also overwhelming every time they are able to connect β
( the span of life, death, and the grisly interstitial tissue that connected the two was the domain of the jujutsu sorcerer. there is a give and take between the two that cycles with a morbid kind of circuitousness: in life, human beings suffer and despair, generating the cursed energy that gives birth to spirits which would drag unwitting innocents into death, thereby instilling more of the same negative emotions in their surviving friends and family. it's not a problem that jujutsu sorcerers can solve β it is a symptom of the world that they live in, and they are only surgeons attempting to staunch the flow of blood before it became mortal. there's a sort of clarity that one can gain over these things that would otherwise be towering in their inexplicable obscurity. yuuta no longer fears death. really, he hasn't feared it for a long time. what he fears now is being torn away from this world before he can accomplish what it is he feels he has to accomplish, to leave behind close friends to mourn him as an unfinished statement and not as someone who had truly lived to the fullest extent of his life.
in the end, it's not something he has perfect control over, so he puts everything he has into everything he puts his mind to. single-handedly taking on the sendai colony on behalf of jujutsu high, then, was one of those things.
they'd been inseparable (both figuratively and literally) for so long that it's still stranger to feel himself in her absence than remember how their camaraderie had felt. as kids, she had been a mystery that he had never felt any pressure to solve β yuuta had been terminally shy and fumbling with his words, making it difficult for him to make friends while simultaneously making himself a beacon for meaner-spirited kids. it hadn't really seemed an option for him to become rika's friend, though; she had pursued him aggressively from the day that they had met, and then they had structured their childhood days around when they would see one another next. all the way up until the day that β
even all these years later, with all that's come to pass, he still doesn't like to think about it.
so when something catches at the edges of his extrasensory perception, something so heart-achingly familiar that it startles him from a periwinkle state of semi-sleep to electric wakefulness, he just knows. he knows it with the same unswerving bone-deep assuredness that a mother would know her child, that pain would one day pass, that the sun would always come to rise from the east and herald a new day. whenever this happens, he feels the irrational desire to reach out and grab hold of the intangible, to once again pull her to him in a fit of selfish grief. he doesn't make the same mistake twice. he welcomes her beloved specter with a faintly sad, worn smile and a thin rime of tears forming between his eyelids.
his lips part at her reply, as clear and present in his mind as if it were one of his own thoughts, though perfectly distinct in just how hers the voice was. he holds onto that for a moment, his thoughts lulled and his breath suspended in his lungs as he wills it to extend past just these few fleeting seconds. then he exhales in a soft chuckle, one that sounds as dry as fall leaves rustling underfoot. )
That wouldn't change, no matter what. ( his free hand tracks up to his chest, to press his palm into the fabric of his uniform which covered where her ring hung from a chain around her neck, presently resting just a short distance above his beating heart. ) I promised you, remember?
( he never knows how long their luck will last. he doesn't question or challenge it β he had been ready to never speak with her again when he had severed her curse entirely, and the fact that their bond still manages to persist between the realms of the living and the dead was a mystery that he refused to search out, fearful that it would vanish the second he shone light onto it. he continues, conversational, with steady yet eager warmth, ) I think you would have liked everyone. All of my classmates. (because they love and care for me, just like you do. even if they got on your nerves, that fact would soften it. ) And I miss having you at my side for real when fighting.
( the rika that he summons is like a phantom limb β he can recall with such clarity what it had felt to be tethered to her as a curse that he can manifest it through cursed energy and sheer force of will. but it's like a shed skin, a shell which had long since lost its inhabitant, and yet β he still reaches for it instinctually when in combat, partially due to a yearning for what was lost to him but also because it still managed to feel right.)
[ rika remembers because of course she remembers. this was part of her own quiet and violent living curse as a girl, and it is her blessing as the monster out from under the bed in yuuta's presence. the things she would rather forget are, ultimately, nothing compared to the things she needs to keep for herself: yuuta's promise, yuuta's tears as much as his smile, yuuta's impossible heart. sometimes she thinks she can feel it beating in her shadowed hands more like claws more like imaginary things; sometimes.
invisible still as she is, there are no visual indicators such as a tilt of the head as a girl might do, such as the mild narrowing of an expression in skepticism as rika specifically might do edged always in something learned and saccharine that has never been aimed at yuuta. her presence might be perceived in the feeling of rippled water or changing weather without the carding of the wind to evidence it. yuuta might feel a bloom inside or a twist almost contraction of space, acute to rika as he has always been and ever will be. but she does not look for these things even as he cannot look for her; theirs is a bond of trust.
the madness of the world they inhabit was made known to rika from a very young age. as dramatic as the culling games are, she is not surprised and nor does she wish she was. wishes are a kind of prayer and the shape of rika's piety is the boy who never forsook her. ]
Maybe.
[ one release on her binds was certainly the near berserker level of response. the possessiveness is still present but control is key. rika would tap her tiny fingertips to her chin if she had that shape still. she does not know if she would like them. 'like'. who has she ever liked but yuuta? yet she could perhaps find value in them as people who care and protect him. this much, she can suppose in that way of near wild animals, half domesticated; that which is not a threat to the loved one is permissible, if always watched. there is the one yuuta aims to free; rika values that one, because he protected yuuta. the same can be said here, and where before she would have been excruciatingly maddeningly hurt by his investment in anyone else, this 'freed' version of her self spans the threshold of 'that' and 'this. what would be a soft hum from a girl is just a fluctuation in energy as she replies again, easier and unfettered: ]
Miss... you too.
[ selfishness is inescapable, a part of every human living or dead, still human or curse become. it hurts. still clear in her memory: how she forced everyone to be afraid of yuuta but in truth it was she that they feared. how she had not even the wherewithal to regret these acts of violence who came too close to the only reason she could see for persisting, that which bound her. it would not be accurate really to say she feels guilty; she doesn't. but rika spoke truly: she remembers. she thinks, against odds. she β
β stays.
also clear: how yuuta forgave her, how he held her as if she was not a monster and told her he would give her everything and how it tipped her into a madness deeper than she thought she could come back from.
how exhilarating.
how heartbreaking.
rika wants yuuta to love her. she also wants him to live. when the time comes that these two realities cannot co-exist, well, they will handle it then.
a curse dares to hope, invisible and validated by only one: time will give them a while longer.
the desire to take physical form, to draw herself out of the dark and into his true space is suffocating. she feels neither large nor small, formed as monster or girl, none of it; just the dense weight of aching want.
yuuta she thinks. ]
Yuuta...careful. The games...liars.
[ what limits will not permit: you must be careful who you trust.
because there are lies woven through everything here. it is in the air. a smell and a taste. deception is a kind of blood and bone. especially, rika distrusts because the jujutsu sorcerers world whether speaking of right now or going all the way back to the original kamo noritoshi has been a disaster widely misshapen by adults. the ones who suffer most tend to be children. even outside the realm of sorcery, this had been proven to be true in her eyes. to articulate this even in her 'head' is impossible. there are parts of rika that yet remain almost childlike and her communication is sometimes apparent in this, not only in how simple or short but her response. she isn't a child. she isn't a teenager. she isn't an adult.
rika, once queen of curses.
what then?
pure love. perhaps.
after all, no one ever said love was harmless. love can be scared and love can be violent. love can be a curse or a kindness or both.
how she sees, she could not explain, but in this rare lull of a moment, there is time to notice not only the suggestion of tears but also an errant scrape. not much of anything, and surprising given yuuta's skill. but he has been going through protecting people while also fighting; he is human.
frustrating to not be able to always choose when she can reach out, but it is such a small scrape she wonders...
yuuta may feel a blur of warmth then coolness against the place where one thin scrape graced his forearm. but it isn't there anymore. ]
[ let's assume they were kept apart on his birthday for whatever god forsaken reason β a mission they only wanted yuuta for? who knows...also please assume this comes in right at the midnight hour because of course she would be first to say this, ]
if you're awake, happy birthday and if you're not, good morning when you see this and happy birthday
( the administration of the school finds unique ways to keep them apart when they sense they most want to be together. they seem content to be contrary to pretty much everything about the strange duo, under the impression that anything they might feel inclined toward must be potentially dangerous. an exchange trip to the kyoto campus had been posed to yuuta as a "gift" to accept for his birthday.
he's never been to kyoto, so it's been a lot new to see and to experience, but he can't help but think he wishes that rika was with him at nearly every turn.
of course he isn't asleep at midnight. he's been restless in his temporary accommodations at the kyoto campus for the last few hours, and he jumps for his phone when he hears the notifications. )
thanks, rika-chan
it feels like i've always been with you for my birthday it's really weird that i'm not right now it's been kinda hard to pay attention to things because of that...
we can do something when you get back they can't keep you in kyoto forever
[ to say rika has a quiet fury would be accurate. nothing quite like her almost infantilized cursed form, and yet reminiscent in its visceral quality. it scares most of the adults with the exception of gojou satoru. it is a bit hard to tell with nanami kento who is a recent 'return' according to that one, though he's not there nearly as often. 'trial basis' gojou had said, if she recalls correctly though his tone more or less made it a done deal.
she doesn't care.
but she remembers the ones who bare their teeth as if she doesn't know the difference between a smile and a threat. gojou and nanami are not those kinds, and for that she credits them.
yuuta's absence on his birthday is the work of other more entrenched traditions and fears. she knows; they both know.
she misses him terribly. it hurts in physicality in a way she would never explain to anyone, as if the sheer distance and time chips away at her. there is a tension too, the thread of connection between them red as fate as blood and able to be liquid or brittle. held too tight.
'happy birthday' she says and means: i miss you.
you should be here.
in the end her loathing of certain people will never hold a candle to her love for yuuta.
okay!! that can be my real birthday celebration because it doesn't really feel real out here...
i don't think they will im pretty sure they said i'll be here for a week or two? and if they try to keep me here any longer, well... i guess i'll figure out something!
( which is easier said than done. yuuta has always been possessed of a gentle soul, regardless of the near-infinite depth of cursed energy that he has (and now shares with rika, regardless of how much distance separates them). his idea of making a stand against the school administrators keeping him away from her was probably "make several soft-spoken protestations and complaints" before lapsing back into uncertain silence. they have always complemented one another in that way β rika stood up for yuuta with ferocious intensity when he didn't have the nerve, and he would appeal to her good will and bridge between her and others when rough patches arose.
it's so much harder for them to be that to one another with so much distance between them. it's a unique sort of challenge, especially considering how long it's been since they've been apart for this long.
loneliness is somehow worse when surrounded by others. he tries to be open, tries to be friendly with the new students he's introduced to, but... his guard is always partially up, a piece of his mind and his heart always with rika. hoping she's doing well, worrying that something might happen. the lion's share of their elders' ire seems to fall on her β especially once they had scoured through both of their family histories to try to find some explanation for what happened...
it's fortunate that it'd so quickly become obvious that their fates are intertwined with one another; if something happened to her, he would know, because he would unravel too. )
do you remember what we did for my birthday two years ago?
( it had been unseasonably warm, and rika's grandmother had been in a lax enough mood to let rika go with yuuta and his family to the beach. )
( a blink, a pause, and then... yuuta can't help but laugh. it's a light and good-natured sort of chuckle β certainly not to be mistaken as done at megumi's expense β but in retrospect, he might question how good of a move it had been. it's never very nice to respond to someone's earnestness with laughter!
...but, still, it is kind of funny. even in this, in literally extending a request for something that he wants from yuuta, he still manages to phrase it as something that megumi can do for him. it's so endearing, even if there's a part of it that makes something in his chest ache.
there are two instances in which yuuta doesn't hesitate even a fraction of a second: when his gut instinct guides the muscles of his body to defending someone or when there is nothing to do but follow in the wake of what his heart tells him. and now his heart urges him forward with a sudden assuredness, almost hypocritical given how casual he makes it seem, as if it's something he's done a hundred times with megumi instead of right here and right now. he reaches out and takes one of his hands, then the other, the pad of each thumb pressed gently into the hollow of his hand for just a moment before his fingers flex, palms flush together, and thread in-between megumi's, the fingertips lightly tracing the lines of metacarpals raised to the surface of the skin. )
Perceptive as always, ( he says, tone soft and warm. his hands are a little cold β a symptom of a thin frame and poor circulation. are megumi's that much different? he's always wondered. )
[ memories of Tsumiki are ones he guards fiercely like a dragon hoarding treasure, and every so often, they plant their own seeds of ideas. this moment is brought to fruition by the reminiscence of his older sister reaching for his hands every time they left the nearest library (to save on energy bills, water bills, necessities like toilet paper...), her soft exclamation: how do you keep your hands so warm, Megumi?
apart from that, he has no idea if he actually runs warm. he knows his memories are colored strongly by the nostalgia and wistful regret that skews his perception for everything else, and it wouldn't be unlike Tsumiki to praise him for something he doesn't deserve to be praised for. next to Itadori and Kugisaki who always run so warm - as if their physiology is a direct representation of their personalities - he might just be painfully average.
but he thinks his senpai won't end up minding anyway. especially when his chuckle's already got Megumi feeling a lot warmer than he normally might be. (he's not the one that usually makes people laugh; it feels especially good when it's Yuuta.)
thankfully, his hands do turn out to be a lot warmer, and the spike of genuine concern has Megumi's brows furrowing for a second as his own fingers curl - and squeeze. it's enough of a distraction for the tracing over his skin to settle into graceful realization. he startles, recovers - swallows as he meets Yuuta's knowing gaze. ]
( it's all a matter of perspective, isn't it? whether or not megumi really had the same type of roaring vitality that directly translated to a literal warmth in his classmates doesn't necessarily matter so long as he's warm enough in comparison to the other person. it might have been true for tsumiki, and it's certainly true for yuuta. "cold hands, warm heart," had been a phrase that he had heard rika say a few times when they were younger β usually in a situation such as right after she had reached out to lead him by the hand on a brisk day. he had always been loath to accept that, however, even though she had been the one to say it; because hers had always been so warm, and he refused to accept that statement if it meant the opposite was true.
he would have had the same argument for megumi as his hands wrap around yuuta's own, radiant and comforting in a worn sort of warmth. yuuta rarely goes into a gesture of affection with any particular intention on how it will play out β he's direct and genuine, in that way, acting purely for the sake of what he's doing and how it feels right to him. he's a little surprised then at the small start he can feel in the underclassman, even if he does recover readily enough β megumi has always been such a cool and composed customer, even when he had been an incoming freshman and yuuta, headed into his second year, had still felt like he just barely had things under control.
being able to surprise him a little is more than a little gratifying, even if he keeps it to himself.
though it's all a bit of a trade-off, given megumi's words are far more emotional incisive than he might've anticipated. he smiles, though the expression is a little more wobbly than as is typical, and... yes, yuuta blushes a little, and he takes a moment to figure out his next words... good job, megumi. )
Is that so? ( he steps maybe a half-step closer, always susceptible to the almost feline instinct of curling inwards towards a ready source of heat. he hums, continuing, ) I might have underestimated you, Megumi-kun... You seem to be more dangerous than I first thought.
( you know, when it came to the matters of a sentimental heart, and all... )
[ the blush and the pause makes all the difference.
while Megumi's not ... unfamiliar with the concept of romance, his experiences range from over-aggressive girls in grade school to those awkward encounters around Valentine's Day, where a girl would determinedly approach him with an envelope and chocolate in her hands and. well. growing up with an older sister had at least taught Megumi not to throw those letters away on campus where they could be found, but he'd never read any of them. more than just pointless, it had seemed almost laughable, to think he could ever engage in something normal like dating when his whole world was on a different axis.
his feelings for Yuuta are different in that they're secure, strongly rooted in the knowledge that they can understand each other in the most fundamental ways. but they're also quiet; like looking up from an intriguing book and realizing how much darker the shadows have grown as night draws nearer. no dramatic declarations. no silly emotional unraveling. and even when they're like this, calloused palms gently pressed together, Megumi can only feel his lungs expelling oxygen like they've expanded to twice their size; the quietest indication that he just might be floating on clouds.
he smiles, just enough to show a sliver of his pleasure, almost boyish in how bashful it is. it would be so easy - so easy to just step even closer until it makes more sense to let go of Yuuta's hands and have his fingers curl around something else instead. a cheek, his waist... Megumi's far too proper to seize his chance to follow his instincts, but he's sure it's written all over his face anyway. ]
Dangerous? I rather think this is a natural response to the ways you make me react, senpai.
( none of that is romance. infatuation, maybe, but the reason yuuta knows so much about love at such a young age is because the events of his life have allowed him to soar to its zeniths and plummet into its furrows several times already. ever since he'd unraveled rika's curse, he's had time to think about it β about the time after her death but also before, to the halcyon years they'd spent as one another's mutual shadows, shunned by most of the world but finding a near-perfect solace in one another. to love someone deeply is to open yourself up to so much more. when she had been bound to him as a curse, he had often feared rika, and in his most terrible and desperate moments he had put the blame on her for her reactions instead of on him for necessitating them. when someone knows you so well, when so much of who you are is wrapped up in them and who they are... it's easy to hurt and to get hurt; you know them so well that you know all the things that could wound them, but your words and your actions by the same token have more potent healing ability than even time itself could offer.
it's something he can't expect any of his classmates to understand. he doesn't try to explain it to them. he had never taken the time to tell them that when he had offered everything he was and everything he would ever be to rika, that it had been entirely out of acceptance and out of love β love for his friends, so that he could do what was necessary to save their lives. love for rika, out of gratitude for all that she had done for him and how patient she had been in playing the role of a monster until he could follow through with the promise he'd made to her. and the love that's hardest to explain: that for himself, for deciding that if he was going to shrug out of his mortal coil as he had only narrowly avoided doing, and willingly, before joining jujutsu high, he would do so living as much as he ever had for himself and how he felt in the moment.
see? it's not something one can explain because it's often irrational, often contradictory and capricious, but it is what it is. or, at least, that's how he sees it after months of quiet rumination.
jujutsu sorcerers are accustomed to bidding with all that they have. he'd realized that when he watched toge walk away to face off with the semi-grade 1 curse on his own before yuuta had decided to fight with him β they do so because they know that tomorrow is never guaranteed to them or anyone that they care for, and they fight that much harder to try to actualize it themselves. it's this, combined with his own quiet sort of boldness that had only grown in the last year or so, that allows yuuta to act freely and without concern for judgment or appearances. why should he, or any of them? life is short. far too short for him not to appreciate the smile as it breaks on megumi's face like the sun taking a brief stand in eternally overcast skies, though yuuta also appreciates his calm stoicism for its own merits as well. he wonders why he otherwise holds back. he can sense it in a momentary tenseness that plays out in contradiction on his face, the internal conflict of what's wanted and what's denied. he could have a specific reason β would he tell him if he overstepped?
another soft, warm laugh, another half-step closer. close enough now that megumi might be able to feel the warmth of his breath as he replies, ) Isn't it natural to be a little dangerous sometimes?
( he might know a thing or two about that.
the moment is heavy and precipitous with what yuuta wants to do here β what they both most likely want to do here, but... he's wary of pressing too far. for now he merely lifts both of their hands as they are clasped together and rests them lightly against his chest, over the steady beat of his heart. )
Kugisaki likes to call him an anti-social guy and as much as he gives her grief about it, Megumi can't deny that she's wrong. he was very young when he learned that the last remaining pillar in his parental unit had seen fit to sell him back to a clan they'd never even considered family in the first place. no goodbyes, no explanations. and no check-ins, even after all these years. the loss of his mother was greatly softened by timing; Megumi isn't the type to sit and daydream about whether she smiled when she looked down at her baby in her arms. but being sold, no more useful than a cheap prostitute to a client who only needs his bed warm for a few hours, is a betrayal that cuts deep even when he's not actively thinking about it.
how much, he used to wonder, when he first began summoning his shikigami and taming them, are these all worth?
more than he was. that's for sure.
and it's a belief that, until recently, embedded itself to his core, tying itself to his identity, to every thought and action, until death by way of a divine general felt like the best way to make his cheap life worth more. his one trump card - a flash of brilliant strength before the fade into irrelevance. his shikigami's name would live on longer than his own. the way it should be.
Megumi still feels the distant ache of a familiar fear he's just barely extracted: this is selfish, especially for a guy who's never seen the point of making too much of an effort to get along with people because his end is inevitable. the road ahead is paved in gold for only the strongest. a wretched, lonely road, but one they get to walk regardless. his eyes dip down to the sight of their hands, curled together as if it's a natural thing they've done so many times before.
it is selfish. but his senpai is strong enough to indulge him. ]
I never felt like I could be dangerous before you.
[ it's something of an apology and a request, with the way he says it, eyes intensely earnest for once as he visibly takes a deep breath and leans in, slow - more than enough time for Yuuta to express discomfort or move away. his kiss, in contrast to his certainty, is soft, hesitant - more than indicative of the truth in his words - and chaste. a confession purposely given with a weight as light as a butterfly's wing. ]
( they share more common ground than they might initially expect. over the last year or so, yuuta has learned sociability and affability, but that doesn't necessarily directly translate into openness. polite kindness can be just as personally distancing as purposeful aloofness β the maintenance of that distance is a difficult habit to break, especially when the consequences of a lapse in the last five years might've ended up being a matter of life and death. he had tried to live in his parents' house with rika's ghost haunting him, but he'd barely managed to get through a year before the tension started to rise to a point where it was not only effecting him but also his parents. they might not have been able to see her, but they could sense her; they could sense the heavy and malicious force that seemed to linger in their son's shadow. and they could sense that it was angry β furious with envy β and that it was more and more honing in on yuuta's little sister.
all to a point where the danger of a single lapse in his attention in arbitrating between them and rika could cost far too much. he had left, having to find anywhere else to be that wasn't within a dangerously close proximity to others (and especially those that he cared about).
he could never understand the pain and mental wounds that would be left behind by a parent pawning you as if you were an unwanted family heirloom, but... even as he continued to go to school as consistently as he could manage, they never tried to intercept him. his parents had never tried to bring him home. perhaps they had understood on some level the sacrifice that he had made, for both their safety and his sister's, but...
it still hurt to know that they wouldn't fight to try to keep him as well.
time has passed. regardless of how he'd felt about it a year or so ago, yuuta no longer believes that his continued existence on this planet is a net negative, though getting into the details of that karmic calculation was something he didn't really care to do. there's something about weighing everything that he had put rika in a position to do before being accepted to jujutsu tech against what he's been able to do since arriving there that leaves a bad taste in his mouth. self-affirmation is not an instance but a process, and it's one that he is still working through. so, too, is the performance of vulnerability. the admission of concern, and how dizzying the intimacy of something so small to others might seem after years of self-imposed exile. megumi receives him now having already gone through a lot of those growing pains and having come out the other side feeling far more emboldened by the authenticity of what his heart told him over very nearly everything else.
it had steered him right with rika β why would it lead him astray with his fellow students here, the first who had opened their own hearts to him after the truth of who and what he was had come to light?
it's customary of others to see one's strength far better than they can get a sense of it themselves. yuuta scarcely thinks he needs to bear indulgence for megumi when he knows unerringly that he has the inner steel to state what it is that he wants and reach for it in the same breath. but there is the back-and-forth step of a dance in this that he finds incredibly endearing, etching a warm and fond smile into the curve of his lips at the words and shift forward. yuuta himself remains immovable, dark eyes steady on megumi's face until their lips meet. and then they lid closed.
in a way it's funny to yuuta that some of his first impressions of megumi had been somewhat abrupt, harsh β it couldn't be any further from how he is now, the warmth of his lips feather-light against his own. though sometimes he can succumb to tides of passion just as torrental and unfathomable as his cursed energy, yuuta is almost afraid to break the delicacy of the moment, how it seems to ring in his ears and vibrate in the air. he leaves it like that for just a second, and then he replies in cautious kind, lips molding to megumi's for a beat before separating β not by much, though, but enough that his warm breath of levity blooms in the small space between them. )
You sure about that?
( one of his hands twists, rotating megumi's so that the flat of the back of his hand presses against his chest, so he can better measure the pace of his heart, both strong and steady at a gallop. the physical evidence of his verbal challenge can be much more difficult to argue with. with his other hand he relinquishes megumi's, lifting to the side of his face so that when he resumes their kiss, it is with with that same spirit and self-assuredness. )
[ his reaction to a kiss, as it turns out, is not all that different from a fight. the only real difference is how the nerves and anxiety strike: where a fight might make his heart pound incessantly, and his lungs stretch as widely as they can against his ribcage, Yuuta's lips against his own makes Megumi feel as though his organs might stutter and fail from forgetting how to work properly. it's a powerful thing, deceptive in its simplicity. where he thought he would be satisfied with just one, that thought is easily replaced with an immediate desire for more. more kisses, more time, more of both.
a huff of amusement is all he can manage - and even that's a little choked with endeared disbelief - before their lips are touching once more, the feeling of Yuuta's heartbeat against his hand somehow directly influencing to his own until he can swear they're beating together, at the same pace, like a terribly corny development in a drama.
but this green light is all he needs. that, and the calloused hand against his cheek that he already wants to lean into, to give Yuuta all the warmth he deserves. ]
I'm sure.
[ there's no time to be embarrassed by the way his voice has somehow softened and deepened simultaneously, not when his lips are moving, growing in confidence as they glide - clumsy in some ways, like catching where they're both too dry but details like that fade away in the overwhelming growth of his enthusiasm. almost enough to be puppy-like, now that he feels safe enough to unleash his feelings.
but he's still Fushiguro Megumi, with a self-preservation instinct that stretches longer than the sun's distance from the earth, and he doesn't allow his desires to run rampant for too long. (rampant, in this case, is what others would probably still consider reserved.) when he's mustered up enough strength to pull back slowly and gracefully, he does. and probably looks entirely too solemn when he squeezes Yuuta's hand to remind himself this isn't a dream. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
FIRST!!!! idk after the goodwill event
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um... who is asking?
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I am sending you a text to file a formal complaint!
[ AGAINST WHO?? :) ]
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okay...
what's wrong, nobara-san?
I'm not really sure how much I'll be able to help at the moment...
( subconsciously he's already anticipating this is a complaint about another certain someone... )
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I would like to write up a complaint about you, senpai!!!
[ and no, she already knows he's not going to be able to help, but you know. she just wants him to know she has a problem with him. ]
Because of you, I didn't get to go to Kyoto!!
(1/2)
oh
me??
(2/2)
um... how exactly did I prevent that?
1/2
Panda-senpai and Maki-san said you singlehandedly took out all of the Kyoto students last year.
And because of that we won, so we had to host this year's event!!!
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[ she packed her bags and everything...... ]
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oh
ohhhhhhh
haha... right. i did...
( "moderation" was a skill that had taken him more time to learn than a lot of far more complex cursed techniques. with where he'd been in his training post-rika at the time of the event last year... it'd essentially been the equivalent of trying to water one's lawn with a fire engine.
it had been a bit of a massacre. he's still embarrassed. )
i'm sorry... i had no idea it would impact someone's plans like this
umm
well, i would promise to do my best to make it up to you, but
i'm kind of broke...
( see: chapter 168 bonus manga )
oh no he's so cute HDFKLSHDGFLKGJSFD
Ugh. I guess it's fine? You couldn't have known I was going to be around now but if I was there last year, I would've stopped you from demolishing the Kyoto students!!
[ no, she wouldn't have.
besides, everything she's heard from her senpais make her want to steer clear of rika. ]
So is that a promise or not? Breaking a promise will result in fifteen years of bad luck! That's worse than breaking a mirror.
Ah. Wait, senpai. Why are you broke? Aren't you overseas? Don't you need money for that kind of stuff??
his aura of faint patheticness saves him yet again
if you'd been there to tell me that it would ruin your future travel plans, I definitely would have tried to tone it down a notch
but, then again
if you were there last year, you could have participated in the event and gone to kyoto then and there, haha
( i actually can't remember if the previous year's event had been held in kyoto but i'm pretty sure it was and i'm not looking it up in the manga to make sure )
well, i certainly can't afford any more of that...
( one can almost imagine the pained, sardonic laugh... )
i am, but technically i'm on school business...
so they paid for everything, but i'm not exactly free to go sightseeing
me being broke doesn't really have anything to do with me traveling...
you can ask maki, toge, or panda about that!
( maybe it would encourage them to cook for the first-years (: wouldn't that be cute )
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If I was there it would've been a completely different story, you're right! Maki-san would probably have bonked my head if I had asked you to tone it down, but on the other hand you're also right - I would've had the chance to see Kyoto in all its glory regardless!
In the end, I guess I only have my parents to blame for conceiving me a year later.
In any case, did you have a chance to explore Kyoto while you guys were there?
[ i'm not going back to read either but i'm p sure it was in kyoto and if not... TOO BAD IT WAS!! we say so!
anyway, a deep sigh can be heard all the way from tokyo from... wherever he is. not to mention, her parents are also nowhere to be found. who knows where they are? only gege does and only time will tell if he'll even... say anything about them... ]
That's so boring... My condolences. [ to your free time ]
Ah, you mean you want me to ask the second-year senpais to take me sightseeing??
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and megumi would never text him about something like this. )
yeah, haha... that's probably true
yes, we had some time to explore, but
the kyoto principal asked their students to accompany us, so...
as you can imagine, things were
intense?
i had to enlist toge and panda to help me run interference for maki and her sister
which was difficult because toudou was being very persistent about questions... and no one could agree on where to go
so maybe it's best that you weren't there last year... it was a strange trip
( yes, he can hear her from... somewhere in africa! but nowhere specific because gege didn't want to go to that much effort in research. )
yes, being a jujutsu sorcerer unfortunately isn't great on either your free time or your vacation opportunities it seems, haha...
but i'm sure we can manage one good trip to kyoto one day
hm
maybe!
they will certainly know where all the good places to eat are!
πππ ππππππ:
What do you think about all of this, Rika?
( he doesn't really project the words; he just mumbles them to himself, his lips barely moving around the syllables. this isn't an uncommon occurrence for him β after all of these months, he still talks to her like he'd used to. perhaps it was the only way he had to cope with the distinct absence of something that had once been there, which had been there since they had been kids lording over the local playground or when her last living remainder had been caught around the spool of his unwitting curse until he'd finally unraveled it and let her go.
he'd let her go, but letting go is so much harder than that. he would've never imagined it would feel lonelier after he'd set her free than when she'd made it her personal mission to keep everyone away from him. so when others weren't around to hear him, he'd kept talking to her like normal, and that had been that.
until she'd spoken back.
it doesn't happen often, and he has no way of anticipating when it will, but sometimes the things he says seem to catch and transfer, drifting between the veil of the here and the hereafter in a way that she can reply. how he feels about that is still something he's working through. he worries it means that he's still doing something to her that keeps her tied down to the mortal world (though he does enough of that simply by being alive), but on the other hand... he's only human. he always wants to hear her voice again, and when he does, it gives him the strength to keep going on. he carries her final wish for him with a quiet and determined devotion β he's no longer in any hurry to cut short his time here, not with the new family that he'd found at jujutsu high, but...
yes, he's still only human. ) A world of jujutsu sorcerers... ( how he feels about it wouldn't change anything about his goals. obviously, he would flatly disagree with the goals and justifications of the culling game β it came at far too high of a cost. even though people had only ever turned fearful or blind eyes to him in his very worst years, he just couldn't sense those feelings of alienation transforming into contempt and scorn. he just pities them. they are out of their depth, just as how they had been (how he had been) when his curse was at its worst. it was only natural for people to fear and flee from what they didn't understand. )
...Would you have liked to have been a jujutsu sorcerer? ( he only wants to rest for an hour, hopefully less, but thoughts of a world where they could have fought alongside one another in that sort of way could keep him company for that time. )
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in her life and her not-quite-life, for rika it has always been okkotsu yuuta β a heartbeat and a fatality all in one.
her happiest years were with him, and the form simply did not matter; likewise now, it does not matter. that she can be near him, that she can protect him within whatever limitations they encounter, it...well no. it isn't enough. it would never be enough to 'try', only to do, to well and truly save him when he needs saving, help when he needs help, and blot out in no uncertainty that which would threaten him.
to rika, it has never been a question of whether or not it is okay for yuuta to live; it has been, rather, been the desire to make sure he can live.
in a perfect world, she would always be with him.
even in an imperfect world, here they are.
sometimes yuuta speaks and she can hear him as if under deep water, comforting in the way even his unhappiness was a comfort because it meant he was alive. she cannot always understand, cannot, even if she understands, always respond. even before he let her go, it was sometimes this way, but the water was her own haze of inhumanity narrowed down to the head of nail where thrived only yuuta: her cat's cradle of existence, wanting to pull at his threads and yet also make the shapes he wanted without being able to touch the part of her that was still a person under all that curse. if before it was a near madness, now it is like the consciousness of desire with less desperation.
if she cannot reply, it breaks the heart a curse and a girl might have. there is only this: to keep trying.
even when she doesn't understand, she tries.
understanding is, of course, better.
rika is rika.
a jujutsu sorcerer? the presence of her settles near and never near enough all at once, unseen even to yuuta at this moment yet she is there. and she thinks: yes. because certainly someone like yuuta was going to become one, given his cursed energy, given his far-back lineage despite not knowing it at the time. she doesn't have to have 'grown up' to know: they were, in the best of situations, not going to have any normal life. without being a jujutsu sorcerer, she would not be able to protect him, would not be able to be at his side. in the end, she would rather be a curse than nothing at all, if it means staying with him like this.
love was telling yuuta not to come to where she truly resides too soon, and love is also yuuta permitting her to exist in this way with him after that.
who else would understand that?
it doesn't matter.
this culling game reeks. she dislikes the danger it puts him in, but yuuta was always resolute in his feelings even if he did not know whether he was allowed to have them. she knows he will not disappear from things, and indeed there are rules here. not formed but present, her words come to yuuta and only yuuta, even if someone else were here. ]
Together.
[ sometimes, to make sure it comes through without confusion, one word both suffices and is strongest. this one especially: the clarity of a shrine bell. with it: the thin fingertips of winter, because even when she's subtle, she's also overwhelming every time they are able to connect β
β the sound and the season of coming home. ]
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in the end, it's not something he has perfect control over, so he puts everything he has into everything he puts his mind to. single-handedly taking on the sendai colony on behalf of jujutsu high, then, was one of those things.
they'd been inseparable (both figuratively and literally) for so long that it's still stranger to feel himself in her absence than remember how their camaraderie had felt. as kids, she had been a mystery that he had never felt any pressure to solve β yuuta had been terminally shy and fumbling with his words, making it difficult for him to make friends while simultaneously making himself a beacon for meaner-spirited kids. it hadn't really seemed an option for him to become rika's friend, though; she had pursued him aggressively from the day that they had met, and then they had structured their childhood days around when they would see one another next. all the way up until the day that β
even all these years later, with all that's come to pass, he still doesn't like to think about it.
so when something catches at the edges of his extrasensory perception, something so heart-achingly familiar that it startles him from a periwinkle state of semi-sleep to electric wakefulness, he just knows. he knows it with the same unswerving bone-deep assuredness that a mother would know her child, that pain would one day pass, that the sun would always come to rise from the east and herald a new day. whenever this happens, he feels the irrational desire to reach out and grab hold of the intangible, to once again pull her to him in a fit of selfish grief. he doesn't make the same mistake twice. he welcomes her beloved specter with a faintly sad, worn smile and a thin rime of tears forming between his eyelids.
his lips part at her reply, as clear and present in his mind as if it were one of his own thoughts, though perfectly distinct in just how hers the voice was. he holds onto that for a moment, his thoughts lulled and his breath suspended in his lungs as he wills it to extend past just these few fleeting seconds. then he exhales in a soft chuckle, one that sounds as dry as fall leaves rustling underfoot. )
That wouldn't change, no matter what. ( his free hand tracks up to his chest, to press his palm into the fabric of his uniform which covered where her ring hung from a chain around her neck, presently resting just a short distance above his beating heart. ) I promised you, remember?
( he never knows how long their luck will last. he doesn't question or challenge it β he had been ready to never speak with her again when he had severed her curse entirely, and the fact that their bond still manages to persist between the realms of the living and the dead was a mystery that he refused to search out, fearful that it would vanish the second he shone light onto it. he continues, conversational, with steady yet eager warmth, ) I think you would have liked everyone. All of my classmates. ( because they love and care for me, just like you do. even if they got on your nerves, that fact would soften it. ) And I miss having you at my side for real when fighting.
( the rika that he summons is like a phantom limb β he can recall with such clarity what it had felt to be tethered to her as a curse that he can manifest it through cursed energy and sheer force of will. but it's like a shed skin, a shell which had long since lost its inhabitant, and yet β he still reaches for it instinctually when in combat, partially due to a yearning for what was lost to him but also because it still managed to feel right. )
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invisible still as she is, there are no visual indicators such as a tilt of the head as a girl might do, such as the mild narrowing of an expression in skepticism as rika specifically might do edged always in something learned and saccharine that has never been aimed at yuuta. her presence might be perceived in the feeling of rippled water or changing weather without the carding of the wind to evidence it. yuuta might feel a bloom inside or a twist almost contraction of space, acute to rika as he has always been and ever will be. but she does not look for these things even as he cannot look for her; theirs is a bond of trust.
the madness of the world they inhabit was made known to rika from a very young age. as dramatic as the culling games are, she is not surprised and nor does she wish she was. wishes are a kind of prayer and the shape of rika's piety is the boy who never forsook her. ]
Maybe.
[ one release on her binds was certainly the near berserker level of response. the possessiveness is still present but control is key. rika would tap her tiny fingertips to her chin if she had that shape still. she does not know if she would like them. 'like'. who has she ever liked but yuuta? yet she could perhaps find value in them as people who care and protect him. this much, she can suppose in that way of near wild animals, half domesticated; that which is not a threat to the loved one is permissible, if always watched. there is the one yuuta aims to free; rika values that one, because he protected yuuta. the same can be said here, and where before she would have been excruciatingly maddeningly hurt by his investment in anyone else, this 'freed' version of her self spans the threshold of 'that' and 'this. what would be a soft hum from a girl is just a fluctuation in energy as she replies again, easier and unfettered: ]
Miss... you too.
[ selfishness is inescapable, a part of every human living or dead, still human or curse become. it hurts. still clear in her memory: how she forced everyone to be afraid of yuuta but in truth it was she that they feared. how she had not even the wherewithal to regret these acts of violence who came too close to the only reason she could see for persisting, that which bound her. it would not be accurate really to say she feels guilty; she doesn't. but rika spoke truly: she remembers. she thinks, against odds. she β
β stays.
also clear: how yuuta forgave her, how he held her as if she was not a monster and told her he would give her everything and how it tipped her into a madness deeper than she thought she could come back from.
how exhilarating.
how heartbreaking.
rika wants yuuta to love her. she also wants him to live. when the time comes that these two realities cannot co-exist, well, they will handle it then.
a curse dares to hope, invisible and validated by only one: time will give them a while longer.
the desire to take physical form, to draw herself out of the dark and into his true space is suffocating. she feels neither large nor small, formed as monster or girl, none of it; just the dense weight of aching want.
yuuta she thinks. ]
Yuuta...careful. The games...liars.
[ what limits will not permit: you must be careful who you trust.
because there are lies woven through everything here. it is in the air. a smell and a taste. deception is a kind of blood and bone. especially, rika distrusts because the jujutsu sorcerers world whether speaking of right now or going all the way back to the original kamo noritoshi has been a disaster widely misshapen by adults. the ones who suffer most tend to be children. even outside the realm of sorcery, this had been proven to be true in her eyes. to articulate this even in her 'head' is impossible. there are parts of rika that yet remain almost childlike and her communication is sometimes apparent in this, not only in how simple or short but her response. she isn't a child. she isn't a teenager. she isn't an adult.
rika, once queen of curses.
what then?
pure love. perhaps.
after all, no one ever said love was harmless. love can be scared and love can be violent. love can be a curse or a kindness or both.
how she sees, she could not explain, but in this rare lull of a moment, there is time to notice not only the suggestion of tears but also an errant scrape. not much of anything, and surprising given yuuta's skill. but he has been going through protecting people while also fighting; he is human.
frustrating to not be able to always choose when she can reach out, but it is such a small scrape she wonders...
yuuta may feel a blur of warmth then coolness against the place where one thin scrape graced his forearm. but it isn't there anymore. ]
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if you're awake, happy birthday
and if you're not, good morning when you see this
and happy birthday
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he's never been to kyoto, so it's been a lot new to see and to experience, but he can't help but think he wishes that rika was with him at nearly every turn.
of course he isn't asleep at midnight. he's been restless in his temporary accommodations at the kyoto campus for the last few hours, and he jumps for his phone when he hears the notifications. )
thanks, rika-chan
it feels like i've always been with you for my birthday
it's really weird that i'm not right now
it's been kinda hard to pay attention to things because of that...
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they can't keep you in kyoto forever
[ to say rika has a quiet fury would be accurate. nothing quite like her almost infantilized cursed form, and yet reminiscent in its visceral quality. it scares most of the adults with the exception of gojou satoru. it is a bit hard to tell with nanami kento who is a recent 'return' according to that one, though he's not there nearly as often. 'trial basis' gojou had said, if she recalls correctly though his tone more or less made it a done deal.
she doesn't care.
but she remembers the ones who bare their teeth as if she doesn't know the difference between a smile and a threat. gojou and nanami are not those kinds, and for that she credits them.
yuuta's absence on his birthday is the work of other more entrenched traditions and fears. she knows; they both know.
she misses him terribly. it hurts in physicality in a way she would never explain to anyone, as if the sheer distance and time chips away at her. there is a tension too, the thread of connection between them red as fate as blood and able to be liquid or brittle. held too tight.
'happy birthday' she says and means: i miss you.
you should be here.
in the end her loathing of certain people will never hold a candle to her love for yuuta.
that's just how it is. ]
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that can be my real birthday celebration
because it doesn't really feel real out here...
i don't think they will
im pretty sure they said i'll be here for a week or two?
and if they try to keep me here any longer, well... i guess i'll figure out something!
( which is easier said than done. yuuta has always been possessed of a gentle soul, regardless of the near-infinite depth of cursed energy that he has (and now shares with rika, regardless of how much distance separates them). his idea of making a stand against the school administrators keeping him away from her was probably "make several soft-spoken protestations and complaints" before lapsing back into uncertain silence. they have always complemented one another in that way β rika stood up for yuuta with ferocious intensity when he didn't have the nerve, and he would appeal to her good will and bridge between her and others when rough patches arose.
it's so much harder for them to be that to one another with so much distance between them. it's a unique sort of challenge, especially considering how long it's been since they've been apart for this long.
loneliness is somehow worse when surrounded by others. he tries to be open, tries to be friendly with the new students he's introduced to, but... his guard is always partially up, a piece of his mind and his heart always with rika. hoping she's doing well, worrying that something might happen. the lion's share of their elders' ire seems to fall on her β especially once they had scoured through both of their family histories to try to find some explanation for what happened...
it's fortunate that it'd so quickly become obvious that their fates are intertwined with one another; if something happened to her, he would know, because he would unravel too. )
do you remember what we did for my birthday two years ago?
( it had been unseasonably warm, and rika's grandmother had been in a lax enough mood to let rika go with yuuta and his family to the beach. )
πππ ππππππππ’:
...but, still, it is kind of funny. even in this, in literally extending a request for something that he wants from yuuta, he still manages to phrase it as something that megumi can do for him. it's so endearing, even if there's a part of it that makes something in his chest ache.
there are two instances in which yuuta doesn't hesitate even a fraction of a second: when his gut instinct guides the muscles of his body to defending someone or when there is nothing to do but follow in the wake of what his heart tells him. and now his heart urges him forward with a sudden assuredness, almost hypocritical given how casual he makes it seem, as if it's something he's done a hundred times with megumi instead of right here and right now. he reaches out and takes one of his hands, then the other, the pad of each thumb pressed gently into the hollow of his hand for just a moment before his fingers flex, palms flush together, and thread in-between megumi's, the fingertips lightly tracing the lines of metacarpals raised to the surface of the skin. )
Perceptive as always, ( he says, tone soft and warm. his hands are a little cold β a symptom of a thin frame and poor circulation. are megumi's that much different? he's always wondered. )
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apart from that, he has no idea if he actually runs warm. he knows his memories are colored strongly by the nostalgia and wistful regret that skews his perception for everything else, and it wouldn't be unlike Tsumiki to praise him for something he doesn't deserve to be praised for. next to Itadori and Kugisaki who always run so warm - as if their physiology is a direct representation of their personalities - he might just be painfully average.
but he thinks his senpai won't end up minding anyway. especially when his chuckle's already got Megumi feeling a lot warmer than he normally might be. (he's not the one that usually makes people laugh; it feels especially good when it's Yuuta.)
thankfully, his hands do turn out to be a lot warmer, and the spike of genuine concern has Megumi's brows furrowing for a second as his own fingers curl - and squeeze. it's enough of a distraction for the tracing over his skin to settle into graceful realization. he startles, recovers - swallows as he meets Yuuta's knowing gaze. ]
Only for those I care about.
secretly megumi is the suave one...
he would have had the same argument for megumi as his hands wrap around yuuta's own, radiant and comforting in a worn sort of warmth. yuuta rarely goes into a gesture of affection with any particular intention on how it will play out β he's direct and genuine, in that way, acting purely for the sake of what he's doing and how it feels right to him. he's a little surprised then at the small start he can feel in the underclassman, even if he does recover readily enough β megumi has always been such a cool and composed customer, even when he had been an incoming freshman and yuuta, headed into his second year, had still felt like he just barely had things under control.
being able to surprise him a little is more than a little gratifying, even if he keeps it to himself.
though it's all a bit of a trade-off, given megumi's words are far more emotional incisive than he might've anticipated. he smiles, though the expression is a little more wobbly than as is typical, and... yes, yuuta blushes a little, and he takes a moment to figure out his next words... good job, megumi. )
Is that so? ( he steps maybe a half-step closer, always susceptible to the almost feline instinct of curling inwards towards a ready source of heat. he hums, continuing, ) I might have underestimated you, Megumi-kun... You seem to be more dangerous than I first thought.
( you know, when it came to the matters of a sentimental heart, and all... )
he knows what he wants for sure c;
while Megumi's not ... unfamiliar with the concept of romance, his experiences range from over-aggressive girls in grade school to those awkward encounters around Valentine's Day, where a girl would determinedly approach him with an envelope and chocolate in her hands and. well. growing up with an older sister had at least taught Megumi not to throw those letters away on campus where they could be found, but he'd never read any of them. more than just pointless, it had seemed almost laughable, to think he could ever engage in something normal like dating when his whole world was on a different axis.
his feelings for Yuuta are different in that they're secure, strongly rooted in the knowledge that they can understand each other in the most fundamental ways. but they're also quiet; like looking up from an intriguing book and realizing how much darker the shadows have grown as night draws nearer. no dramatic declarations. no silly emotional unraveling. and even when they're like this, calloused palms gently pressed together, Megumi can only feel his lungs expelling oxygen like they've expanded to twice their size; the quietest indication that he just might be floating on clouds.
he smiles, just enough to show a sliver of his pleasure, almost boyish in how bashful it is. it would be so easy - so easy to just step even closer until it makes more sense to let go of Yuuta's hands and have his fingers curl around something else instead. a cheek, his waist... Megumi's far too proper to seize his chance to follow his instincts, but he's sure it's written all over his face anyway. ]
Dangerous? I rather think this is a natural response to the ways you make me react, senpai.
π€
it's something he can't expect any of his classmates to understand. he doesn't try to explain it to them. he had never taken the time to tell them that when he had offered everything he was and everything he would ever be to rika, that it had been entirely out of acceptance and out of love β love for his friends, so that he could do what was necessary to save their lives. love for rika, out of gratitude for all that she had done for him and how patient she had been in playing the role of a monster until he could follow through with the promise he'd made to her. and the love that's hardest to explain: that for himself, for deciding that if he was going to shrug out of his mortal coil as he had only narrowly avoided doing, and willingly, before joining jujutsu high, he would do so living as much as he ever had for himself and how he felt in the moment.
see? it's not something one can explain because it's often irrational, often contradictory and capricious, but it is what it is. or, at least, that's how he sees it after months of quiet rumination.
jujutsu sorcerers are accustomed to bidding with all that they have. he'd realized that when he watched toge walk away to face off with the semi-grade 1 curse on his own before yuuta had decided to fight with him β they do so because they know that tomorrow is never guaranteed to them or anyone that they care for, and they fight that much harder to try to actualize it themselves. it's this, combined with his own quiet sort of boldness that had only grown in the last year or so, that allows yuuta to act freely and without concern for judgment or appearances. why should he, or any of them? life is short. far too short for him not to appreciate the smile as it breaks on megumi's face like the sun taking a brief stand in eternally overcast skies, though yuuta also appreciates his calm stoicism for its own merits as well. he wonders why he otherwise holds back. he can sense it in a momentary tenseness that plays out in contradiction on his face, the internal conflict of what's wanted and what's denied. he could have a specific reason β would he tell him if he overstepped?
another soft, warm laugh, another half-step closer. close enough now that megumi might be able to feel the warmth of his breath as he replies, ) Isn't it natural to be a little dangerous sometimes?
( he might know a thing or two about that.
the moment is heavy and precipitous with what yuuta wants to do here β what they both most likely want to do here, but... he's wary of pressing too far. for now he merely lifts both of their hands as they are clasped together and rests them lightly against his chest, over the steady beat of his heart. )
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Kugisaki likes to call him an anti-social guy and as much as he gives her grief about it, Megumi can't deny that she's wrong. he was very young when he learned that the last remaining pillar in his parental unit had seen fit to sell him back to a clan they'd never even considered family in the first place. no goodbyes, no explanations. and no check-ins, even after all these years. the loss of his mother was greatly softened by timing; Megumi isn't the type to sit and daydream about whether she smiled when she looked down at her baby in her arms. but being sold, no more useful than a cheap prostitute to a client who only needs his bed warm for a few hours, is a betrayal that cuts deep even when he's not actively thinking about it.
how much, he used to wonder, when he first began summoning his shikigami and taming them, are these all worth?
more than he was. that's for sure.
and it's a belief that, until recently, embedded itself to his core, tying itself to his identity, to every thought and action, until death by way of a divine general felt like the best way to make his cheap life worth more. his one trump card - a flash of brilliant strength before the fade into irrelevance. his shikigami's name would live on longer than his own. the way it should be.
Megumi still feels the distant ache of a familiar fear he's just barely extracted: this is selfish, especially for a guy who's never seen the point of making too much of an effort to get along with people because his end is inevitable. the road ahead is paved in gold for only the strongest. a wretched, lonely road, but one they get to walk regardless. his eyes dip down to the sight of their hands, curled together as if it's a natural thing they've done so many times before.
it is selfish. but his senpai is strong enough to indulge him. ]
I never felt like I could be dangerous before you.
[ it's something of an apology and a request, with the way he says it, eyes intensely earnest for once as he visibly takes a deep breath and leans in, slow - more than enough time for Yuuta to express discomfort or move away. his kiss, in contrast to his certainty, is soft, hesitant - more than indicative of the truth in his words - and chaste. a confession purposely given with a weight as light as a butterfly's wing. ]
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all to a point where the danger of a single lapse in his attention in arbitrating between them and rika could cost far too much. he had left, having to find anywhere else to be that wasn't within a dangerously close proximity to others (and especially those that he cared about).
he could never understand the pain and mental wounds that would be left behind by a parent pawning you as if you were an unwanted family heirloom, but... even as he continued to go to school as consistently as he could manage, they never tried to intercept him. his parents had never tried to bring him home. perhaps they had understood on some level the sacrifice that he had made, for both their safety and his sister's, but...
it still hurt to know that they wouldn't fight to try to keep him as well.
time has passed. regardless of how he'd felt about it a year or so ago, yuuta no longer believes that his continued existence on this planet is a net negative, though getting into the details of that karmic calculation was something he didn't really care to do. there's something about weighing everything that he had put rika in a position to do before being accepted to jujutsu tech against what he's been able to do since arriving there that leaves a bad taste in his mouth. self-affirmation is not an instance but a process, and it's one that he is still working through. so, too, is the performance of vulnerability. the admission of concern, and how dizzying the intimacy of something so small to others might seem after years of self-imposed exile. megumi receives him now having already gone through a lot of those growing pains and having come out the other side feeling far more emboldened by the authenticity of what his heart told him over very nearly everything else.
it had steered him right with rika β why would it lead him astray with his fellow students here, the first who had opened their own hearts to him after the truth of who and what he was had come to light?
it's customary of others to see one's strength far better than they can get a sense of it themselves. yuuta scarcely thinks he needs to bear indulgence for megumi when he knows unerringly that he has the inner steel to state what it is that he wants and reach for it in the same breath. but there is the back-and-forth step of a dance in this that he finds incredibly endearing, etching a warm and fond smile into the curve of his lips at the words and shift forward. yuuta himself remains immovable, dark eyes steady on megumi's face until their lips meet. and then they lid closed.
in a way it's funny to yuuta that some of his first impressions of megumi had been somewhat abrupt, harsh β it couldn't be any further from how he is now, the warmth of his lips feather-light against his own. though sometimes he can succumb to tides of passion just as torrental and unfathomable as his cursed energy, yuuta is almost afraid to break the delicacy of the moment, how it seems to ring in his ears and vibrate in the air. he leaves it like that for just a second, and then he replies in cautious kind, lips molding to megumi's for a beat before separating β not by much, though, but enough that his warm breath of levity blooms in the small space between them. )
You sure about that?
( one of his hands twists, rotating megumi's so that the flat of the back of his hand presses against his chest, so he can better measure the pace of his heart, both strong and steady at a gallop. the physical evidence of his verbal challenge can be much more difficult to argue with. with his other hand he relinquishes megumi's, lifting to the side of his face so that when he resumes their kiss, it is with with that same spirit and self-assuredness. )
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a huff of amusement is all he can manage - and even that's a little choked with endeared disbelief - before their lips are touching once more, the feeling of Yuuta's heartbeat against his hand somehow directly influencing to his own until he can swear they're beating together, at the same pace, like a terribly corny development in a drama.
but this green light is all he needs. that, and the calloused hand against his cheek that he already wants to lean into, to give Yuuta all the warmth he deserves. ]
I'm sure.
[ there's no time to be embarrassed by the way his voice has somehow softened and deepened simultaneously, not when his lips are moving, growing in confidence as they glide - clumsy in some ways, like catching where they're both too dry but details like that fade away in the overwhelming growth of his enthusiasm. almost enough to be puppy-like, now that he feels safe enough to unleash his feelings.
but he's still Fushiguro Megumi, with a self-preservation instinct that stretches longer than the sun's distance from the earth, and he doesn't allow his desires to run rampant for too long. (rampant, in this case, is what others would probably still consider reserved.) when he's mustered up enough strength to pull back slowly and gracefully, he does. and probably looks entirely too solemn when he squeezes Yuuta's hand to remind himself this isn't a dream. ]
Senpai. You know how I feel now, right?