#while other ppl are in proximity | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

cheftsunoda · 4 days ago

Note

someone stop me, i’ve got too many ideas

max x reader x kelly

reader is also the kid of a former f1 driver (maybe Senna or Schumacher) i have absolutely no ideas for a plot, maybe the relationship is exposed while max is streaming idk, love ya

hearts don’t always break in two — mv1 + kelly piquet

smau+blurbs

max verstappen x !schumacher reader x kelly piquet

yn and max have known each other since age 5. they had been there for each others ups and downs and even fell in love. max and yn dated from age 15 to 17 and then the world became too much. yn got busy with her modeling career and max busy with racing. but feelings like theirs don’t just fade. max never stopped loving yn, not even when he fell for kelly. and yn—despite the string of men she tried to lose herself in—never stopped loving max either. as for kelly? she always knew. she saw the way max looked at yn, felt the electricity in the room when they were near. and oddly enough… she didn’t mind. the schumacher girl had a pull of her own—one kelly found impossible to resist.

fc : annie.shr on ig

(a/n) : omg baby you have the best ideas. i literally was so excited to write this one that i dropped everything else i was doing. love you dearly and i am working on your alexandra request as we speak. and highkey i think this is some of my best writing like to date. so i hope you enjoy. put my whole pu$$y into this.

also ik ppl have mixed feelings about kelly but please no hate. she is the mother of max’s child and you do not know her personally. she is a beauty and max is clearly very in love with her so all that matters is he is happy! thank uuu:)

—

gossiproomx

3,090,201 likes.

gossiproomx : in honor of yn schumacher making her return to the paddock this weekend— i am reliving my maxyn phase because they are my faves and will never be forgotten. (i have nothing against kelly— these two were just endgame for me) (still are) (max pls kiss her when you see her. i need it)

—

view 287,090 other comments.

username00 : if max doesn’t spiral the second he sees her, what’s the point.

username0 : these pics raised a whole generation of delusional wattpad girls and i stand by that.

username1 : max looking at yn the way he used to would cure 85% of my problems. the other 15% would be solved if she looked back.

username5 : mick walking around this weekend knowing everyone is watching his sister and max like 👨‍🦯👨‍🦯👨‍🦯

username7 : maxyn was my roman empire and it still is. i think about that pic of them on the floor every single day.

username10 : if max doesn’t fold the second he hears her voice i’m boycotting red bull.

username11 : @/lando film updates pls.

↳ lando : no. fuck you guys. you are never appreciative for what i give. always bitching that its too shaky or not in focus. im doing the lords work just shut up and be grateful

liked by username11 and gossiproomx

↳ gossiproomx : pleaseeee lan. we will be nice.

↳ lando : doubt it. im only filming for myself so i can rewatch it and cry.

liked by username11 and gossiproomx

—

f1gossipgirls

5,100,203 likes.

f1gossipgirls : YN Schumacher has officially made her paddock comeback, arriving alongside her brother Mick. So far, she’s been spotted catching up with Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton in the Ferrari garage, and even seen chatting with Lando Norris and his dad. Notably absent from her rounds? Any proximity to the RedBull garage… Max, blink twice if you’re suffering. We’ll keep you updated as the drama unfolds.

—

view 750,072 other comments.

username00 : “notably absent from the red bull garage” no because my heart hurts.

username0 : kelly better be gripping that man’s hand for dear life rn.

username1 : she looks so beautiful 😭 every time i see her, mick or gina i just want to hug them and pinch their cheeks

username5 : no but like. imagine being max and seeing her laugh with lando. i’d crash the car immediately.

username7 : mick showing up with yn like a protective german golden retriever we love to see it.

redbullracing : i have sent out like 5 brand reps to try and collect her but no one has reported back to me. i love them as much as you do.

liked by f1gossipgirls

↳ username00 : admin you’re so funny pls don’t go bald or lose your job

↳ redbullracing : trying my best💔

liked by username00 and f1gossipgirls

username10 : the way he’s probably just watching her from behind the screen like 😐🧍‍♂️ baby come back

username11 : @/lando wtf are you doing?? you’re supposed to be playing wingman not charming her.

↳ lando : can’t help that the ladies love me 😎

liked by username11 & f1gossipgirls

↳ username11 : if you don’t do something i am hiring an etsy witch. say goodbye to that wdc

↳ lando : OKAY OKAY. ILL FIGURE IT OUT JEEZ.

liked by username11 and f1gossipgirls

—

It felt like every step I took was echoing in my chest. The paddock hadn’t changed much—still buzzing with energy, still filled with the scent of fuel, sunscreen, and over-priced espresso. But somehow, it all felt different this time. Maybe because I wasn’t seventeen anymore, trailing behind Max like his shadow. Maybe because the ghosts of who I used to be were waiting for me around every corner.

Mick walked beside me, hands in his pockets, silent but steady—like he always was. I could feel the tension in his shoulders though. Protective older brother mode had been activated. He’d barely let me breathe since I stepped off the plane yesterday.

“You good?” he asked under his breath as we passed the Haas hospitality unit.

I gave him a small nod. “Yeah. It’s just… weird.”

He looked down at me. “We don’t have to stay long.”

I shook my head. “No. I need to do this.”

And I did. For myself. For the girl who used to dream about these paddock walks and race weekends. For the version of me who had fallen in love here, and the one who had left with a broken heart still beating for someone who wasn’t mine anymore.

The Ferrari garage was the first familiar refuge. Charles spotted us before we even reached the entrance and immediately pulled me into the kind of hug that squeezed the air out of my lungs.

“Finally,” he muttered into my hair. “We missed you.”

“You mean you missed me,” I teased, pulling back.

“No, Lewis did too,” he said, smirking.

Right on cue, Lewis appeared like a vision in head-to-toe Ferrari gear, sunglasses on, arms open.

“Long time, Schumi,” he said warmly, enveloping me in a hug that made me feel eight years old again, watching him battle my dad on the track.

“You two are being nice. Suspiciously nice,” I said with a raised eyebrow as Charles handed me a coffee.

“Because you look like you haven’t slept in a week and we’re trying not to scare you off,” Lewis said softly, his tone shifting. “You okay?”

I wanted to lie. I always did. But something about standing there, surrounded by two people who knew, made it impossible.

“I’m here. That’s… something.”

Charles reached for my hand and gave it a squeeze. “You’re stronger than you think.”

I wasn’t so sure. Because every time someone looked over my shoulder, I felt my body brace—hoping, dreading, needing to see him. But he wasn’t there. And that was worse.

After an hour or so, Mick and I wandered toward the McLaren garage, where we nearly bumped into Lando and his father, Adam.

“YN?” Lando grinned, eyes lighting up like a kid on Christmas. “Holy shit, you’re really here.”

I smiled. “In the flesh.”

He pulled me into a quick hug and stepped back, looking me up and down like he was trying to process it.

“Jesus, Max is gonna—” He stopped himself, glancing at Mick. “Never mind.”

I forced a laugh, but my chest tightened.

Lando’s dad, Adam, stepped forward, all charm and warmth. “You look so much like your mother,” he said with a soft smile. “It’s good to see you again.”

“You too,” I replied, surprised by how sincere I felt.

We chatted for a few minutes—Lando throwing in a few ridiculous jokes, Mick side-eyeing everyone like he was five seconds away from tackling anyone who so much as mentioned Max’s or my Father’s name.

But even with all the friendly faces, the familiar laughter… there was still a hollow ache. Because I hadn’t seen him. Because I wasn’t sure I could handle it when I did. Max Verstappen had always been gravity to me. Even when I tried to fly away. I glanced across the paddock for the hundredth time, my eyes lingering on the empty stretch between the McLaren and Red Bull garages. He wasn’t there. Not yet. But he would be. And when that moment came… I honestly didn’t know whether I’d fall apart—or fall back into him.

—

I thought I’d escaped for the day. Lando and Mick had been playing their roles as protective older brothers- keeping me as far away from Max as possible. I stopped when I noticed a small girl appear next to me.

“Miss Schumacher?”

I turned, instinctively straightening my shoulders. The rep looked young. Nervous. Holding a tablet like a shield.

“I… uh, sorry to bother you,” she stammered. “But… Max asked if you could… come by. Just for a few minutes.”

My heart fell into my stomach.

“Now?” I asked, voice tight.

She nodded. “He said just… you. He didn’t want to cause a scene.”

Lando’s eyes narrowed instantly. “She doesn’t owe him anything—”

“It’s fine,” I cut in, my voice quiet. “I’ll go.”

Lando looked ready to argue, but I gave him a look. One I hoped said—Please don’t make this harder than it already is.

So I followed the Red Bull rep through the maze of motorhomes and hospitality tents, every step heavier than the last. My mind raced with possibilities. What would I say? What would he say? Would Kelly be there? Did he want to apologize? Or worse—say goodbye? We stopped in front of a nondescript meeting room. The rep gestured to the door, then backed away. I hesitated. And then I opened it. It was silent inside. Cool. Dim. Just one chair pulled out at the table. A water bottle. And him. Max. He was standing with his back to me, facing the far wall, like he was afraid if he looked at me too soon, he’d break.

“Max?” I said, voice barely above a whisper.

He turned slowly. And the second our eyes met, it felt like everything inside me cracked open. He looked tired. Not physically—but in that way you only get when you’ve been carrying something for too long. His eyes—still impossibly blue—held something I wasn’t ready for. Relief. Pain. Love.

��I wasn’t sure you’d come,” he said softly.

“I wasn’t sure I should,” I replied.

Silence settled between us like a storm cloud.

“I didn’t know how to do this,” he admitted, stepping closer. “I thought maybe if I just… saw you. If I could look at you again and remember how to breathe—maybe I could finally say everything I never did.”

My hands curled into fists at my sides. “Then say it.”

He swallowed hard, eyes never leaving mine. “I’m sorry. For letting you go. For not fighting harder. For pretending I could ever love someone else the same way.”

My chest tightened. “You didn’t pretend very well.”

Max’s eyes closed for a second, like the truth physically hurt.

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” he said. “You were modeling in Milan, Paris, New York. You were becoming you, and I didn’t want to be the reason you held back. And then Kelly came into my life, and—”

“You fell in love with her,” I whispered.

“I did,” he said honestly. “But I never stopped loving you.”

A single tear slipped down my cheek before I could stop it. Max stepped forward instinctively, but paused like he didn’t know if he still had the right.

“You were everywhere,” I said. “Every man I dated. Every time I stood in front of a camera and tried to smile. You were always in the room, even when you weren’t. And she knew, didn’t she?”

He nodded. “Kelly’s smarter than I’ll ever be. She never asked me to stop loving you. She just… hoped I could figure it out.”

“And did you?”

“I did the second I saw you again,” he whispered. “I never really stopped being yours, YN.”

The silence between us stretched. Painful. Beautiful. I took a step forward.

“You broke my heart,” I said.

“I know.”

“And I don’t trust you.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“But I still love you.”

He breathed in sharply. Like he’d been holding his breath for years and finally exhaled.

“Then let me try,” he said. “Not to erase the past. Just… to prove I’m worth a future.”

I didn’t answer. But I didn’t leave. And when he finally reached for my hand, I let him. Because maybe love didn’t need to be perfect. Maybe it just needed to survive long enough to come home.

—

I left before he could say anything else. Before I could change my mind. Before my heart betrayed me more than it already had. My fingers trembled as I opened the door and stepped into the sunlight, everything suddenly too loud—too sharp. The weight of Max’s words still clung to my skin like smoke. My chest was tight, lungs refusing to work properly as I wove through the paddock. I shouldn’t have come. I shouldn’t have let him say all those things. And I sure as hell shouldn’t have let myself believe, even for a second, that we could rewrite a story already written in ink. Because Kelly still existed. And she wasn’t a footnote. She was a chapter he chose. Even if he claimed he never stopped loving me—he didn’t stop loving her either. And I couldn’t live with being the person who cracked something that hadn’t even shattered yet. A sob escaped my throat as I ducked behind one of the trailers, pressing my hand to my mouth. I didn’t want anyone to see me like this. Especially not here. Not in this place, where strength was currency and weakness became headlines.

“YN?”

I froze.

And then a beat later—

“YN.”

Mick.

I wiped at my face furiously, turning just as he rounded the corner, worry etched deep into every line of his expression. His gaze swept over me—red eyes, trembling hands, broken posture—and something in him snapped.

“Who do I need to kill?”

I laughed. It was wet, bitter, short-lived.

“No one,” I croaked. “Not yet, anyway.”

He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “What happened? Did someone say something to you? Was it Max?”

I looked away, which told him everything he needed to know.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he muttered, jaw locking. “I told Lando to keep him away. I told him—”

“It wasn’t Lando’s fault. Max asked for me. I thought I could handle it,” I said quietly. “But I was wrong.”

Mick’s expression softened just slightly, but the tension didn’t leave his shoulders. He was vibrating with fury—protective, sharp-edged fury that only brothers were capable of.

“He hurt you again?”

“No,” I whispered. “That’s the worst part. He told me everything I ever wanted to hear.”

Mick blinked. “So…?”

“So I can’t ruin what he has with Kelly. I won’t.”

“Are you serious?” he snapped. “You’re sobbing behind a trailer and he’s walking around with two women’s hearts in his hands. You think you’re the villain in this story?”

“I think I’m the only one trying not to be selfish.”

Mick exhaled hard, dragging a hand through his hair. “You always do that. You put everyone else’s happiness ahead of your own. Even when it kills you.”

“I’d rather break myself than break them,” I said, voice barely audible.

He stared at me for a long moment. “That’s not love, YN. That’s martyrdom.”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. Because maybe I was the villain. Or the coward. Or maybe just the girl who never stopped loving someone she was never supposed to belong to. Mick pulled me into a hug, and for the first time all day, I let myself fall apart in someone else’s arms.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured into my hair. “Even when he doesn’t.”

And I clung to that. Because right now, it was the only truth I had.

—

The house was too quiet. The kind of quiet that made your ears ring. That made your thoughts too loud. I’d been pacing the same living room floor for nearly an hour, hands twisting the hem of one of Mick’s old hoodies I’d stolen years ago. I hadn’t turned on the lights. I didn’t want brightness. I didn’t want clarity. I wanted to disappear into the dark and pretend I didn’t still feel Max’s voice in my bones.

I didn’t mean to call. My fingers just moved. Like muscle memory. The way they always did when everything got too much. The phone only rang once before he picked up.

“Liebling?” Sebastian’s voice cracked something wide open in me.

“Hi,” I said, trying to sound normal.

I failed. I always failed with him. And maybe that’s why I loved him so much.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” he said gently, like he was already sitting next to me with a cup of tea and that soft little crease in his brow.

“I saw Max today,” I whispered.

Silence. And then a soft, steady breath on the other end. “Ah.”

I sat on the couch, pulling my knees to my chest. “He told me he never stopped loving me.”

Sebastian didn’t speak.

“He said… he loves her too. But that he was always mine first. And part of me wanted to believe it so badly. Part of me wanted to run straight into his arms and pretend it would be enough this time. But I couldn’t. I just… couldn’t.”

“I know,” he said softly. “Of course you couldn’t.”

“I wanted to,” I admitted. “God, I wanted to. But she’s good. She’s kind. And I’m not selfish enough to shatter her life just to glue mine back together.”

“YN…” His voice was so heartbreakingly gentle. “You think loving someone that deeply is selfish?”

“I think trying to take him back when he already belongs to someone else would be.”

“You’re not trying to take anything,” he said. “You’re just trying to feel, and that’s not a crime. You’re allowed to want things, even if they hurt.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “What if I’m always the one hurting?”

“You won’t be,” he promised. “Not forever. You are not someone people forget, YN. You’re someone people carry with them—like a compass. Like a melody they can’t get out of their head.”

“Even Max?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Especially Max.”

Tears slipped down my cheeks again. I didn’t even try to wipe them.

“I’m tired, Seb,” I whispered.

“I know you are, Schatz.”

There was a pause. And then, “Your dad would’ve told you to kick Max in the shins and then make him work for it.”

I laughed through the tears, chest aching with the sound. “You’re not wrong.”

“And I’m telling you,” he said firmly now, “that you don’t owe anyone anything. Not even him. You just owe yourself the grace to heal.”

I closed my eyes and let his words sink into me like sunlight on skin.

“I miss you,” I said.

“I miss you too,” he replied. “Now go drink some tea, take a long shower, and text me when you’re safely in bed. Or I will call Mick and ask him to camp out on your floor like you’re twelve again.”

I smiled for the first time in hours. “Fine. Bossy.”

“Only because I love you.”

“I love you too, Seb.”

And when we hung up, I sat in the quiet again. But this time… it didn’t feel so heavy.

—

third person pov

Kelly Piquet wasn’t blind. She had always known that YN Schumacher was more than just a chapter in Max’s life. She wasn’t even a past tense. YN was a pulse. A thread running beneath everything. And today, when Max came back from the Red Bull motorhome quieter than usual—less like a man, more like a ghost—Kelly didn’t need to ask what had happened. She just knew. He didn’t speak when she walked into the room. His shoulders were hunched, fingers interlaced tightly, jaw ticking like he was holding his breath. It was the most unsettled she’d seen him in a long time. She took a seat across from him on the couch, crossed one leg over the other, and tilted her head thoughtfully. No fire. No ice. Just the cool, unreadable stillness that came with already knowing the answer.

“You saw her,” she said softly.

Max glanced up. “Yeah.”

Kelly smiled—small, but not unkind. “And?”

“I told her I never stopped loving her.”

A beat of silence. Kelly nodded like she’d been expecting it. “And she?”

“She left. In tears. Said she didn’t want to ruin what you and I have.”

“Ah,” Kelly hummed. “Very her.”

Max’s brow furrowed. “You’re not… mad?”

Kelly’s laugh was quiet and almost amused. “No, Max. I’m not mad.”

“But I—”

“You love her,” she said plainly. “You have for a long time. You tried to bury it. I tried to ignore it. But it was always there, wasn’t it?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. Kelly leaned back into the couch, her gaze steady. “I always knew you were hers. Not because you didn’t love me, but because there was a part of you I never had. And I don’t want to be with someone who still belongs to someone else, even if they’re too scared to say it out loud.”

Max swallowed hard, throat tight. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

“Of course you didn’t,” she said with a shrug. “But love doesn’t ask for permission. It just shows up and wrecks the room.”

She stood slowly, graceful as ever, and moved to the window, looking out at the paddock. “You know what I think?” she asked.

He looked at her cautiously. “What?”

“I think you two are too damn stubborn for your own good. She’s busy trying not to hurt me, and you’re busy trying not to hurt anyone, and in the meantime, you’re both bleeding out for no reason.”

He blinked.

Kelly smiled, just a little. “Max. Be honest about what you feel. I’m not walking away over the truth.”

Max blinked, uncertain. “You’re… staying?”

“I didn’t say I’d stay forever,” she replied calmly. “But I’m not going to run just because your heart is messy. People are messy. And I’ve always known part of you belonged to her.”

She walked over and touched his arm—light, controlled, nothing desperate in the gesture.

“I didn’t fall for you expecting neat and easy,” she said. “And I’m not afraid of history, Max. I’m afraid of silence. Of pretending. So don’t lie to me. Don’t lie to yourself.”

Max looked down at her, guilt tightening his features. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“And yet you’re doing it anyway,” Kelly said softly. “Not with YN. But with how long you’ve been pretending she’s not in every room with us.”

He exhaled, almost broken. Kelly’s fingers curled gently around his. “So here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to take a breath. You’re going to stop spiraling. And we’re going to figure this out together. Like grown-ups. Not like the scared kid you were when we started this.”

“You’re okay with me loving her?” Max asked, voice raw.

“Not necessarily,” Kelly said, with a dry smile. “But I’m okay with the truth. Because if there’s any chance you can close that door—with clarity, not confusion—then I want you to do it.”

“And if I can’t?” he whispered.

Kelly’s expression didn’t flicker.

“Then we’ll decide what that means. But not like this. Not in guilt. Not in chaos. We don’t end like that.”

Max stared at her, the weight of everything between them heavier than ever. And yet… her steadiness grounded him.

Kelly leaned in, kissed his cheek, and whispered, “Go to her, Max. But do it with your eyes open. And come back to me with answers. Not ghosts.”

She stepped back, still looking at him like she knew exactly what this meant. Like she’d already done the math. And she wasn’t afraid of the result.

—

your pov

I wasn’t expecting anyone. The day had been long—emotionally draining in that slow, silent kind of way that made your chest ache without reason. I’d finally let myself unwind: hoodie on, hair wet, popcorn in hand, and some random Formula E replay humming in the background just loud enough to distract my brain from wandering back to Max. Always Max. So when the knock came, soft and polite but firm, I froze. No one knocked like that unless they were very sure of what they wanted. I set the popcorn down and padded barefoot to the door, a strange sense of déjà vu tightening in my stomach. I opened it—And there she was. Kelly.

Elegant, poised, unreadable. Standing at my door like she belonged there, like this wasn’t the weirdest, most emotionally charged fever dream of a moment I could imagine.

“Hi,” she said softly. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

She looked perfect, of course. Calm and expensive and untouched by the kind of spiral I’d been living in since I left Max in that room. Meanwhile, I was in yesterday’s sweats and a hoodie with a small tear in the sleeve.

Still, I stepped back. “Um… no. Do you… want to come in?”

“Only if you’re comfortable with that,” she said gently, already scanning the inside of my flat like she was taking mental notes. “I just wanted to talk.”

Something inside me said don’t, but I nodded anyway. “Sure.”

She walked in slowly, like she was floating. There was no tension in her body, no anger. That, somehow, was worse. Kelly didn’t sit. She wandered. Paused at the framed photo of Mick and me as kids. Glanced at the cluttered bookshelf. Her eyes lingered on a little trinket Max had given me when we were seventeen. I felt suddenly exposed. Like I hadn’t cleaned up enough, like I hadn’t guarded enough. Finally, she turned to face me.

“I’ve wanted to meet you properly for a long time,” she said, voice low and even.

I frowned, unsure if I should sit or stand or melt into the floor. “Why now?”

Her smile was small, soft, and far too knowing. “Because now I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”

My stomach dropped.

“I’d rather understand than pretend,” she added.

I looked down, heart thudding uncomfortably. “I never wanted to come between you and Max.”

“I believe you,” Kelly said, stepping closer, her tone kind. Not warm, exactly. But kind. “That’s part of why I’m here.”

I didn’t know what to say. I felt like I was being dissected—but politely. Elegantly.

She studied me for a moment longer. “He’s loved you for a long time. But that doesn’t scare me.”

I blinked. “It doesn’t?”

“No,” she said. “Because love isn’t a contest. It’s a conversation. And I’m not here to fight you, YN.”

She smiled then—soft, almost affectionate.

“I’m here to get to know you.”

I couldn’t stop staring at her. “Why?”

“Because if you’re going to keep holding pieces of the man I love… I’d like to know whose hands they’re in.”

Silence. Then Kelly tilted her head, calm as ever. “Dinner?”

My eyes widened. “Dinner?”

“Just the two of us,” she said, voice velvet-smooth. “Nothing dramatic. I’ll even let you pick the place.”

I didn’t answer right away. I wasn’t sure I could. Because somehow, Kelly Piquet inviting me to dinner was more terrifying than if she had shown up screaming. And yet… I nodded. Because a part of me needed to understand her too. And maybe—just maybe—I wanted to see what game she was playing. If it was a game at all.

—

I thought she might cancel. Some part of me assumed the invitation would vanish like a mirage. That she’d come to her senses and realize sitting down to dinner with her boyfriend’s once upon a time—and possibly still—in love with him ex girlfriend was a terrible idea. But she didn’t cancel. She showed up exactly on time. She wore a silky black blouse and dark-wash jeans that looked like they belonged in a Vogue editorial. Her hair was up in that effortless twist. Her earrings were small but sparkling, and her perfume smelled like money, like memory, like danger. I wore something neutral. Simple. Something I wouldn’t regret.

The restaurant was quiet, tucked into a leafy corner of Monaco with candles on every table and linen napkins that made me feel like I should whisper. We got a corner booth, far from prying eyes. The hostess looked at us like she recognized both our faces, but said nothing. Kelly ordered red wine. I didn’t. We didn’t speak at first. Just sat across from each other, quietly flipping through menus that neither of us were really reading.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” I said finally, forcing my voice not to shake.

Kelly glanced up, amused. “I wasn’t sure about you, either.”

I smiled despite myself. “You’re not what I expected.”

She raised an eyebrow. “What did you expect? Cold? Cruel?”

“Maybe. Or passive-aggressive.”

She chuckled softly. “I’m sure I’ve had my moments.”

Silence again. But it wasn’t tense. Not exactly. It felt like a game of chess, where every word was a move and every glance had weight.

“I meant what I said,” she said quietly, tracing her finger along the stem of her wine glass. “I’m not here to accuse you. I’m here because I wanted to know you.”

I nodded. “And what do you think so far?”

Kelly tilted her head. “You’re beautiful. Smarter than people probably give you credit for. And guarded as hell.”

My breath caught.

She smiled like she’d won something. “Did I lie?”

“No,” I admitted. “I just didn’t expect you to be so…”

“Disarming?” she offered.

“Charming,” I said instead.

We ordered food we wouldn’t finish. We talked more than I expected. She asked about modeling, about growing up with Mick, about my father. And when she listened—really listened—it felt like standing under warm light in a room I didn’t realize had been cold.

“You miss him,” she said gently after I mentioned Michael. “Your father. How he was before.”

I blinked back the sudden sting. “Every day.”

She reached across the table then, without hesitation, and touched my hand. It was a small gesture. But it undid me.

“You don’t have to be brave with me,” she said. “I know what it’s like to lose someone and pretend you’re fine. You don’t have to do that here.”

I didn’t answer. I just let her hold my hand a moment longer than polite. And when I looked up, her expression had softened in a way that made my chest ache. There was something else in her eyes now. Not pity. Not suspicion. Curiosity. Admiration. Want. The shift was subtle—but it was there.

“I thought you hated me,” I whispered.

She laughed under her breath. “I tried. You’re incredibly hard to hate.”

I swallowed, pulse picking up. “You flirt like someone who shouldn’t be flirting.”

She leaned in slightly. “And you blush like someone who’s not sure if they want me to stop.”

My breath hitched. The air between us was suddenly electric—quiet, private, dangerous. I didn’t know what to say. Maybe there wasn’t anything to say.

She let the moment linger, then pulled back with a smile like a secret. “I’m not trying to confuse you, YN.”

“You’re doing it anyway.”

Kelly nodded, her eyes still fixed on mine. “I think I’m confusing myself, too.”

We sat in silence again, but this time it hummed. Like something new was being built from the ruins of something old. At the end of the night, when we stood from the table and the waiter brought the check, she paid without hesitation.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I said, half-laughing.

“I wanted to,” she replied. Then, a pause. “I want a lot of things lately.”

She didn’t elaborate. But as we stepped outside into the cool Monaco air and she walked me to my car, she touched my arm and looked at me with that calm, careful intensity again.

“This isn’t over,” she said softly. “I don’t mean you and Max. I mean… this.”

My throat tightened. “This?”

“You and me.”

Then she smiled, kissed my cheek like it was the most natural thing in the world, and turned on her heel, disappearing into the night like a storm that hadn’t hit yet. And I just stood there, hand pressed to my face, wondering if I’d just walked into a whole new kind of chaos. And if I wanted to.

—

f1gossipgirls

5,031,045 likes.

f1gossipgirls : Well… this was not on our 2025 bingo card. In a twist that no one could’ve predicted, YN Schumacher and Kelly Piquet were spotted having dinner together in Monaco tonight—yes, that Kelly (Max’s current girlfriend) and that YN (his very unforgettable ex). Sources say the two looked remarkably close—smiles, soft touches, deep conversation. No tension, no drama… just chemistry? 👀 If you somehow missed the history— YN and Max were childhood sweethearts turned teenage lovers, and Kelly is his long-term partner now. So what exactly does this dinner mean? We have so many questions. Thoughts? Theories? Prayers? Because we’re not sure the paddock is ready for whatever this is.

—

view 209,552 other comments.

username00 : i wanted drama and instead i’m lowkey shipping them?? like… do i need help?

username0 : sooo does this mean kelly and yn are… 👀 talking? getting along? plotting? falling in love? all of the above?

username1 : not kelly PIQUET joining the yn fanclub?? mother recognized mother. that’s all.

username5 : can someone PLEASE check on max. man probably dropped his Red Bull mid-sip when he saw this

↳ redbullracing : we are on it.

notlando6969 : i just KNOW max is pacing around the kitchen right now like “they’re talking?? about what?? ME???” 🧍🏻‍♂️

↳ username5 : bro stop making burner accounts and go check on your man AND WOMAN.

↳ f1gossipgirls : we know its you lando. cut the shit.

↳ lando : y’all are all so mean.

—

third person pov

Max was sitting on the couch when Kelly walked in—phone still in his hand, screen dimming from the dozens of notifications he hadn’t stopped scrolling through. He didn’t say anything at first. Just looked at her with that quiet, burning confusion he always got when something mattered too much.

Kelly set her purse down gently. “You saw?”

Max blinked once. “Hard to miss when the entire internet is screaming about it.”

She didn’t flinch. Didn’t look guilty. Just… calm. Collected. Like she had expected this. Max stood slowly. “You went to dinner with her.”

“I did.”

His jaw tensed. “Without telling me.”

Kelly took a step closer. “Would you have let me go if I had?”

He didn’t answer. Just stared at her like she was some puzzle he couldn’t figure out. A book in a language he used to know by heart and had forgotten somewhere along the way.

“I just—” Max ran a hand through his hair. “What was that, Kelly? What are you doing?”

She met his eyes, steady. “I’m getting to know her.”

He blinked, breath catching.

“And?” he asked, voice softer, almost a whisper.

Kelly tilted her head, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “I think I like her.”

And then she walked past him—unbothered, barefoot, and humming lightly under her breath as if this was the most natural thing in the world. Leaving Max standing there, stunned and still very, very unsure of what was happening. Or what was coming next.

—

yn_schumacher

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yn_schumacher : photo dump w all my faves

tagged : mickschumacher and kellypiquet

—

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—

4 weeks later

I don’t know what I expected when Kelly invited me over. I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t overanalyze the way her voice softened when she said, “Just come. I’ll cook.” I didn’t let myself spiral over the fact that Max would be there. I told myself it was just dinner. Casual. Harmless. But nothing about this situation has ever been harmless. Kelly and I had been together nonstop these last few weeks, both of us catching feelings for each other while we were both still tied to him. The elevator ride up to their apartment felt longer than it should’ve. My reflection in the mirrored walls betrayed every emotion I was trying to suppress—hope, nerves, the tight pull of guilt blooming in my chest. Kelly opened the door barefoot, her hair up in a loose bun, wearing one of those effortless silk dresses she somehow always made look regal. She smiled when she saw me—genuine, like she’d been waiting all day.

“Hi,” she said, and I swear to God, it hit me like a wave every single time.

“Hi,” I managed.

The apartment smelled like garlic and lemon and something faintly sweet. Jazz played softly in the background. There were candles on the table. And Max. He was standing by the kitchen counter, sleeves rolled up, drink in hand. Still, still Max. Same unreadable expression, same quiet intensity. His eyes found mine the second I stepped inside, and for a moment, it felt like we were sixteen again, hiding from the world and pretending time wasn’t running out.

“Hey,” he said, and it was soft. Almost unsure.

I nodded. “Hey.”

We sat. We ate. The food was good—of course it was, Kelly was good at everything. She carried the conversation with grace, like she knew we were both choking on everything we weren’t saying. Max barely looked at me. I tried to ignore the way it stung. The night wore on like slow honey. Heavy. Sticky. And then, somewhere between wine and dessert, Kelly stood up. She rested a hand on my shoulder, light and lingering, and turned to Max with that careful, pointed look I was learning meant more than she ever let on.

“I’m going to step out for a bit,” she said. “Max…”

She waited. Waited for him to meet her eyes. Then she glanced at me, smiled almost bittersweet, and said, “I know my feelings for her. You tell her yours.”

And just like that, she walked out. Left me alone with the boy I loved before I even knew what love was. Max stared at the table for a long time. He didn’t speak. Neither did I. The silence between us was loud enough to drown out the music still playing from the speakers. I could feel my pulse in my throat. Finally, he looked up.

“Do you ever think,” he started, voice hoarse, “that maybe we weren’t supposed to end?”

It was a whisper. A fracture in time.

I blinked. “All the time.”

He swallowed hard. “When I saw you again… in the paddock… it felt like I was breathing for the first time in years.”

I could feel tears rising, but I refused to let them fall.

“Then why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because I thought I didn’t deserve to. I have Kelly. I had you. And somehow I lost both.”

He stood slowly, walked around the table, and stopped just short of me. I didn’t move.

“Kelly knows how I feel,” he said, voice low. “She always has. But this… you and her… it’s real, isn’t it?”

I nodded. “I didn’t mean for it to be. I didn’t plan it. But it’s… safe. And warm. And she sees me.”

He stepped closer, so close I could feel the heat radiating off his skin. My breath hitched.

“So did I,” he whispered.

I looked up at him, and for the first time in years, I let myself truly see him. Not the world champion. Not the headlines. Just Max. Just my Max.

“I still do,” he said, eyes searching mine.

And before I could speak, before I could stop it or brace for it—he leaned in. And kissed me. It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t cautious. It was everything we had buried. Everything we had swallowed for the sake of time and timing and other people. His hands came up to cradle my face like he was terrified I’d disappear. Like he’d waited years for this one breath, this one second, this one sliver of a chance to rewrite history. I kissed him back. Because I’d never stopped loving him. Because the ache had never left. Because nothing in the world had ever felt more right—or more wrong—and I couldn’t bring myself to care.

When we finally pulled apart, our foreheads rested together, breathing hard, hearts pounding in sync.

“I never stopped,” he whispered. “Not once.”

And neither did I. But I couldn’t say it. Not yet. Because I had feelings for Kelly too.

—

The kiss still lingered on my lips like a bruise. Max hadn’t moved, and neither had I. We stood there, pressed together by years of longing and guilt, by feelings we’d never buried deep enough. Our foreheads still touched, our breathing still uneven, our hands still unsure of what came next. I didn’t know how long we stood there. But the sound of the front door opening was like a needle to a bubble. Max pulled back just enough to look at me—eyes wide, like he’d just remembered Kelly existed. Like we’d both forgotten. And then she walked in.

Her feet padded gently against the floor, the scent of her perfume curling through the air before she even appeared fully in the doorway. Calm, composed, radiant. She looked between us, one hand still on the doorknob, expression unreadable. Max took a step back. My stomach dropped. My mouth opened.

“Kelly—”

She tilted her head, eyes flicking to me. “So… I’m assuming you kissed.”

Neither of us responded. She smiled like it wasn’t a surprise.

“Good.”

That caught me off guard. I blinked. “You’re not mad?”

She walked toward us slowly, like this was all happening exactly as she’d expected. Her coat slid off her shoulders and onto a chair. She crossed the room, graceful and unbothered, until she was standing just a breath away.

“No,” she said simply. “Why would I be?”

I swallowed, heat crawling up my neck. “Because I kissed your boyfriend.”

“My boyfriend,” she repeated gently, “has been in love with you since we met. I was never going to compete with that.”

She turned to Max. “And you…” her voice softened, “you’ve loved her longer than you’ve known what love even was.”

Max didn’t deny it. And I couldn’t breathe.

“But you love him,” I said, voice cracking. “You love him and I—” I hesitated, my chest tightening. “I love him too. But I also think I… I might be falling for you. And I don’t know what to do with that.”

There. It was out. Everything. Kelly stared at me for a long moment. The kind of moment where time felt suspended. Then she laughed. Soft and real. Her whole face lit up.

“Darling,” she said, stepping closer and brushing a strand of hair behind my ear, “that was my plan all along.”

I froze. “What?”

“I invited you to dinner that first night knowing what would happen. I knew Max would see you and remember everything he tried to bury. And I knew I would see you and…” She paused, her fingers lingering on my jaw now, eyes impossibly gentle. “I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.”

I stared at her. “But why?”

She smiled. “Because loving one of you was never enough.”

Max was silent behind me, but I felt his presence like a pulse.

Kelly looked between us. “I love him. And I’m in love with you. And you two—God, the way you look at each other…” She shook her head, her voice a whisper now. “You’re everything I want. Both of you.”

My breath hitched. I looked at Max. He was watching Kelly like she’d just rearranged his entire world. Then his eyes met mine again—so full of emotion it made my knees weak.

“I don’t know how to do this,” I admitted, voice shaking. “But I don’t want to lose either of you.”

Kelly stepped forward, wrapping her arms around me. I melted into her like it was second nature. Max joined us a moment later, one arm around my waist, the other slipping around Kelly’s back. The three of us stood there, tangled together, no longer pretending. Kelly’s voice was the last thing I heard before the tears finally slipped free.

“Then we don’t have to choose. Not anymore.”

—

yn_schumacher

liked by kellypiquet, maxverstappen1, lando & 10,001,203 others.

yn_schumacher : when in mexico or whatever they say.

—

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—

maxverstappen1 has added two posts to his story!

seen by yn_schumacher, kellypiquet, mickschumacher and 7,920,115 others.

{caption 1 : beautiful views} {caption 2 : angel}

lando : ?? answer your phone.

↳ maxverstappen1 : no.

↳ lando : oh but you can answer that.

↳ maxverstappen1 : you are lucky i am so blinded by love bc normally i would just threaten to snap you in half.

liked by lando

↳ lando : awwwww have fun maxie

mickschumacher : i have so many words to say and all of them would land me in prison.

↳ maxverstappen1 : you can threaten me when we get back. you can yell all you want.

↳ mickschumacher : looking forward to it.

—

It was early. Not racing weekend early. Just Mexico early. The kind where the sunlight peeked through the gauzy curtains like it was shy, and the only sound was the ocean humming in the distance and the ceiling fan ticking lazily overhead.I was the first one to wake up. Or at least I thought I was, until I shifted and felt Max’s arm tighten around my waist, pulling me back into him with a sleepy groan.

“You’re not allowed to move yet,” he murmured into the back of my neck. “Vacation rule.”

I laughed softly. “What if I have to pee?”

“Hold it,” Kelly’s voice came from the other side of the bed, muffled by a pillow. “Or take me with you.”

I twisted around just enough to look between them. Max’s hair was a mess, falling into his eyes. Kelly had one leg slung dramatically over both of us, her silk sleep shirt barely hanging onto one shoulder. We looked like a tangle of limbs and tangled hearts.

“Okay,” I whispered, smiling, “new rule...no one moves unless it’s for coffee or kisses.”

Kelly rolled over to face me, eyes still half-lidded. “Mmm. I’ll take a kiss.”

I leaned in, pressing a soft one to the corner of her mouth. She smiled lazily, caught my jaw with her hand, and pulled me in for another—longer, warmer. Familiar now, but never dull. Max made a sound somewhere between a growl and a sigh behind me.

“Not fair.”

“Then come here, Verstappen,” Kelly said, still grinning, reaching past me to grab at his face.

He kissed her over my shoulder, then kissed me. We were all laughing through it—quiet and content and stupidly in love. Later, we finally rolled out of bed—only because Kelly threatened to starve if we didn’t. Max cooked breakfast shirtless in the outdoor kitchen, and I swear the man did it just to show off. He burned the eggs slightly, but I didn’t care. He looked happy. So did she. We ate on the patio with our feet propped up on each other’s chairs. I took a picture of Max feeding Kelly a bite of fruit, her sunglasses perched on her head, her mouth open in a fake gasp like she was being spoiled.

“I’m posting this,” I warned.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Kelly teased.

“I absolutely would.”

Later that afternoon, we took a boat out. Max drove it like he was qualifying. Kelly kept yelling at him in a mix of Portuguese and English, her arms flailing wildly, laughing too hard to be mad. I held on for dear life, screaming until Max slowed down just to shut us up with kisses and apologies.

There was a moment—just one—when the sun was setting, and the three of us sat in silence at the front of the boat. Max had his arm draped over my shoulders, Kelly’s head rested on my lap. The sky was painted in impossible shades of gold and coral. And all I could think was:

This is the kind of love you never plan for. The kind that breaks every rule, but fits anyway. The kind you fight for. The kind you stay for.

Kelly looked up at me then, eyes glowing in the sun, and whispered, “You look happy.”

I smiled, fingers brushing through her hair. “I am.”

Max kissed the top of my head. “We all are.”

And for once, it wasn’t complicated. It was just us. Exactly where we were supposed to be.

—

maxverstappen1

liked by yn_schumacher, kellypiquet, lando and 14,754,992 others.

maxverstappen1 : hard launch..? or whatever it's called.

yn, my first love, my angel. i do not deserve your forgiveness or love but somehow you found a way to give me both. i will love you forever.

kelly, i don’t think you’ll ever know what you’ve done for me. you loved me when i didn’t have the words, this — all of this — only exists because of your heart. you gave me space to love her, without ever asking me to stop loving you. and now? i get to love both of you, because you believed in something bigger than fear. thank you for being my home.

tagged : yn_schumacher and kellypiquet

—

view 992,547 other comments.

username00 : “my first love, my angel” I am SOBBING in a grocery store rn someone come get me 😭😭😭

username0 : yn and kelly are so hot together. im gay as hell.

username1 : shoutout to kelly piquet for being the most emotionally mature, quietly powerful woman alive.

liked by yn_schumacher

danielricciardo : poly verstappen era was not on my 2025 bingo card but i respect it deeply

liked by maxverstappen1, yn_schumacher and kellypiquet

lando : Never seen Verstappen this soft. I don’t know whether to hug you or roast you.

liked by maxverstappen1, yn_schumacher and kellypiquet

mickschumacher : Still watching you. But… I’m proud of you. Treat her right. Both of them. Always. 🫡

liked by maxverstappen1, yn_schumacher and kellypiquet

yn_schumacher : love you both forever and always. my angels.

liked by maxverstappen1 and kellypiquet

—

yn_schumacher

liked by kellypiquet, maxverstappen1, mickschumacher and 14,090,020 others.

yn_schumacher : since max decided we are hard launching...

i’ve spent a long time trying to outrun the past. trying to forget the way it felt to lose something that once felt like everything. but then max came back into my life…and kelly walked right in like she’d always been meant to stay. i never thought i’d find peace in something so complicated, but loving both of you has been the easiest thing i’ve ever done. max — you were my first love, and somehow still the one who makes me feel safest. kelly — you saw me, truly saw me, and chose me with such softness i didn’t know what to do with it. thank you for giving me space to come home. thank you for making room for love that doesn’t fit inside the lines. this isn’t traditional. it isn’t simple. but it’s ours. and that makes it everything.

tagged : kellypiquet and maxverstappen1

—

user has limited comment access on this post.

maxverstappen1 : you are my heart, always. thank you for loving me again. thank you for choosing both of us. forever.

liked by yn_schumacher and kellypiquet

kellypiquet : and i’ll never stop loving either of you. you are everything, yn. always have been. always will be. 🤍

liked by yn_schumacher and maxverstappen1

mickschumacher : i always knew max would be a schumacher somehow. sigh. happy for you, sis:)

liked by yn_schumacher and maxverstappen1

lando : can someone PLEASE write this into a Netflix special. i’ll fund it.

liked by yn_schumacher and maxverstappen1

↳ yn_schumacher : ily but i am going to block you.

liked by maxverstappen1 and kellypiquet

—

595 notes · View notes

megapteraurelia · 1 month ago

Text

EPITHIMIA. — talisman #2.

☾ SUMMARY; — having been sent up to tokyo as an exchange student to spy on the first-years, your objective had been crystal clear: don't meddle. don't change anything. just observe. you didn't expect fushiguro megumi to foil your plans that quickly — but it's not like you could help yourself, not when he refused to be someone you could respect. so, what else to do but meddle?

☾ WARNINGS; — fem!reader; enemies to lovers; forced proximity; attempted character study?? (badly done!!); angst; gojo being annoying; ppl being hypocritical!; kind of angsty yuji too; TW: mention of blood, death;

☾ WORD COUNT; — 20,458.

☾ AUTHOR'S NOTE; — i lied. there's no romance here because i'm stupid and i couldn't stop writing other scenes. there will be a part three (and if all goes well that SHOULD actually be the last part). also, frick action scenes! also had to sacrifice some of the aesthetics because i can only add 30 images oops

— back to masterlist.

15th of April; 07:22. — kugisaki nobara.

Fushiguro syndrome. — as coined by Kugisaki Nobara: part-time sorcerer, quarter-time model, quarter-time self-proclaimed doctor.

Definition. A rare but deeply annoying affliction characterised by excessive brooding, emotional constipation, and the compulsive need to shoulder the entire weight of the world whilst pretending it's fine. Symptomps. — saying 'I'm fine' while visibly not fine. — intense staring instead of talking. — going silent mid-conversation because feelings are hard. — randomly disappearing to punch curses alone without backup. — at least one major emotional crisis repressed into a singular eyebrow twitch.

They weren't fighting.

And honestly, that was weirder than when they were.

Nobara noticed it the second they all met up in the dining hall for breakfast: the sun cast high, the light refracting through the glasses of water on the tables, leaving behind a sparkling surface. Megumi's arms were crossed nonstop, his shoulders struggling to hold the tension, sporting the worst eye bags she had seen in ages (Should she recommend him some good eye cream?)

He fixed the ground with a glare, eyes narrowed like he was trying to exorcise his constipated feelings, before sitting down at one of the tables off to the side. Nobara thought that he looked like a statue with too much gel product in his spiky hair, the way he didn't even eat his food, just stared at it.

On the other hand, there was you, who kept fiddling with your uniform as if it wasn't sitting right on your body. It couldn't be that, though, because the tailors of Tokyo Jujutsu High were very high-calibre. She would know, her uniform sat perfectly, and she was quite finicky in that matter. So, it had to be something else.

Nobara couldn't read you, though. You kept to yourself and made no move to really integrate yourself to their friend circle and sure, as an exchange student, this entire stay here was supposed to be temporary, so to some extent, she did understand that maybe, it was better not to get attached. But then, there also was no telling how long you were staying, so wouldn't it be better to make friends?

But you didn't and so Nobara didn't, either.

It wasn't like she really disliked you, but she wasn't going to waste effort on somebody who didn't know to appreciate it. She was fine to ignore you most of the time, which wasn't hard, considering that you only let some comments slip sometimes, but then you had to go and be a bitch to Megumi.

It wasn't like she really cared about Megumi; if anything, he was annoying with the way he was zapping all the fun, but she couldn't stand by and watch him be hurt like that. In the end, he was her teammate and…..her…..friend……so she couldn't not feel a certain way about it.

In any way, there was no greeting, no arguing, not even a single snide comment about the other's expression, punctuality or whatever it was they used to bicker about constantly. No sarcastic jabs, grumbled responses that made her roll her eyes so hard, it gave her a headache.

Not a single thing.

Just silence and a whole mountain range of tension between them — and it wasn't even the fun type of tension. Ugh, this was so boring.

Nobara leaned back on the bench, her food untouched as well as she pretended to yawn, but mostly, she just wanted to gauge how bad it was between you two. She had seen you going at it before — loud, sarcastic, the kind of arguments that made Yuji glance between you two like some kind of referee in a sports match, so the weird silence — the chattering of Yuji's with the rest of the students aside — was honestly disgusting.

Yuji's voice, cheerful and loud as always, broke through her thoughts. Really, this kid had no tact or decorum. "Sooo, what's up with these two? It's like there's a black hole of energy today."

"Salmon," Inumaki said and stabbed a piece of fish (Fish? As breakfast?) to bring to his scribbled mouth. Nobara eyed the markings on his cheeks and Inumaki was quick to zip up his jacket and hide them behind his collar like he could hide from the world. Nobara didn't really mean to make Inumaki feel self-conscious but wow, these marking did not help out.

Yuji, on the other hand, kept eating the fish and the rice like he was starving, though knowing him, he probably was. Seven hours without food? A surprise he was still alive. With stuffed cheeks, he spat a few grains of rice onto her plate. She pushed it away. Gross little chimp.

"Yeah, it's like, they're magnets in reverse, you know? Like…repulsing? Was that the word?"

"Repelling," Maki's eye roll was so incredible in conveying her exasperation, Nobara was in love. "It's like watching two stubborn blocks of wood trying to figure out who is more stubborn."

Nobara had to try out the eye roll, too. "More like, who is a bigger pain in the ass."

Then she leaned over her food, ignoring Yuji's star struck chipmunk face when she pushed him back by the shoulder to shout over to you, "Oi, did Megumi infect you with Fushiguro Syndrome, too?"

Your voice was cheerful when you replied, "I think I'm just peachy, Kugisaki, thanks for asking!" but Nobara could spot fake-happiness from a mile away — the way your knuckles whitened holding your chopsticks, the annoyed twitch in your eyebrows, the distracted flitting of your eyes over the fish. Yeah, definitely Fushiguro Syndrome. You were sporting the most theatrical fake happiness anybody could ever ask for. Not that she'd know who would want it, but in case it was an attribute searched by anyone, at least she would know where and who to direct them to.

"She absolutely isn't."

"Yeah, no way in hell."

"Salmon, salmon."

Yuji swallowed the food without even chewing properly, a few rice grains still sticking to the side of his mouth. He tried getting them with his tongue when Inumaki pointed towards them, but gave up when the blonde sorcerer kept shaking his head. Nobara probably could tell him exactly where it was, but to his dismay and to her enjoyment, she did delight in watching Yuji make a fool of himself.

"It's weird, though," he said in between licks (no! Not this way — the rice grain was under his lower lip on the right side!) and then stuffed his cheeks with more food, "I mean, they've always been kind of odd with each other, but now it's different. It's like…they're those crabs that get stuck in the same hole and just…pinch each other until they both get annoyed enough to walk away, but they can't leave because they're stuck, and it's hilarious."

"What in the hell," Nobara paused. "are you talking about, Itadori."

Inumaki Toge nodded. "Bonito flakes."

"You seriously agree with him, Inumaki?" Maki quirked up her eyebrow, one of her chopsticks waving in the direction of Yuji and Inumaki as if to make sense of their non-sense, to bring to life the magic of understanding neanderthal-speak.

Megumi stood up with the slight screech of his chair skidding on the floor, his hands shoved deeply into his pockets as he walked out the dining hall without sparing a glance towards anybody. There was a distinct scoff coming from your direction, your chopsticks scratching hard against the surface of your plate, before you too pushed your plate away and got up to leave.

Nobara wondered if you had only been here for Megumi's sake, whether you had meant to leave at the same time, to give the impression that your presence at breakfast was just to make Megumi uncomfortable — maybe a reminder of whatever transpired between you both. But honestly, Nobara couldn't care less. Worrying about other people could mean that she'd stress over them enough to cause her hair ends to split or, worse, get grey hair.

God, just kiss or kill each other already, she thought with an exaggerated eye roll, but in the end it wasn't her business. Not really.

…but she definitely was going to text Yuji about it later.

16th of April; 13:26. — gojo satoru.

Gojo Satoru was many things.

Handsome (undefeated). The strongest (naturally). Adept at approximately all the things he put his hands on. But nosy? Not really. But once he was curious, there was no stopping him, and curiosity for Gojo Satoru was a dangerous thing.

Sipping from a can of peach soda, especially sweet, he sat lounging on the stairs. Below him, on the courtyard lawn, stood his little assortments of students, amongst which were his enigmatic black-haired student and his new Kyoto's little sharp-tongued mole. Well, exchange student, if he were to stick totechnicality, but then again, that word didn't do a lot of justice to the actual reason you were sent here.

Both of his students were standing a little too far apart; there was no speaking and no fighting like all the other times that he had the pleasure of witnessing. But that was the thing. There had been a fight.

If he could be generous to call it that — which he always was, mind you — the last mission ended with a little…disagreement. He hadn't been there, but the report Ijiichi had given him was quite clear. Something had happened that broke whatever little tolerance you both had for each other. Of course, he could imagine what it was, because Ijichi had been very detailed in the way both of his kids derailed into a shouting match over blame.

Gojo sipped his drink.

Interesting.

Megumi wasn't the type to carry grudges, usually. He carried a lot of responsibility, sure. A liberal amount of regret tossed in there, too, but what sorcerer didn't?

But something as petty as resentment? Not usually his deal. The nasty glare he had fixed on the exchange student was speaking volumes, though.

And you?

He had noticed it before; the way you made things personal, the way you didn't let up. Gojo thought that it wasn't the worst thing to happen to Megumi, especially if you could get him out of his mind once in a while. So he never saw a need to intervene, beside the fact that he didn't think Megumi would be unable to handle what you threw at him.

He could already imagine the glare sent his way if he meddled in Megumi's business beyond his own relationship with him as a teacher. Though, not that that really kept him from anything.

But personal tension, especially if it was persistent, had a way of bleeding into teamwork — or as 'team' as that work between you seemed to be, which did make it Gojo's problem, after all.

One eye peeking from underneath the blindfold, he noted the way Megumi's jaw tightened when you turned away without acknowledging him; the way your cursed energy flared aggressively when Megumi muttered something under his breath. There was a tight rope between apathy and something glimmering beneath it, heated, unspoken and definitely unresolved, tied between both your feet; ready to get you tripping if you moved too far away from each other.

He could be doing the responsible teacher thing: sit them down. Encourage open communication, blah blah — no.

That wasn't his style, and way too boring. What kind of teacher would he be if he didn't subtly abuse his incredible power for lighthearted surveillance?

Gojo Satoru tilted his head and his gaze fell on Yuji and Nobara, a slight tight-lipped smile widening, "Let's see what my adorable disasters are up to."

20th of April; 10:08. — gojo satoru.

"Already done? My, what hardworking bee you are, Megumi!"

"There any more, Gojo-sensei?"

"There's always an abundance of low grade jobs, but you sure you're not gonna turn into a zombie on me? Ya giving your brain enough time to catch a break?"

"I'm fine. I'll handle it," then, his voice a bit quieter: "I won't make any more mistakes."

Gojo tilted his head, his eyebrows drawn high, "I'll have Ijichi give you the details on the way. Just know that you'll lose your handsomeness if you turn into one of those undeads; flaky skin and all, you know? Now off you pop."

Though maybe he'll finally stop resembling his father then, Gojo thought, his finger turning the cuff of his uniform as he watched his student leave the room, a slight limp as he stepped on his right ankle.

22nd of April; 23:48. — zen'in maki, just called maki.

Zen'in Maki, just called Maki, hated reminders of her parentage.

For all the obsession with strength and cursed techniques, Maki found that the name of her clan in blood was less a title and more of a curse itself; a chain clinched around her throat since her birth, growing with her as she transcended childhood and grew into the young woman she was today. It was not rare for somebody to utter the name in her vicinity — not by virtue of upsetting her, but because even though she thought it was undeserved, there was no denying that the Zen'ins were one of the three great sorcerer families.

Even though it had been some time since she left the clan compound, she still felt the weight of it — the expectations she was meant to fail, the sneers she was meant to endure, the silence that was meant to shame her into obedience.

The traditional and backwards way her clan in blood operated made hers boil, and even though she would like nothing more than to circumvent any mention of this bitter reminder of her apparent inadequacy, she steeled herself each time the name passed somebody's lips. Because to flinch is to give in, to react is to admit defeat and to allow them to control her beyond their property by mere allusion. And Maki, with her stubborn heartbeat and her body honed into a weapon, refused to bow.

Her eyes, as sharp as ever, flitted over Megumi's black hair, though barely illuminated in the darkness and stillness of the night. Sometimes she forgot that he shared the same blood, but it wasn't the clan's much-heralded inherited Ten Shadows Technique that reminded her. It wasn't the black hair either that they shared. It was this.

The look in his eyes as he gripped his blade and performed katas with his sword. The cleanliness of it, the efficiency. It was the expression on his face that had her narrow her eyes, that had her muscles tensing as if to ward off any attacks — the same calculating silence masked as focus, the same quiet detachment.

She used to see that look in the training halls of the Zen'in estate: when her father would bark corrections with a tone that promised bruises and punishment; in Naoya's face when he used to kick the animals that lost their way onto their property, on the faces of several clans men. A mask that said feelings get you killed.

She watched him pivot, bring the blade up with a sharp, precise movement that made no sound but cut through the air like glass; the harsh exhale like there was a mountain of air buried deep in the cavity of his lungs needing to be set free. It was the feeling that this reminder of the mask brought out within her, the desperation to rip off that same look on her own face, the hollowed out thump in her chest that had her approach Megumi.

"You trying to break some record or are you just trying to kill yourself out here?"

Maki didn't expect a response and true to that, there was none following. She knew it all too well — this honed focus, the strangulation of an-ever growing vignette.

"Seriously, what the hell is going on with you?" Maki stopped a few metres short from where he was denying his body any rest, "It's well past curfew and you're bleeding all over the place. Training's not going to do you much good if you can't even hold your damn weapon."

Along the razor sharp sound of the blade slitting the air into two, Megumi's voice sounded out, painted with heavy breaths: "What about you then? What did you come out here for, huh?"

Silence. A slight stiffening of limbs.

"Don't pretend we don't know," Megumi halted in his movements, and his eyes — a wild, storming ocean — fixed her with a look, "You come out every night like you're being chased. Like you'll fall behind if you stop. So what is it — are you here to check on me or were you planning to do the same thing?"

Maki stayed quiet longer than she meant to.

There was a slight pressure behind her ribs, in the cavity that was her chest. Something curling up in on itself. A part of her wanted to scoff and tell him he was projecting, but the look in his eyes stopped her. The restless edge. The way he trained past exhaustion, the circles underneath his eyes, a promise that collapsing meant personal failure. The way he avoided eye contact when people asked if he was sleeping.

She knew what it meant. She knew where the road lead, because she was still walking it.

He wasn't wrong. The truth was that she hadn't come out here to check on him, that it wasn't on her mind until she saw the way he had danced over the training grounds. That she came because her body was buzzing from the inside with energy to waste, constantly caught between fight and flight, even when there was no one left to fight.

Her knuckles were still sore from last night. From the night before that. From the week before that.

Never leave me behind.

Maki's exhale was quiet. There was a promise and she broke it. She had left first.

Every time she trained until she couldn't feel her legs, every time her fingers bled grasping the hilt of her blade, it was with the breath of her sister's whisper down her neck. Because she had to believe that it would make it worth something. That she was getting closer to earning her way back, that she wasn't abandoning her twin — just biding her time until she could tear the clan down with her own two hands.

She glanced at Megumi, the tension in his muscles, the barely healed cuts on his arms, the faint trickle of blood from the ripped open callouses on the palm of his hand and the way he was holding himself together like his world was taped up hastily and might shatter. She saw herself in him, younger her who kept pushing forward because stopping and turning around meant seeing what she had left behind.

"I didn't come here to hurt myself. I came to train."

Something almost akin to a scoff escaped the boy, though it also could have been him breathing out in exertion, "Right. Because your hands weren't wrapped in tape yesterday either, right?"

"That's different," she said but Maki wasn't typically somebody who lied to herself.

Megumi bent at the knees, deep, the sword reflecting the moonlight for a split second, his shoulders twitching in a shrug. "I'll stop if you stop."

Maki felt it sit in the pit of her stomach — the guilt at her own decision, the rightful anger at her clan, the choking pressure of her desire. Then she rolled her own shoulders, steeled herself and with it came the resolve: even if there was nobody who would understand her, who could walk in her shoes, who could save Mai from the Zen'in clan's clutches, she would have to continue on.

There was no other way it could go.

"You're overthinking your third stance."

His voice was rough, almost desperate. "Show me."

25th of April; 01:18. — you.

There was a folded strip of black paper sitting on your bed, pressed and knotted with a red threat.

A talisman.

Kyoto-issued, so it seemed. You'd recognise the ink pattern everywhere having seen it in your school, a subconscious reminder that you weren't here to have fun. Well, it wasn't like you were having any special fun, but still, the appearance of such a charm had your spine straighten up immediately.

Carefully, you let your gaze roam through your entire room, but nothing seemed out of the norm. If anything, it might have been even too tidy, though that also might be your paranoia talking. As much as your room looked like it always did, the talisman was very well out of norm.

Kyoto Jujutsu High usually didn't get in contact with you, unless there was something dire.

And that couldn't be, because you hadn't noticed anything worthy of noting down yet, because nothing was happening here. Nothing of significance for Gakuganji, at least. Nothing that warranted them contacting you directly and sending you a message so obviously.

You picked up the paper, your eyes recognising the charm written up, general polite well wishes, and underneath in strokes that only a select few could read:

As we have yet to receive any updates, we would greatly appreciate a brief report at your earliest convenience. Should circumstances remain unchanged, we may be required to explore other available options. We appreciate your continued efforts and trust you will keep us informed.

Of course. There was no name, no seal, no malice in those words. Seemingly. Only incredible politeness, a veiled threat, so if one were to read it, it would sound like a mildly scolding letter.

You stared at the charm, the crease where it was folded neatly. Your first thought had been that you missed a report — that somehow you'd let something slip. But you knew yourself, knew the meticulousness with which you always prepared the seals, knew that the correspondence was as tight and precise as your technique.

You pursed your lips in thought.

If they had sent something now, that meant your charms weren't reaching them for a while now. You hadn't thought much of the silence after each of the transmissions; no confirmation coming back wasn't unusual. The Kyoto faculty preferred silence, the kind of quiet superiority that made them respond when they deemed it important, not one second before.

But now this.

If your reports weren't arriving, then either something had intercepted them…or someone had. Both implications had your forehead create way too many wrinkles for your age and instinctively, you glanced toward the window, the slow sway of the courtyard trees like a whisper about to tell you its secrets.

The paper folded without resistance, at the same seam as before. It didn't matter if someone had been interfering, you decided; you had no proof or any grounds to throw around accusations, especially since that wasn't Kyoto's intention to begin with. They'd rather replace you than make sure to find out who was trying to foil their plans. Beside the fact that it wasn't your job to speculate. It was to observe. To report. To be useful.

It wasn't quite the way you liked to do things for it made no sense to you that other people would offer up information out of their own volition. If there was no action taken, how could you ever find out about people? How were you ever going to prove your usefulness to the people who deemed it so easy to replace you?

You hadn't expected to feel anything, reading those words — certainly not this hesitation. Not when you were here with a purpose; but still: it twisted inside you, low and persistent.

Which meant no more distractions.

Because if your chest twisted like that then that meant you had been dragging your feet, it meant that a part of you had started to hope the assignment would quietly dissolve before it reached a critical point. Because it meant that you started to get attached when you were just being thorough.

You straightened the paper, smoothing the wrinkles that didn't exist. No more chasing tension for your enjoyment's sake. No more watching Fushiguro Megumi to see if you could crack the surface, to see if his innards spilled out with all the thoughts and feelings he kept hidden, the fight with himself to figure out who he was. No more trying to provoke him.

You'd wasted much time trying to figure out what lay behind that tired sharpness in his eyes, the way he flinched at praise, the way he always looked like he was dragging something unseen behind him.

You couldn't make that mistake again.

Whatever role he played, whatever potential Kyoto thought he might harbour and develop, it wasn't yours to decipher. It wasn't yours to push. It wasn't your mission. He wasn't.

Whatever interference had occurred, it wouldn't happen twice.

26th of April; 16:34. — fushiguro megumi.

"She's not that bad, you know?"

Fushiguro Megumi didn't want to look up to see the pink of Yuji's hair drown with an orange sheen, to watch the sky bleed into lavender, evening announcing itself slowly, gently.

He thought that he really didn't want to talk about it.

There wasn't anything to talk about, not about you, and not about you with Yuji. Especially not him. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate his input — at times. But this? This wasn't something Megumi wanted to lay out for anyone, not something he wanted to talk with Yuji about.

Not the argument that him and you had, about the accusation standing in the room, about all the things that he knew Yuji felt strongly about. Megumi knew that he would take it hard.

So he scoffed, his chin finding its way onto the palm of his hand, "Yeah, well, she thinks being loud is the same thing as being right."

"Cool. But that's not what I asked," Yuji leaned back, his elbows finding the stone steps behind him.

No, it wasn't. He knew it wasn't.

There was a soft breeze, a certain warmth swinging alongside it. The stones beneath him were warm, too, still lingering in the former caress of the sun. Yuji wasn't looking at him, and that somehow made it worse. If he had been, if there had been pity in his face or concern in his eyes, then Megumi could have shut it down. Cut the conversation short. But the casual posture, the light tilt of his head back toward the sky — it made it harder to tell him to shut up.

It would have been easier if he wasn't here. If Yuji wasn't trying to poke holes in walls that Megumi had already worn himself out trying to keep up.

So he said, flatly, "Why you here?"

Yuji didn't take the bait, and that annoyed Megumi, too. But there wasn't a lot that didn't manage to irk Megumi nowadays.

"Because you don't talk to her," he said simply, "Maybe you'll talk to me."

Megumi didn't move, but the grass in front of him did; swinging with the soft picking up of the wind. Yuji's voice wasn't accusing or disappointed; it was gentle in the way that only Yuji could sound like. Goodhearted, open, optimistic. He talked like he knew it was difficult and didn't want to make it harder, and that was exactly what made it difficult to shove him away.

"You care. That's what's messing you up, isn't it?"

Megumi didn't dare breathe.

"She pissed you off. Got too close. Now you don't know what to do with it."

He exhaled softly. Yuji was wrong — or at least, somewhat. It wasn't that he cared about you. It was the way you looked him in the eye and questioned everything he believed in. His desire to save lives — all lives, if possible; that he wasn't actually doing it. That killing the curse wasn't always the same as winning, that the mission, the regulations weren't absolute. Couldn't be.

You believed in getting it done and accepting what had to be lost along the way, and it was the way you had been calm about it. Cold, even. Efficient, not even necessarily cruel, though he thought you were — but just clear.

And that had shaken him.

A part of him was wondering if you were right. He was pissed about that.

Because standing in the rubble of the half-collapsed shopping mall with the girl crying behind him, he had hesitated. Not even because it was hard. But because it wasn't.

"Mind your own business, Itadori."

Yuji stayed on the steps, solid, still, refusing to be dismissed. There was a pause, and then:

"Nah."

He knew Itadori Yuji. Knew the tone and knew exactly what it meant — that this wasn't going to be one of those conversations that got buried under a shrug and a change of subject. Yuji wasn't leaving, not until he had said whatever he wanted to come say. There was a quiet patience in his eyes, the kind that made Megumi feel seen, a little exposed, challenged.

He rubbed at the corner of his brow with two fingers, eyes closing with exhaustion that ran deep. "I said drop it."

"Yeah," Yuji nodded. "I heard you."

"You don't get it." Megumi imagined Yuji like a fly that he could swat away, bury all his thoughts under the same swatter, squish them out of existence. His tongue felt heavy. Had he never said this out loud? It felt like he had been saying nothing else for weeks now. With a tight jaw, he muttered, "You would've saved them. So would i. That's not the issue."

"Then what is?"

Megumi hesitated. He didn't want to offer his thoughts, everything in him didn't want to admit it like that, but this was Yuji. The same person who who had jumped into danger without a second thought just to protect someone he barely knew, so he cradled the thing that sat in his chest like weight and pushed it out, "She made it sound like doing that made me weak. Like— like it was selfish."

He thought that if he could save someone, even one person, that should be enough. But she made it sound like wanting that meant he was doing it for himself, like he wasn't thinking about the bigger picture. Like he didn't care.

Yuji was silent for a while, and Megumi stiffened, and then—

With a shrug that didn't match the weight of his words: "So what if it was selfish?"

Megumi's shoulders stayed tense but he blinked, his eyes wandering over to Yuji but all he met was a steady look back, calm, grounded in a way that Yuji rarely looked like.

"We make choices and live with them. Sometimes that's selfish. I don't think it means it's wrong," Yuji hesitated, then shrugged again, though this time it was more of a way to get rid of thoughts that intruded on his spoken words, "Maybe it's not even about who's right. Maybe it's just about who's willing to live with what they chose."

Megumi's chest ached. Yuji spoke with a certainty that made him think about Sukuna's finger that Yuji ate that roped him into a world that brought nothing but misery, and why he had such a hard time doing the same when he grew up within it. He didn't respond, not because he disagreed, even though he wanted to push back, to argue, to find a reason for why he would be right, but because the words wouldn't come.

Maybe it was his pride. Maybe it was shame crawling up his throat, laying bitter on his tongue. It wasn't a question of his decision, it was a question of who he was.

Yuji stood up and brushed off his pants like he hadn't just pulled something raw into the light, like the conversation was done. And maybe it was. Megumi made no start to stop Yuji, anyway.

"If you don't wanna talk to her, fine. But don't lie to yourself about why."

3rd of May; 18:52. — you.

The warehouse reeked.

Like mold, blood, and something sour that clung to the back of the throat — the kind of stink that told you a curse didn't die clean. And it didn't: there was a substance resembling blood splattered all over the floor, like it couldn't escape fast enough from where it had been squashed into mush.

Megumi stepped over it, his boots making a wet sound on the floor, his steps heavy and with purpose in the vast silence that suddenly laid itself on top of you like a thick blanket. The air was heavy with aftershocks of cursed energy; the taste tangy and metallic on your tongue.

You could hear the drip of blood from the curve of your sword, the echo hanging in the air, drip, drip, drip.

It gnawed on your nerves, a slow and deliberate sound that you couldn't escape, so you flicked the blade off with a swift motion. Your eyes swept over the shadows lingering from when megumi had called them.

Footsteps matching his in the quiet, the rhythm of yours echo out of sync, a subtle discord that had become almost too familiar. Before, the silence had been filled with sharp words, teasing, half-fulfilled orders, information, occasional jabs. Now?

Now it was just motion. Breathe. Get it done. Get out. No checks. No confirmation. No reason to linger.

Megumi didn't wait for you to catch up. He moved forward without a glance, the slight echo of his voice cutting through the stillness, not loud enough to be a real order, not quiet enough to ignore, "Let's go."

You followed because, well, it was over. The job was done, and there was nothing left to say.

5th of May; 12:01. — fushiguro megumi.

Fushiguro Megumi didn't know why he was lingering around the broken shopping mart in Yurakucho.

With his hands loose by his side, his eyes travelled over the police tapes that were slowly being rolled together. The curse hadn't come back, because if it had, there wouldn't have been the shifting from police workers to construction workers over the weeks.

His heart was beating steady, watching the bustle, the shouts over the sound of equipment, the everyday hustle of people who didn't know better, who didn't have to know better. He continued standing there, watching until the workers gathered together for lunch time.

Megumi ducked under the signs that warned other citizens to stay out, and entered through the broken doors, now cleaned off the shards. His feet took him to the third floor automatically, the entire mall looking weirdly peaceful without the shelves reaching over to keep him in their grasp, without the air weighing him down like he was going to crumble underneath the pressure. The lights were turned off, the electrical wires cut, but there was enough light coming through from the ripped down wall to the south side that he needn't worry about seeing, and he observed the dust dancing in the air.

There was no cursed energy lingering around anymore, but he found the faded circle of red on the floor easily.

He didn't have to worry about the cursed womb anymore, didn't have to worry about anybody else getting hurt.

His teacher had caught him on the extended balcony of the main building in Tokyo Jujutsu High a couple days back, jutting out to observe the main courtyard and if he turned, a side view of the sport field expanding right in front of him. His other schoolmates were training out, and he hadn't joined them; instead, his eyes flitted over the starfish spread of Inumaki's — a Yuji standing next to him poking him with a stick, the huge body of Panda's throwing around a screeching Nobara, the band of limbs blurring in a spar between Maki and you.

His lips twisted, and he looked away.

"Megumi skipping school? Scandalous!"

He barely flinched when he heard Gojo's cheerful tenor ring through the air behind him, too used to his teacher popping in at whatever times he deemed fit. He couldn't tell whether Gojo had come up using the stairs like a normal person, though knowing his teacher, that would have been too boring.

Megumi didn't think he needed to answer. He knew he was supposed to be down there training alongside the rest of his classmates, but he couldn't step foot onto the field, knowing you were there. If ignoring you had been difficult before, it was almost impossible now, even though he didn't speak to you, your own comments having dwindled, only terse necessities when you were put together on missions.

It was less the quantity of commentary that weighed on him heavily; it was just the way his hair stood on its ends, his skin prickling at your mere presence. There was a charge to the air between you both, the accusation and assumption sitting in the atoms he breathed in, heavy, tasting like static.

He shook his head lightly, the memory of a certain monitor beeping in his ears fading. He wasn't wasting time, he wasn't — he was going to train twice as hard, was going to make up for it. His missing the training with the rest of the students would have no bearing on his performance. He was going to make sure of it.

He had no other choice.

"Just so you know, I don't quite mind. I do approve of a little rebellious streak," Gojo's saunter towards the railing where Megumi stood was insufferable. It was not just the way he walked, like gravity bent over backwards for him, the bounce in his steps, like he was mocking the world and daring it to do something about it, but also the underlying message through the easy sway of his shoulders: that he was untouchable. "But skipping school is a slippery slope. First, it's one day. Then it's two. Next you know, the others avoid handling you at staff meetings, and I'm the one who has to go through all your reports. Not fun."

A dry remark, no questions intended. "Do you even read the reports."

"Nah. I don't. It's too much of a hassle," his teacher said with a grin, his canines sharp and glinting in the sun. His elbows propped up on the railing, his back to the sports field, he looked up to the sky. Or, well, his face was looking towards the sky, his eyes might has well have been roaming Megumi's face. Not that he would know where Gojo was looking with that blindfold on.

There was a kind of quiet between them that felt like it was supposed to be purposeful. He didn't like it, his hands gripping the railing a bit tighter, like he could redirect his tension through his fingertips to the wood. There was a breeze softly caressing Megumi's face, and for a second, he wondered if he deserved to have the world treat him so gently, when he—

"I exorcised the curse."

On instinct, Megumi whirled around towards Gojo and the distinctive curve of his jaw as he continued to study the sky's blue, the spare clouds here and there. Like clockwork, the stone in Megumi's stomach sank deeper, and his knuckles whitened on the wood, his nails digging between the rills of the old timber.

"I know there's coulda-woulda-shouldas going through your head. You don't have to tell me, I know I've got bingo already," Gojo said offhandedly, and finally turned his head to Megumi, his smile softening, less of a tease, more of an inspection.

Megumi looked away, the wood digging in between the nail and his skin, right in the crevice where it was hard to get out. "You shouldn't have had to clean up after me."

"Aww, come on, that's what I'm here for. Let me have my moment," a snap of his fingers, "I even looked cool doing it — real flashy. Big crown. Someone might have clapped, ya never know."

His teacher was so ridiculous, Megumi couldn't stop the huff escaping him. Of course, he was out to be praised, so full of himself the way he always was. To an extent, Megumi even appreciated the ease with which he talked. Not that he would ever admit it. "You're not helping."

Gojo bent down, the tip of his sharp nose getting awfully close to Megumi's. "Also, for the record, the whole spinning around you just did? Very dramatic, I give it an 8.5 out of 10."

Megumi jerked his head back, sending a glare towards his teacher, "Do you ever stop talking?"

"Not unless I'm unconscious. Or dead," both hands up in the hair, Gojo stood upright again, to his full height; assured, confident, a fact, "Hold your horses, Megumi — I'm not planning on either of those today. Or the near future."

Megumi's eyes found their way from his teacher to the field again. Inumaki had finally gotten up, though he was still a far cry away from actually gearing up to fight. Maki had moved on to rope Panda into blocking a flurry of her attacks, every movement precise and trained, no wasted moment. Yuji and Nobara were off to the side, engaged in the typical bickering he knew his classmates to partake in. A threatening raise of her hand at Yuji, an assuaged shoulder dropping directed at Nobara.

You were nowhere to be seen, and Megumi hated that he took note of it, that his fingers let up for a second, that the coil in his stomach uncurled. And when gojo spoke again, he hated the way relief wormed itself through his heart, as if he deserved it.

He hated, too, how much he welcomed the relief.

"It's alright for the stuff to weigh on you. You think you're the only one holding the line sometimes," Gojo's voice was serious, in a way that Megumi seldom heard, "You're not. You've got people behind you. Beside you. Me included, aren't you lucky."

Because it was true. Because Megumi could rely on Gojo Satoru. Because he could rest assured that his teacher had always looked out for him, and would always do so, despite being so annoying about it. Or maybe perhaps, even more so because of it.

"…thanks."

Gojo's grin returned with ease, shoulders pulled up as he kicked off the railing. "By the way, the next time you skip class, at least pretend to be doing something cool. Like I dunno — stealing a cursed artefact, annoying Nanami until it looks like the button on his collar is gonna burst, infiltrating a rival Jujutsu School…the list is endless!"

"Those are all terrible ideas."

A gasp, and Gojo turned around, his hand clutching his chest, "Excuse me for having taste."

Megumi had rolled his eyes, but inwardly, he had felt a weird mix between mollification and a nervous fraying around his edges. Making his way down to the training grounds as well to take over Panda's spot, he had even managed to ignore that he was only going down because you weren't there anymore.

A coward—

No.

He just didn't want to get into fights anymore, he told himself, he was sick of it.

Standing in the wreckage left behind of the failed mission now, he couldn't muster up the relief that he felt when Gojo first told him that the curse was gone. He didn't have to worry about it anymore, didn't have to agonise over it at night, could finally focus on his next missions, of not repeating the mistake.

The curse was dealt with. No one else would get hurt, no news alert or updates that he would have to await with bated breath. No more imagining what could have happened — because none if it had happened. And now, it never would.

So why, instead of ease, did he feel a familiar tightness in his chest?

His fingers swept over the mark of his shikigami's warding attack, muscles loose, not clenched, not angry.

The second Megumi learned that Gojo had stepped in, the weight had vanished from his shoulders like it had never been his in the first place. The moment it wasn't his problem anymore, it had stopped being real. The guilt, the panic, the second-guessing — all of it evaporated. Gojo had fixed it. He had always fixed it.

But what if his teacher died? What if there was nobody around to pick up the pieces he left on the ground?

He pressed his lips together.

Megumi didn't use to think about it, but then you threw it at his head, the question of whether he knew that his sense of justice disappeared so easily and—

The comfort sitting in his bones, in the cracks of his joints, turned sour, like milk that was expiring. Gojo could shoulder the burden like it was weightless — and for him, maybe it was. But Megumi wasn't like that. Was he going to rely on his teacher forever?

If he started choosing who lived, if he stained his hands so others could stay clean, would maybe one day the relief feel genuine?

1st of May; 14:28. — you.

You lingered near the restricted area, your fingers hovering over the glass display case. You didn't dare touch anything, but your eyes were sweeping over the more dangerous collection of cursed objects. The area hummed with restrained malevolence; the ancient talismans pulsed dimly, guarded by layered barriers woven so tightly that even the air seemed hesitant to stir.

You didn't intend to steal anything. T

his was merely reconnaissance, to confirm whether the rumour over at Kyoto's were true: that Tokyo Jujutsu High had been quietly amassing cursed relics far beyond what they reported to the higher-ups. That under Gojo Satoru's protection, they'd turned the school into something closer to a private arsenal than a neutral institution.

But this wasn't about fairness or balance, that you knew. It always came down to fear, to wanting to gain the upper hand against somebody they didn't trust. Neither gojo nor his students, and especially not the influx of power the first-years all brought along.

Standing there, surrounded by cursed tools older than some dynasties in Japan, you felt weird.

This wasn't just a vault, it was a warning, too. A reminder that if Tokyo wanted to, they really could overpower Kyoto before it ever drew its own blade. And if it was true, what would the elders plan to do with this information if you delivered it?

In the end, you shouldn't care. You were a tool to use, a means to someone else's end, you were just there to collect information, and leave before anything could happen. Ever since you found that talisman on your bed, you kept repeating it to yourself, yet still —

Strangely, your first thought was of Itadori Yuji.

Not because he was friendly, even though he was. Not because he always offered to spar, even though he did, or because he was so earnest, but because of what he carried inside him.

You had seen it in flashes; in the way his smile faltered when he thought no one was watching, in the tension in his shoulders when he had to deploy Sukuna to take over his body, like he was bracing himself for something he couldn't stop.

He bore the King of Curses like a time bomb behind his ribs, and the worst thing about it was that he wasn't just a vessel. He was a boy trying to stay himself. So if what you learned here about Tokyo's cursed arsenal got back to Kyoto's elders, would they have more leverage to use against Yuji?

You were their spy, yet—

"So, funny thing," came a voice from behind you, "back during my days, the restricted section wasn't on the student tour."

You froze.

Gojo Satoru stood just a few steps back, hands in his pockets, posture loose, like he had just strolled in by accident. His blindfold was slightly pushed up, one pale blue eye gleaming under the low light. He wasn't smiling, but his tone was light, breezy, almost bored.

Like catching you here was a minor curiosity.

You turned slowly, "Gojo-sensei."

"Wow. Polite!" he nodded appreciatively, the corner of his mouth twitching, "Didn't expect that, considering the whole Kyoto sending you here and not teaching you how to trip a proximity ward. How is Utahime, by the way? She still giving the staff at the Karaoke's grey hair?"

Your answer was hesitant, slow, careful, "This place is off-limits? I could swear it wasn't. That's my fault. I can be on my way out, no time wasted."

There was a brilliant smile on Gojo's face at you playing stupid now; like a mask, easy and lazy, but there was a dangerous glint in the way his canine caught the light. "Cute. You lie like somebody who's never had to lie to me before."

"I wasn't—"

"—lying? Spying? Trying to sell me some sweet, innocent act?" he finished for you, his grin sharpening, his attention on you razor sharp, "Nah. Of course not. I can give you some pointers if you want my professional constructive criticism."

So lying wasn't an option anymore.

Not that you thought it ever really was, but in the same way that the higher-ups had no issue throwing out obvious, outrageous excuses like that, you thought maybe you could do the same to save yourself. But of course, it was a stupid decision. You had neither the power nor the authority nor the leverage to pit against somebody like Gojo Satoru to even try to pull shit out of your ass.

If anything, you didn't know if Kyoto even had any control. Not when it was the honoured clan heir on the other side.

What were your options then?

Despite the imposing presence of Gojo's, like an incessant reminder of the energy thrumming underneath his cool demeanour luring you to see him as an enemy, you couldn't attack. Not if you wanted to keep all of your bones intact. It would only end one way and that was with you in a hospital and having lost all semblance of some sort of trust between not just you both, but also with the other first-years.

Not that any trust had ever been really genuine, but at least it hadn't disturbed the status quo between you during all the weeks before.

You also didn't want to fight. Not like that. Not against Gojo Satoru. Ever.

You could try to stick to lying and pretend like you were innocent — it might even work, depending on how much good-will Gojo owned in that moment, how playful he was to really allow you to walk that line. He wouldn't believe you, but maybe you could appease him a little. On the other hand, it could also go insanely wrong in that he doesn't take kindly to being toyed with.

As stupid as it sounded, it was a viable option, but it was too much of a wild card to really trust that it would work either way.

Another option, which, out of everything, was not high on your list, was to offer him something in return if he let you get away with it. If you could convince him that you were more useful to keep around, you might be able to play it safe. He might be insulted, or he might take the offer, but either way, you would lose his respect and any possible prospect of gaining trust. Which, again, did not help your case in any way.

That lead to two different problems, though, which could be viewed on two different scales of importance, too. For one, and far less important, your behaviour was not just representative of yourself, but of Kyoto too, so any repercussions were directed back to the elders as well. You yourself didn't particularly care whether Gojo Satoru had respect for you, though having him as an enemy was not quite on your to-do list, either; but being the reason for the stand-off between the two schools to sharpen? Difficult.

Another reason, far more important to you, was to sell yourself like that went against your own principles; you were not in the habit of disregarding your own feelings in favour of saving yourself.

You were following your job, you knew that. You could treat it like a mission, because it essentially behaved like one, except a part of you couldn't because it wasn't against enemies, curses and curse users that intend to hurt innocent people. It was against other sorcerers, in a game where you were supposed to smile in Yuji's face and then feed his future to people who'd rather he die quietly than live inconveniently.

How much of a pawn did you want to be? You didn't care when you came here to Tokyo, but you also hadn't known any of the students here, hadn't seen how hard they worked to make a different future for Jujutsu Society.

You talked all about Megumi and his inability to be true to himself, but how about you?

The words left your mouth as calmly as you could manage, as steady as you could bring yourself to sound with Gojo Satoru watching over you like a hawk, "I didn't come here to steal anything."

Was that your smartest move? Maybe. Maybe not. It was hard to guess with him, but it was at the very least the truth and sometimes, when nothing else worked, truth was all you had left. It was your best bet at catching his attention; somebody who occupied the stance that Gojo Satoru did would appreciate honesty, you thought.

"You must be really curious then to ignore all the seals."

So he wasn't going to let you off easy. Almost, you were hoping he would be kind to you.

"They don't trust you. Or Tokyo," you didn't have to mention who they was; Gojo knew. By the shift in the air, the lessening of oppressive attention, you also knew he was listening now. "Not with the first-years. Not with Itadori. And especially not with you standing between them and the chain of command."

He didn't interrupt, so you continued.

"I guess you could call me spy, but they never do. Well, not officially, anyway. It's called oversight, information gathering, or whatever other thing they can come up with," you swallowed the amount of saliva having gathered in your mouth from your rambling, "They think this school is building its own army."

"An army, eh?" Gojo made a low sound in his throat, an unceremonious snort escaping him, "I can't say we haven't a good roster this time round: a hammer, a puppeteer, a ticking walking bomb? Nah, I gotta tweak that one a little…just the bomb? Hmm…"

You interrupted him before he could spiral into another tangent, "Point is, they're scared of you."

He turned towards you and despite the brightness of his eye roaming over your form, his words were honest, "Good. They should be."

You stayed still, because— "What are you going to do?"

Gojo blinked, lazily, as if none of it truly concerned him. Like catching a spy in Tokyo Jujutsu High's restricted section was no more urgent than choosing what flavour Mochi to buy. But nothing about the casual motions of a tight-lipped smile curling onto his face or his fingers tapping his chin was idle to fool you.

"Me?" he echoed, "Oh no, I'm just sitting in the front-row seat of 'what are you going to do?"

You swallowed, just once. "I could tell them about all this here."

"Naturally," he said, one shoulder heaving up in a small shrug. The way his head tilted reminded you of a bird, "You could."

Was there a trap in his words? You weren't sure. That was the problem with Gojo Satoru — he didn't need to be flashy to be dangerous. Sometimes it even hid in plain sight, draped in his infuriating nonchalance and wrapped in his lazy smiles.

Was the off-handed way he regarded you a threat?

Maybe.

He didn't look like he was posturing. He didn't have to. He barely moved since the moment he caught you, and yet you hadn't relaxed once. His eye watched you, but not in a way a predator would its prey, because that was still seeing you on the same plane of existence as him and right now, you weren't.

He watched you like a god watched a candle.

You studied him back. "You're not going to stop me?"

"I already did."

Things were not written in stone. Theoretically, you knew that.

You could send your report back to Kyoto, and it would carry your name. You could choose to continue your mission the way it was intended, could accept that you essentially were a discardable part of a plan that was larger than you. The plan that encompassed the death of Itadori Yuji, that had its eyes set on Fushiguro Megumi and the power imbalance of his cursed technique officially belonging to no clan, but still could be seen as an extension of the Gojo family.

You could do a lot of things, but the way he was waiting for you to understand made you feel like your decision had been made hours ago already. That it had been cemented in moments that you hadn't thought twice about: the first time you snorted at Yuji's really-not-funny joke but he lit up like he got handed a prize when he realised who it came from.

The first time Nobara didn't bother hiding her annoyance during a dragged-out explanation during training but still shifted enough to give you a clear view.

The first time you saw Megumi hesitate before a mission, so minuscule that you had almost dismissed it, his jaw tight and eyes distant, that spurred on your curiosity about what he was hiding.

That was the trap, you thought, not Gojo's words but, put on the spot in front of a decision, how treacherous your heart and mind were.

7th of May; 22:13. — kugisaki nobara.

"Yo."

"Gojo-sensei!"

"Yuji, my favourite student who is absolutely not my favourite just because you're the only one who has decency enough to miss me so when I'm gone!"

Nobara tried her best at Maki's eye roll again, "Teacher's pet."

"Wait…am I not supposed to say hi?"

"Nevermind that, Yuji-kun! Won't I get a heartfelt greeting from my other two favourite gremlins?"

"Hi." — "What's the mission."

"Yuji, close the windows. There's a real cold draft. Weird."

"But there's none open…"

Ignoring yuji, her teacher continued cheerfully, throwing a file onto the table, "I come bearing gifts!"

Nobara's head thumped against her arm. Goodbye, skin care routine. Goodbye, a good night's sleep. Goodbye, peace.

8th of May; 23:42. — you.

Megumi's leg was touching yours.

The problem with being four people in a short limousine was that there were two single seats that both Nobara and Yuji were quick to claim. In fact, as you all were walking down to the awaiting car on the main street, both of your classmates started accelerating until they were speed walking at a very conspicuous pace. Megumi huffed to himself, a deep annoyed sigh, a few steps behind you but you didn't think much of it until Iwata opened the door for you both and an innocent Yuji was looking back from the front row seats.

The boy's pink-haired head immediately whirled forward when he caught your eye, but it wasn't quick enough for you to have missed the slightly guilty expression painted all over his features. Your eyebrows wandered even higher up when your periphery registered movement between the seats, Nobara's well-manicured fingers slightly pinching Yuji's thigh.

Her lips mouthed something towards him, quick, messy enough that you couldn't catch it but apparently that was enough for Yuji because his brows furrowed and he nodded, resigned, accepting his part in whatever scheme she was coming up with.

"Move," Megumi grunted from behind you when you took to long to enter, and pushed himself past you into the car.

"Don't strain yourself with all that politeness, Fushiguro," you bit out.

It was a cruel joke, looking inside the vehicle and finding that the only seat you could possibly take was right next to Megumi's right. Well, it would have been Megumi's left if you had entered the car first, but at least it would have been at your choosing which side you'd rather occupy.

Not your mission, you reminded yourself with a press of your lips, before sliding into your seat and allowed Iwata to shut your door close so he could drive you all to the mission site.

That had been eighteen minutes ago, and Megumi's leg was touching yours for the past thirteen of those. Megumi who had stubbornly stared out the window, who kept his body to himself, tense, with his arms crossed, until his head lolled forward slightly and his body relaxed slowly.

It was funny how open to an attack he was in that position, the back of his neck exposed as his chin softly bumped against his chest. If the Kyoto elders had tasked you to get rid of the Zen'in brat with the Ten Shadows Technique, you could have done so easily in that moment: taken a hold of the dagger you kept with you and aimed for his carotid, then dragged it up to his internal jugular. He would've been dead before he could have even had the chance to wake up again.

They didn't ask that of you, though, so you sat in this car with Yuji's and Nobara's whispers in front of you, and Megumi's leg that touched yours.

9th of May; 01:18. — you.

"This place smells like whatever's festering in those idiots' laundry pile."

Nobara wasn't exaggerating.

The stench of stagnant water reeked of bacteria finding a welcoming home; flowers that had been standing in their dirty water for weeks, a sickly sweet under note. It reminded you of buried corpses beneath wet earth, rotten.

The entrance to the underpass stretched out before you, half-drowned in shadow as murky floodwater trickled out steadily. Despite the sloshing of water reaching your ears faintly, there were no other sounds to indicate there was something nesting inside there: no breeze of wind, no metal creaking, no movement through the water.

There had been residual cursed energy picked up from the last site that the curse was lingering around, though it was difficult for to scouts who were monitoring the area to pick up the exact location. The curse was constantly moving, apparently extremely territorial and, most importantly, smart enough to avoid detection until now.

"What are you doing?"

You turned slightly to observe Yuji bending down, untying his boots, "I didn't know the water was going to be that deep!! I'm wearing my cool socks, so — " he rolled his socks into a little ball, stuffed it into his pocket before slipping into his shoes, sock-less, " — problem solved."

"Ugh, yikes."

"We should split up as we discussed," Megumi spoke up, his voice scratchy from when he woke up from his slumber earlier.

When the car came to a halt and the overhead light turned on, his body had stilled as his eyelashes fluttered lightly, opening, coming to his senses with a blink. He was quiet, when awaking. But Megumi, when left to his devices, was always very quiet, even more so in the recent weeks. His jaw slightly moved when he released the tension held within his teeth and his chest moved with a deep breath, shoulders staying relaxed momentarily before they stiffened when he felt your gaze on his face.

He had looked at you, something raw in his eyes, and you looked back. For a second there was nothing between you both other than just space that existed, then his knee had pulled away and you had turned and gotten out of the car.

"Sweep it from both ends. One team at the north entrance, and one from the spillway," Megumi continued. "At least this way we can cut off one route if it decides to lead us through a chase."

As you were approaching the mission site earlier, Yuji had asked about the distribution of teammates, and a quiet Iwata had spoken up. His voice was soft, hesitant like he was scared to unleash a storm with what he was about to announce. Apparently, Gojo had made it clear to the assistant manager to convey his explicit desire to have you and Megumi paired up.

You hadn't bothered to either act or be surprised about that development, taking the 'news' with as neutral a face as you could manage. Obviously, you would have preferred to share the name of teammates with Yuji instead, but after the encounter with Gojo, you weren't surprised that you were to be kept away from the pink-haired student that had the Kyoto elders in an uproar. It didn't matter that nothing in your secret mission had mentioned any bodily harm to Yuji, nevermind the fact that you didn't want to hurt him, but if it were you in anyone else's shoes, you would have kept yourself far from him, too.

The lack of trust didn't hurt you, for it made sense and you weren't sure you trusted Gojo Satoru and his little games entirely, either. It was a give and take, so nothing you could do about it.

What captured your attention instead was the fact that Megumi's face hadn't moved at the announcement, either. Where there would have been a palpable exasperation at sharing his presence with you, a frustrated grimace, a twist of lips, he just quietly accepted it now. It had you narrowing your eyes, a thoughtful curl of your mouth that you couldn't hold back.

His lack of ill-will was off-putting; the oppressive quiet he had layered over himself over the past weeks slowly, bit by bit, one that suffocated the usual reticence he carried with him. it wasn't like you knew too much about his private life, so you couldn't pin point what exactly had happened that had Megumi hide behind the biggest mask of indifference you had ever seen, and—

Not your mission.

There was fire licking at your fingertips, urging your tongue to loosen up to coax it out of him, because you knew there was something contained behind the seams, trying to burst. You knew because you felt the same way. Because there was something brewing in your chest that wanted out, because Kyoto made it clear not to intervene with anything and not to care. Because Megumi was not your business.

You're not going to stop me?

I already did.

You exhaled harshly.

The sound echoed off the walls of the underpass, seemingly stretching endlessly in front of you. Your shoes were wet and you were glad that the water hadn't seeped through them to dampen your socks — yet. If you had to walk any longer in the rising water level, they would become so sooner or later. The water rippled around your shins faintly, lit dully by the weak glow of your flashlights. Moss climbed up the walls in green veins and every few paces the rusted husk of a bicycle or the tip of a traffic cone broke through the surface.

Megumi was wading through the water as well, next to you, his eyes observing the tunnel walls like they might peel open and serve the curse on a silver platter, a stern line on his mouth. The silence stretched thin — taut with the weird change between you both. He hadn't spoken a word since you entered, and it didn't bother you, you told yourself.

Except there were comments that burned on your tongue, so you did the sensible thing and swallowed them down with the same-old mantra you had adopted ever since you found the talisman on your bed.

Ignoring the fact that ever since Gojo had found you sniffing around, you hadn't actively went to search for any new information, either.

9th of May; 02:03. — itadori yuji.

"If this thing doesn't show soon, I'm gonna curse it for wasting my time when I could be getting beauty sleep," Nobara's boots splashed as she moved on ahead, her hammer kept low.

Rip her mouth to shreds. She talks more than you whine around, brat.

Itadori Yuji flinched just a little, shoulders tensing instinctively at the voice that coiled through his mind like rot given form. Sukuna's tone was laced with dark amusement, sharp and sleazy, sliding into the quiet of Yuji's mind like a knife. His voice carried the weight of ages — dry, scornful, each syllable curled with contempt.

He tried not to show it. He was getting better at hiding when Sukuna slithered in, but it still left that familiar feeling in his chest, like he'd swallowed nails. But Yuji also knew that Sukuna loved to get the best of him, so his best bet had always been to not give the King of Curses the satisfaction of a response.

He trudged through the water beside Nobara, arms slightly raised like the water might leap up and bite, "It's not so bad. You think curses can swim?"

"Shut up before you jinx us," she muttered.

Yuji glanced at nobara, trying to gauge her mood. She was always so confident, so brash, but tonight there was something different about her. A tension in her shoulders, a tightness in her jaw. It wasn't just her missing her beauty sleep, it wasn't just the mission. She was annoyed, sure — that was kind of her default — but… more than that.

He couldn't really blame her because Yuji felt weird most of the time, too.

He knew that not everyone shared the same line that he drew in the sand.

He hated it. Hated the feeling of watching his friend hurting over something he understood very well, of the sting of pain that stayed lodged deep beneath his ribs, creeping into dreams and daylight alike. Yuji had lived it, Megumi had lived it, Nobara had, they were still living it; the same wound that wouldn't stop bleeding because it never got any time to heal.

Yuji knew that Megumi would throw himself into danger if it meant somebody could be saved — it was why he appreciated and trusted Megumi after all this time so deeply.

But you?

If he had to say, he wasn't quite sure where to put you on his scale. He didn't think that you both were strictly in the category of friends, but he also didn't think that you weren't. If worse came to worst, he would protect you as he would with any other of his teammates, the same way he would with any given human, but he wasn't sure whether he enjoyed your presence, not when he saw how biting your words could be.

Yuji generally was a forgiving person, straight forward, optimistic even, but then sometimes you fixed him with this look of yours as if you knew more about him than he'd like you to and—

He shook his head.

That wasn't the point. The point was that he had seen enough of you to understand that you weren't heartless, not in the strictest sense, that you did what the mission called for, that he saw you doing what other sorcerers were doing, and Yuji understood that.

It scared him, not because he thought it was cruel, which he had trouble figuring out if it even was, but because he knew that he had been shown over and over how the Jujutsu world worked. How easy it was for the mission to swallow everything else; that maybe, one day, doing the right thing by the rules would mean stepping over someone begging for help.

He wondered if, eventually, he'd have to become like that, too.

Yuji rubbed his chest; a self-soothing technique he only really started to use ever since his grandfather died, ever since he had swallowed Sukuna's finger and there was a presence within his body fighting his cells for power.

He didn't want to get used to death.

Such sentiment, truly. You weep over things already gone, how tedious.

Yuji's jaw tightened, but Sukuna kept going; his voice silken, venomous.

All this morality talk. You still speak of saving everyone, how quaint. How boring. This is not a tale of heroes, boy, it's a reckoning. In time, you'll grow accustomed to it. They all do. And when your bleeding heart betrays you, I shall be there.

He swallowed down the clawing urge to scream. To sleep. To disappear. Then, with a squeeze of his eyes, short, forceful, he re-focused on Nobara grumbling through the water, the faint sloshing echoing through the tunnel, the feeling of cold surrounding his legs and asked, "You think Fushiguro and her are doing okay?"

"They better have more going for them than we do, ugh, my poor shoes. I'm so going to have Gojo buy me a replica. Maybe even two, he knows I hate mouldy tunnels."

Fool.

9th of May; 02:21. — fushiguro megumi.

Megumi refused to be surprised anymore.

It had been Gojo's idea. Of course it had. Who else would think it brilliant to shove two people who could barely tolerate each other into a death trap as a form of 'team building'? He could almost imagine his teacher's laugh — the disgustingly cheerful, insufferable sound that was somehow still able to be genuine in its amusement.

Megumi didn't feel like laughing. He hadn't wanted the assignment to turn out this way. Not with you. Not when he had tried, again and again, to avoid being in your presence more than necessary. But this was necessary, so he clamped down the buzzing feeling crawling on his skin to focus.

When Gojo had given them all the file with the information gathered so far, Megumi had fingered the paper, eyes scanning over the information — sensor readings, half-legible scout notes, maps — only to turn the page and stop. There they were: blurry, cruel pictures staring back at him of the confirmed causalities. Faces frozen mid-expression.

Something had twisted in his chest at the faces, gripped his heart in an iron fist. It wasn't guilt, not exactly. Not yet. But something closer to pressure, sharp and unwelcome in the way it prodded his ribs from within.

"The curse's not consistent. Weren't sorcerers or anything special — locals, mostly," Gojo had said offhandedly, almost flippant. His voice didn't betray anything of what he thought of Megumi's question, "A maintenance worker. Two kids cutting through the underpass to skip school."

Simple facts, lives on paper, reduced to what they weren't.

He had felt the words lodge in his spine. This time, he wasn't going to freeze, wasn't going to falter, to hold back just because something inside him still bucked against the uglier parts of being a sorcerer. This time he couldn't be selective.

He was not going to run away.

Because if he hesitated—

No.

He didn't need to think about what-ifs, because there were going to be none. Because there was going to be no second-guessing, no moral hesitation, no wondering if he had made the right call, no thinking of you—

He bit his tongue.

Megumi's eyes flicked sideways toward you, just slightly, almost involuntarily. His eyebrows furrowed deeply. He hated how your presence was a quiet pulse at the edge of his focus like an itch that he couldn't ignore. He disliked that he didn't know why he found you so unfamiliar, why the air between you both kept feeling like spilled gasoline, invisible and waiting for a spark

You didn't speak, didn't look at him, and yet somehow it felt like you were doing both, like you were aware of everything he thought and felt, like he was being watched, measured, known in a way that he didn't want to understand—

He shifted his gaze forward again.

Not now.

The water was deeper now than when they first entered the north side of the tunnel, cold, heavy, like it wanted to slow him down. Instead of ripples, the water moved steadily with each movement, and he had to hold up the lantern a bit higher so it wouldn't be swallowed up, the dull glow barely pushing the shadows back.

Up ahead —

He squinted.

This was an underpass; there was only one way to go, it should have been a straight line. Yet right in front of him, there were dozens of access tunnels branching in and out, narrow, curling like roots in the dark. The architecture shouldn't be possible, yet…

He paused, and when the lantern was held out to you, you reached for it without a word, hand brushing against his own.

It was only a single moment, the brush of skin only that: a brush, yet it burned.

Tensing, he snapped his hand back, fingers poised and intertwined in each other, ready to summon his Divine Dogs at a moment's notice. The cursed energy coiled tight between his hands and the flash of heat through his chest.

9th of May; 02:38. — kugisaki nobara.

Miserable and damp, Nobara's boots splashed through the water that had no business climbing up her legs, dunking her flesh in the slimy substance she actually wasn't entirely sure was even water to begin with.

"Smells absolutely rancid," she muttered to Yuji, her nose curling, "Almost like—"

"My socks? Jokes on you, I'm not even wearing them," he grinned, bright and dumb as always, but even Nobara could see the sharpness underneath the smile, the vigilant squinting of his eyes against the darkness, "Think it's hiding?"

Obviously, she thought. Not long, and she would completely master Maki-senpai's eye roll.

"Yeah," Nobara scanned the ripples a few metres away, the suspicious feeling in the air intensifying. She was pretty decent at recognising the enemy's game plan, she'd say. She had to if she wanted to survive amongst all the backstabbing people in her old town. If she wanted to navigate through the lying, the lashing out, the manipulation she saw Saori enduring, "The water's deep, so it could be anywhere but..."

When the water stilled again, her muscles tightened, and she raised her hammer slightly. Nobara didn't like that the water was quiet, because quiet meant somebody was thinking, and thinking meant there was a trap ahead.

There were two things Kugisaki Nobara hated: inappropriate use of leopard prints and backhanded manoeuvres.

"…my feeling's telling me that…it's..right…"

A point with her hammer at the minuscule waves, "…there."

"Did you—"

Before Yuji could finish, there was a dark grumble interrupting him, deep and disgusting. A breath later and the curse burst out from beneath the water, twisting like a living shadow, fast, massive and so goddamn ugly. It was big, its head almost reaching the roof of the underpass, a tail smashing against the walls as tendrils, oily and slimy lashed out wildly.

Nobara's waist started to feel cold, and when she dared to catch a look down, there was water surrounding her. It hadn't been so high earlier, she noted, alarmed, "Yuji—"

"Shit—!" Yuji barely dodged the first strike of a tendril, thick as a tree's trunk, the water splashing violently as it crashed beside him. Make that three pairs, Nobara thought, when the oil splattered on her. This wasn't going to get washed out, no matter what, and honestly, she wasn't even sure if she wanted to try and clean it.

Her hammer was fully up in a blink, energy pulsing through her arms like fire, "I'm going to teach this ugly fuck a lesson."

She didn't have to look towards Yuji to find a determined grin on his face, "Count me in."

Yuji darted forward, quick and clean despite the water sloshing at his waist. His fists were already poised and up, eyes locked on the twisted silhouette ahead. Nobara hung back; not out of fear or reluctance, because contrary to popular belief (Megumi and Yuji), she would get dirty to get the job done, but because she'd rather watch the movements of the curse and aid the exorcism through ranged combat. Also, because there was no way in hell that she could be as fast in this water as Yuji.

A tendril cracked through the air, slicing down in a high arc. Her teammate twisted away just in time, water exploding around him as his fist connected with the creature's head. It screeched, high and guttural, the stench of rot rolling over them like a wave. Then it vanished, slipping beneath the surface with a splash.

“Crap,” Yuji muttered, eyes scanning the water. "It’s in the water. We're not gonna catch it like that."

He backed off, mumbling something that might've been a joke. Not that Nobara thought it would've been funny if she had been able to catch it. Her hand was already in motions, pulling nails from her pouch in a fluid sweep. With a flick of her wrist, she launched them: sharp darts of silver, one, two, three, humming with cursed energy.

A muffled shriek followed as the nails found flesh. Oil rose, swirling on the surface, then it burst from below with his ugly sharp teeth, sinews that hung loose and all the rage lunging at her.

"Not today, freak," Nobara snapped.

She held her ground until the last possible second, then side stepped, her hammer swinging upward to catch the curse across the shoulder. It connected with a thunder-like crack, and the curse reeled — right into Yuji's awaiting first. One hit. Two. The third sent it staggering back.

Then came the tail. A blur of muscle, whipping with brutal force.

It slammed into Yuji's gut with a wet, bone-jarring thud. He grunted, forced back a step, his boots skidding through the water, but didn't go down.

Seriously, what were his legs made of? Reinforced concrete?

9th of May; 02:40. — you.

"You heard that?"

Megumi nodded, his eyes fixed on the walls ahead. His entire body had gone taut, every muscle alert, like a blade drawn but not yet swung. A screech had cut through the air, faint and distorted by stone and water, but unmistakably the curse. Which meant either Nobara and Yuji had found the curse or the curse had found them.

There was a low hum of cursed energy in the air, but it was weak. Too weak to confirm the exact source just yet, barely enough to really catch it, but still, not faint enough to ignore. It didn't mean it wasn't dangerous.

The dampness began to creep into your bones, deeper now, soaking through your clothes and sliding icy fingers across your skin. Every slow gust from the tunnel behind felt like a breath on your neck, caressing your spine with a kiss and you suppressed a shiver.

You had chosen the far most right tunnel, because it was the easiest to retrace should anything go wrong. That had been the plan: don't get lost, don't get flanked, stay alert, focus, exorcise the curse.

But as you and Megumi pushed forward, the narrow passage began to widen, the ceiling opening up, revealing more waterlogged space. Holding up the lantern, the light shone faintly, shadows receding slowly.

Then—

A faint, irregular movement.

Just off to the side, slumped against the wall where a mound of debris had collapsed, was a figure. He was half submerged, water up to his shoulders, and trembling violently. His soaked clothes clung to him, ragged, probably weighing him down more. Almost like a ghost, his pale skin shone in the dim light as he shuddered; looking like he was barely tethered to the physical world.

He wasn't dead, though. Not yet.

The old man's face lifted slowly when he heard you, eyes wide, bloodshot, water droplets hanging from his messy beard. His lips parted, cracked and raw. How long had he been down there?

Megumi slowed, and the water shifted with his arm, like he was gripping his weapon, ready to draw, and when you turned slightly, the light of the lantern between you, he glanced at you for a fraction of a second.

There was an unreadable look on his face, like carved from stone, every line harsh, neutral, focused. But you didn't search his face, you searched his eyes underneath the dark hair, underneath the mask he put in place so tightly, and they always betrayed him, flickering with something fierce and momentary. A whirlwind of emotion he swallowed down with a bobbing of his Adam's apple, not clear whether they wanted to soften or harden.

9th of May; 02:52.— itadori yuji.

Another round of nails fired, and Yuji knew that even though the water wasn't clear, he could trust Nobara to do a good job surrounding the curse.

He was already moving when she slammed her hammer down on the final embedded nail, her cursed energy surging in a flash: a chain reaction snapping from point to point. The ground trembled with how fast it spread, and the explosion lit up the creature's side.

A shriek, a buckle from the curse.

A fist, elbow, knee from Yuji.

The rhythm of his strikes was relentless. Each one hammering the curse deeper into disarray, but when he made to surge through the water, raw knuckles ready to deliver another blow—

A splash of water, mud splattering on his face, and some landed on his panting mouth, the taste pungent and dirty. He couldn't keep the grimace from spreading on his face.

The surface calmed instantly, still, eerie in how quiet it became. Too quiet.

"Where the hell—"

"Shit," Yuji wiped his wet face, breathing hard, lungs ragged. His body was coiled like a spring ready to release, tight, "This thing doesn't stay down for long."

But there was only tense silence, the only sound interrupting was the soft splashing of water beneath their feet.

Nobara's eyes scanned the water, "Wait…"

His muscles tensed at her alarmed voice, "What? What is it?"

She didn't answer at first, her eyes shifting back to the water, expression sharpening. Then, with sudden certainty: "It's not coming back up. It's gone, not just hiding, gone."

Before he could respond, there was a low, echoing splash resounding in the distance. It sounded deep and wrong, and a tremor rippled through the water, legs vibrating, concrete humming underneath their wet boots.

Yuji's head snapped toward the noise. "North entrance. Megumi."

He was already running, water flying with each step. The air felt thicker, charged with the sense of urgency. The pounding of his heart kept time with the splashing of his feet.

He was not going to leave you both to your own devices, not if he could help it, not if he could still breathe, not if he still had blood pumping through his body.

Run, brat. Let's see how far those legs get you.

Yuji didn't flinch. He just pushed through the water harder.

9th of May; 02:53. — you.

One of Megumi's shadow beasts barked. Sharp, low, a warning cry that cut through the heavy silence.

Megumi's attention snapped to the darkness ahead. his stance shifted, spine straightening, sword already angled forward. the tension in his frame was immediate, palpable, his expression hard.

The old man behind them coughed out a garbled string of words, stuttering, his voice raspy and dry, like it hadn't been used in ages. But whatever he was trying to say drowned beneath the sudden shift in the air, heavy, suffocating, thick with cursed energy.

The ground trembled underfoot, a chilling surge of cursed energy spreading across the water.

"Get back," Megumi commanded, low and clear.

Then it came.

Emerging from the depths was a hulking mass of shadow and writhing limbs that twisted the laws of motion. The curse moved like a fluid wrapped in wrinkly skin, oozing cursed energy with each movement; its eyes were pits of malice, gleaming in the lantern light with unnatural hunger. The nasty smell rolled over you like poisonous gas, subtle, clogging your nose.

Megumi's dog lunged forward with a snarl, water splashing around its paws, saliva dripping from his bared canines.

You raised your weapon, but the sudden influx of oil made your grip slip — just for a second. It was enough to remind you how bad it could go. You hadn't expected it to be a walk in the park, of course, but you had hoped it would be at least a bit simpler. This though? This was difficult.

Then it roared. It was a low, bone deep sound that shook your chest, vibrated through the water and clung to your legs. And before you could blink —

It was fast. Faster than expected. Faster than you could dodge.

You registered the impact on your ribs from the tendril lashing out, before you skidded back from the force. Pain bloomed on your skin, a deep ache, and you thought you couldn't get any air even when you breathed. Gasping, you spluttered out water from where you fell back, face momentarily dunked in the liquid, "Fushiguro!"

There was another swipe of a tendril, and it dragged over the entire terrain, coming at you with shocking speed. Ducking under the water again just in time, you felt it catch some of your hair. Your lungs complaining, screaming for air when you couldn't get your diaphragm back into its rhythm from the strike before, you broke the surface again, in time to see the tendril catch the old man full in the chest. He wailed once, a broken, high sound, before the curse yanked him across the tunnel like he weighed nothing, like he was a rag doll to be thrown around.

You grunted, voice raw from the salt water as you moved forward, intent on cutting down the curse, but even as you charged, a shadowy tentacle shot from the creature's body, aiming directly for you, snapping through the air —

It never hit.

Megumi's blade was fast, cutting through the curse's arm mid-strike, slicing the shadowed limb clean in two. Black ichor splattered on the water, sizzling where it landed.

The curse shrieked, and in that brief moment of distraction, it let go of the man, retreating back into the shadows of the water once again, moving like liquid, too fast to keep up with.

The old man struggled to stay afloat, finding a log of discarded metal, rusted and probably carrying all the bacteria for the wound on the guy's forehead. Yet, he still clung to it with all his might, body trembling in fear, eyes wide in terror. You were sure he was only awake because adrenaline coursed through his veins like a drug, with primal fear at something he couldn't comprehend.

Megumi’s gaze didn’t waver from where it tried to track the curse; he stared at the water, sword angled low, a predator stillness to him. And for a moment, in the gleam of his eye, there was something unspoken.

Like a warning, like a challenge, like a promise.

9th of May; 02:56. — itadori yuji.

"It was already halfway gone before you punched it, Yuji, how about using your brain sometime to grab it or something."

"How am I supposed to see it coming? It's like swimming with a torpedo. A creepy, soggy torpedo."

"Whatever. When we're done, you're gonna carry me to the car. I'm way too tired."

"Do I even get a say?"

"No."

9th of May; 03:01. — fushiguro megumi.

The water exploded.

A monstrous surge of tendrils shot from the depths, writhing toward them with horrifying speed. There was nothing human in the way it moved — its limbs contorted as they stretched unnaturally. It was too long, too thin, but Megumi didn't flinch. It was not too difficult to kill.

There were jagged shapes protruding from some of the tendrils, and its movements blurred at the edges: frantic, fast, making it hard to follow with the naked eye. But he didn't need to. His shikigami tracked cursed energy like breath in the dark, flaring with each incoming strike. It always alerted him when the cursed energy levels changed, so he could trust his shadows, but you—

Megumi clicked his tongue.

You were already moving towards the curse, cursed tool in hand, dark energy radiating off it where you had imbued the blade. Despite having been flung through the air, your movements were still swift, graceful, but god, you had no patience. He swallowed down the bite rising in his throat, the urge to tell you to wait so that you could coordinate, to strike smarter.

The curse recoiled at your blow, but it wasn't retreating yet, just gathering momentum.

The water churned violently around its body, as though the curse itself was dragging the entire underpass toward it. Its mouth opened wide, teeth flashing as it lunged forward, but Megumi, who anticipated it — seeing as how he seemed to be the only one who tried to hatch out a game plan — was quicker once more.

His eyes narrowed and with a practised signal of his hands, his Great Serpent moved through the water like it was his second home, converging on the curse, coiling around its limbs and biting down hard. The curse snarled and writhed under the pressure, just enough to expose a weakness, enough to give you an opening.

"Now!" he pressed between gritted teeth, his voice carrying the urgency, snapping.

You both moved; your blade arced towards the curse's core, and Megumi stepped in to flank, but the curse twisted, unnaturally pliable. With a sudden, sickening twist, it tore itself free from Great Serpent's jaw, spraying deep purple blood across the concreted walls. The thing's body seemed to fold in on itself, reshaping as if wanting to escape the grasp of Megumi.

"Dammit!"

He didn't stop. Couldn't stop, pushing forward, determined to keep it boxed in, to keep it in check, to not allow it any time to recover, but the curse was relentless. It was like fighting an ocean of flesh, always shifting, always evading.

Your eyes never left the curse either as you tried to slash with your blade again, aiming for what seemed to be its neck, but the curse writhed, dodging; its inhuman agility almost more terrifying than its strength.

"Great Ser—"

Pain.

A sharp, burning stab to his side.

Megumi exhaled harshly, stumbling back a half-step. One of the curse's long, jagged limbs had found its mark, cutting deep. For a moment, his focus wavered. Blood dripped into the water, mixing into the water easily. Refusing to flinch, his hand instinctively clutched the wound, warmth spilling between his fingers. He couldn't drop his sword, he wouldn't— burning, it burned, right in his side. It burned.

"Megumi!"

Your voice broke through his haze, and he shook his head, once, hard, eyes squeezed together to rid himself of the feeling of pain, forcing it back, forcing focus. He snapped back to attention just in time to see the curse pivot and reach for him again.

Your cursed blade cut through the air, movements clean and fluid, synchronised with his own as if you had fought together for years, not just a couple months. Megumi's chest squeezed painfully as it hit him: not the pain, not the fight, but the weight in his chest, the strange sense of familiarity settling inside the cavity despite the tension.

"This thing is relentless," he groaned, voice tight with concentration, one hand coming up to wipe the blood daring to trickle down to his eye.

You nodded, readying yourself, but just as you were about to, the curse twisted violently, its body flailing in a desperate attempt to escape. Its tail lashed out as it caught the old man with brutal force, flinging him into deep the deep, murky water with a loud splash.

Megumi's shikigami was quick to snap back onto the curse, pinning it. It screamed, thrashed, and for a brief, fleeting moment, it was momentarily incapacitated, vulnerable.

They could end it. Now.

But the homeless man did not resurface.

And the curse was vulnerable enough to finish off.

His heart thudded once, hard and painful. Something tugged in his chest, tugged in his head. He had the chance to save the man, but—

No running, no hesitating. He felt it again: the pull. The he weight of his role pressing down on him, his duty to destroy curses, pulled at him with an iron grip. He couldn't flinch, he was a sorcerer, a weapon, that was what he was. And yet—

Before he registered what he was doing, his head had already whipped out to you and he met your eyes.

He didn't mean to look for you. He didn't know why he did, he didn't even want to. But here you were, already looking at him, meeting his gaze head on. There was no judgement in your eyes, not yet, but something else.

He hated that you were already looking at him. Hated that he felt like that was a test, hated the part of himself that didn't know which answer was right, hated that he felt observed, naked.

His jaw clenched, "Rush the curse," just as your voice sounded out: "We have time to go save him!"

9th of May; 03:05. — hasegawa masato.

The world around him was a blur of cold water and shadows. His heart, as weak as it was, hammered in his chest as endless dark loomed over him.

Masato's body was numb, though whether it was from fear or the icy water that soaked him to the bone, he didn't know. Terror clawed at his throat, tugged at his clothes, held his head in a vice grip.

He had been close to death before. Sickness when he couldn't afford medication was a vicious thing, hunger when he hadn't had anything to eat in weeks even worse. Sometimes, when a group of people, drunk, came by, they liked to make him dance for some money. Sometimes he would. If it meant he'd get some food, he sometimes swallowed his pride and went ahead with it.

But this? He had never been close to death like this.

That creature was unlike anything he had ever seen before. Grotesque, weird, unreal. Masato couldn't believe it was real, not when it looked like the stuff from nightmares, not when he thought he was going to piss himself.

When it had swung him around, he was paralysed under the weight of the monster's presence. The air thick with fear, the water having pushed him away from the safety of clinging to the metal piece; the scent of decay heavy on his tongue, his rasping breath barely able to satisfy his brain with enough oxygen.

Overwhelming helplessness consumed him as his limbs struggled against the water. They were like lead, the fear creeping deeper with every second. Oh god, he was going to die here, in this filthy underpass, alone. He was going to die alone with nowhere to run, no breath to take.

Was this how it was going to end? Was Masato going to die without having seen his daughter again? Without being able to tell her how sorry he was? That he wished he could hold her again, the way she was as a baby, a tiny thing that barely reached the entirety palm of his hand.

Masato had hoisted her up against his naked skin, her tiny little face nuzzled against his flesh, seeking his warmth. Then he had cried, mourning the lifeless body of his wife on the bed next to them, her legs spread and bloody, and his tears had caressed his daughter's skin.

Oh, how he wished he could tell her sorry, that he wished he could have given her a better life, that he didn't have to succumb to the deep abyss of all the feelings he didn't know what to do with after the loss of the light of his life.

He might have cried had his chest not been in so much panic that he kept trying to take a breath. It was a sheer miracle that he didn't, that he knew to press his hand against his mouth, trying to keep the precious little air he had left within his lungs.

Then—

Sharp pain at the back of his head. Everything blurred; his sight darkening slowly, warmth.

I'm sorry, Himari-chan.

9th of May; 03:07. — kugisaki nobara.

A faint bark sounded out, echoing through the tunnel.

"Dog's out, oh, what a good boy."

"He's so gonna get all the beef jerky he wants."

9th of May; 03:06. — you.

Your lungs burned, the world around you a blur of shadows and waves. The sounds of the curse seemed so far away, like there was cotton in your ear.

There. Just…a little…bit more.

Cold, slimy, your fingers slipped off the material once, twice, then, you gripped it harder. Tugged. Found it good enough, and then pulled as you struggled to haul the old man toward safety.

9th of May; 03:09. — itadori yuji.

Water sprayed as Itadori Yuji and Kugisaki Nobara exploded into the fray, his arrival marked by the sound of his footfalls pounding through a receding flood and the snarl of a curse that sensed another sorcerer enter the fight.

Megumi was already soaked, blood running down one arm in slow, steady rivulets, his expression eerily calm as it was grim — tight-lipped, pale, unshaken, angry. Shadows coiled at his feet, the water lapping up the blood oozing from Megumi like it was thankful for the meal.

The creature towered ahead, slick with oil and reared its grotesque head toward Yuji as he skidded to a stop beside his teammate.

"Took you long enough," Megumi said flatly, not sparing him a glance.

Yuji flashed a breathless grin, panting, "You look like shit."

"Then focus and stop wasting time."

Yuji's heart thumped in his ears, pounding like war drums, gaze trained on the curse and the way it twisted, the way it lunged forward, a mess of teeth and water, the movement causing a wave to crash against the tunnel walls. Without hesitation, Yuji ducked low under the strike, pivoted, his fist cocked back and ready to go.

He landed the first hit; clean and solid, pissed off, because fuck, Megumi was hurt and you were nowhere to be seen. A snap as the force rattled the curse's jaw back, howling in response.

Yuji ducked under the swing of a tentacle, and faintly, he heard a deep inhale, a pressured tension in Megumi's voice: "Max Elephant."

Water erupted as the enormous shikigami materialised, crashing down with enough weight onto the curse to shake the tunnel, its trunk hammering down like a wrecking ball, forcing the curse to rear back and expose its side for half a heartbeat.

Yuji darted around the curse, "Now!"

Nails flying through the air, hitting their mark from where Nobara stood at the head of the tunnel.

Megumi didn't hesitate either. With one swift motion, he snapped his hands together and called forth his Divine Dogs again, and they burst forward with fangs bared, eyes gleaming, latching onto the curse with force, ripping it apart. It shrieked and thrashed, momentarily locked in place as Yuji came from the other side, launching upward with an uppercut laced with cursed energy, coiled around his fist like a storm.

A rattling cry, a shriek then—

Purple, oily blood and cursed energy splashed outward like a shock wave and dissolved into vapour almost immediately. The pressure collapsed inward with a sickening pop, the oppressive air in the tunnel lifting like a vacuum sealed bag that gasped for breath.

And silence fell.

Max Elephant vanished with a spray of mist, and the Divine Dogs flickered out of existence, too, their shadows melting into the water. In the sudden stillness, the tunnel felt eerily quiet; water lapping gently against Yuji's legs like nothing had happened at all.

He staggered back, soaked, gasping. "Dude," he panted. "I'm done. I don't know what the hell that thing was but I'm calling it. No more sewer monsters. Ever."

No answer.

Yuji looked up and something in his blood sung, telling him to freeze. The water couldn't possibly become colder, except it did. There was a darkening to Megumi's face, something carved sharp. The kind of scary quiet that came before something snapped. His face was drained of colour, his gaze fixed somewhere past Yuji, unreadable, but his whole body was tense, a string pulled too tight.

For a heartbeat, yuji could swear he wasn't looking at a friend, which was stupid, because Megumi had always been Megumi, always good, old, reliable Megumi. Except that Megumi looked like he was two seconds away from turning into something else.

Yuji winced and tried to change the topic, "Soo…where's—"

Nevermind. He was not going to ask, not when Megumi looked at him then, and all the quiet, buried fury suddenly directed right on Yuji. He didn't wait for an answer, because behind him — a sharp splutter, a frantic gasp for air. He whirled around before his brain caught up, legs already moving toward the sound.

That expression — looks just how I like it.

9th of May; 03:11. — you.

Yuji was there in an instant.

He dropped to a crouch beside you, hands already curling underneath the old man's armpits to pull him up. His hair was ruffled like he had been going through it, and the look in his eyes was worried. Worried beyond just about the civilian man in your arms, worried like there was more weighing on him.

"Got him?" he asked, his otherwise cheerful voice tight.

"He's breathing. Took a hit to the head, though, so might have a concussion."

He nodded and gently pulled the man the rest of the way out of the water. Now that the curse was gone, the water was slowly receding, revealing more and more of the underpass, and becoming less and less like a maze.

You exhaled, warm air escaping you, blown out into the cold.

The skin of your neck prickled like the edge of a blade was pressed against your flesh — it wasn't the kind of shiver that came from cold water trickling down your wet hair. It was something tighter, and you didn't need to turn around to know who was staring.

Megumi, of course. It was always him when the silence felt like judgement.

The weight of his gaze sat between your shoulder blades like a hand pressed flat against your spine. He wasn't just looking; he was blaming.

So much for keeping low key, for staying professional, getting the job done and walking away. You could feel the air heat up, funnily enough, a kettle that was boiling and ready to whistle.

You refused to look at him, because if you did, you'd explode. Because if you looked at him and he dared to look upset with you, you were going to snap. If there was even a flicker of annoyance, of those stupid eyebrows drawing together and that stupid grimace on his mouth, you were going to kill him.

"Don't you look at me like that."

Megumi's steps were slow, deliberate, his boots sloshing through shin-deep water as he closed the space between you.

"Like what," his voice was low, rough, weird. Too calm.

He came to a stop just beside you, his chest brushing your shoulder, close enough that the warmth of his body clashed with the dampness of your clothes still seeping into your skin. Yet still, you refused to look, even though he was invading your space on purpose, even though you could see his hands balled into fists so tightly that the knuckles had gone bone-white, one still slicked in drying blood.

You spat, "What in the hell is wrong with you?"

The nail of his thumb dug into his pointer, "Me? What about you? You abandoned shit again right when I thought you knew what the hell you were doing."

You knew what you said.

That you wouldn't look at him. That you refused to give him the satisfaction of trying to stare you down. But well, the day was long and you talked a lot, and he pissed you off. You couldn't help it. You really couldn't, because Megumi had the nerve, because he never stopped.

You whirled around so fast that water flared up around your leg, arm raised and finger jabbing straight at his face, "Oh no, we're not going to start this again, Fushiguro," with the same nasty look on your face mirroring his. He didn't flinch. if anything, he stepped even closer, jaw tightening, ground teeth against teeth and his hand, long bloodied, trembling fingers, came to grip your wrist. Not enough to hurt, but enough for your senses to sharpen and hone on the contact of skin.

"This," his eyes were a dark blue carved out of the same murky water around you, "is what you wanted."

You barked out a laugh, mouth twisted in disbelief. "You think anything's changed? I thought your whole thing was not letting people die. But you — what? Tossed that out just like that? I mean, good on you, honestly. Growth or whatever, little Megumi finally growing balls, but you okay with that now?"

Megumi's anger was subtle, but it was laid out for you like a book to read. You looked at his jaw, cut sharply, and the way it tightened, skin drawn taut. His teeth were bared at your insult, a muscle in his cheek twitching as a droplet of water ran down the curve of his cheekbone.

He was angry at you, and even though you wanted him to be because it meant he let loose of that stupid mask he still kept up, it fired you up just as much. Because in the midst of his dark eyes narrowing, a wild storm in them, you thought that anger looked good on him, that you much preferred this to the silence and the ignorance the past weeks.

There was something bitter on your tongue and you let it sit there like ash when you looked at the way his wet hair hung down his forehead, the blood that was still running down the side of his face, circumventing his eye with a flick of his fingers, "I mean, if you're cool abandoning your values, fine. Be my guest. I just thought you'd learned from last time."

That got him.

Megumi's face shuttered, eyes dimming like a switch had been flipped, the storm cooling to heavy rain. His grip on your wrist didn't loosen; if anything, it became a tad tighter.

"Yeah?" he said, low, voice like ice, "Just like how you flipped on me now?"

"Excuse me?" you jerked your arm free, stepped forward so your chest bumped his, the air between you both hot despite the dampness, "I did what needed to be done. We had an actual opening, Fushiguro. You would've jumped on that weeks ago, now you're suddenly swinging from one extreme to the other?"

Megumi scoffed; a bitter, humourless sound that barely passed for amusement. His jaw flexed as he turned away slightly, and you noticed his other hand curling tightly at his side, "Don't try to sell me that bullshit."

You didn't back down, and this time when he focused his attention on you, his voice dipped lower, register dark and tight, the kind of controlled anger that came from being pushed too far too long, "Funny how 'what needed to be done' always ends up being what you decide. I'm starting to think you don't care about what the rules say, either."

"Yeah?" you snapped, "You got a problem with that?"

Fuck.

You could punish yourself for the way that slipped from your mouth. Because it sounded like an admission, because you knew that he wasn't entirely wrong, either. You always thought yourself to be a pride-less person, hell, you typically were, but not with this look in Megumi's eyes, one that's deeply rooted in proving you wrong.

And you might have chosen the wrong thing to say, but you would fight tooth and nail to prove to him that it didn't immediately absolve him, either.

His hand trembled, barely held back. In the back, you heard Yuji mumble something, but Nobara's voice cut through his, and he fell silent. For a second, you wondered what he said, why Nobara pulled him back when it was so very clear that he wanted to intervene.

Though, truth be told, you didn't know if you wanted him to.

"You judge me for going off-course. For ignoring your precious protocol, now you do the same exact thing and suddenly it's fine. Tell me, why is it okay when you cross the line?"

"It's not the same—"

"Like hell it's not."

Did he not see? Did he not see that whilst his snake was holding the curse, you both actually had a tangible moment of saving somebody who was drowning right in front of you? Was he so focused on suddenly pretending he cared about the regulations now that he threw his entire morals away again?

His eyes burned with something wild. Not rage exactly, maybe disbelief, maybe betrayal somewhere, "That's what you said about me, wasn't it? Not to let my emotions cloud my judgement. So what — now it's different? Because you felt like saving someone?"

Your heart was pounding and your throat scratchy as you memorised his face in your mind, the harsh lines, the curve of his nose, his wet hair, the hard press of his lips. Almost, you wished that Kyoto had told you to kill him, maybe then you'd stop feeling like there was a fire within you that you couldn't put out.

"So why didn't you?" you narrowed your eyes, because you couldn't kill him, after all, because even if you did have that order, you didn't know if you would, "You could've summoned your toad, couldn't you? I know you've got that shikigami. You're perfectly capable of calling out two of those shadows, so what the hell stopped you?"

He inhaled sharply through his nose, and his voice sounded like each word was an effort to not raise his voice, thick with feelings, and it made you go crazy, "You think I didn't consider that? You think I wasn't aware of every option, every second, every goddamn breath we had left while trying to hold that curse in place?"

"Then why didn't you do it?"

"Because I was holding the line," he hissed and his nose brushed yours, "Because you ran off without a plan, because you ignored what I said, again, and I had two choices: drop the curse and go save that man's life or hold it and save all of us, hoping that your pea-brain was going to handle the other side."

"Don't you put this on me—"

"I will put this on you," his breath was heavy and you felt it caress your mouth and your chest tightened, "Because you walk around like you've got it all figured out, preaching about this and that. So quick to tell me I'm wrong for my decisions, but here you are, doing the same damn thing I did."

You stared at him with your chest heaving, repressed shivers making you tremble, betraying you. Because he wasn't wrong and you hated that. Hated how easily he cut through you when it came from him.

"Stop acting like you're above it," Megumi said, quiet now, bitter. Raw in a way he rarely let out. "You're not. And neither am I."

Your pulse was loud in your ears, loud, fast. You couldn't bring yourself to speak — too much crowding your throat.

He watched you for one long moment, then looked away, the tension in his shoulders rigid as he turned and walked off slowly, his hand pressing down on his side.

9th of May; 03:31. — iwata.

Iwata wondered if he would ever get relieved of his duty to chauffeur the kids around. Not that he necessarily minded the act itself; on the contrary, he quite enjoyed the thought that in some way, he was able to contribute to bettering society, of ridding the world from curses.

It was just that whenever he drove the kids anywhere, they came back looking a little more like soldiers, hardened and soiled, and a little less like teenagers.

That part, Iwata hated the most.

He watched them now from the driver's seat, engine idling quietly as rain pattered on the windshield, mixing with the muddy streaks from the tunnel water still clinging to their clothes. The smell of rotten water, blood and burnt cursed energy hit him the second they climbed into the car.

Iwata pretended to be busy, but his eyes searched them for any signs that they lost a little bit of themselves out there.

The pink-haired student, Itadori Yuji, climbed in first, breathing a little hard, wearing the same tired grin he always did — like if he smiled hard enough, none of the bad things would stick, like they would just ricochet off him. He flopped into the far seat and winced, arms limply sprawled across his knees as if it was too much effort to lift them.

Right behind him was Nobara; she looked like she still had some fire left in her, though it was only a glimmer. She muttered a string of curses under her breath, most of them aimed at the curse they had just fought — or maybe the mud in her boots, it wasn't clear to Iwata.

"Whoever sends us into another one of those tunnels," she sighed as she relaxed against the seat, "will have me hexing their entire bloodline."

"That a threat?" Yuji yawned.

"No. A promise."

Iwata didn't comment. Instead, the door in the back opened and Megumi followed in silence, a hand pressed to his side. The blood had mostly clotted, his jacket crumbled up to apply pressure against it, but Iwata saw the way he walked, the stiffness in his joints, the pain he tried to hide. Iwata couldn't do a lot, not until they got back to the school and to Shoko Ieiri. He slid back, elbows on his thighs, eyes locked on the floor like it might answer for something.

Lastly, there was the exchange student, the one he barely knew. Not that he knew the others that well either, but this one was even more of a puzzle to him. So he couldn't read your face, only saw the way it was set in granite, lines hard. You shivered slightly though you hid it well, instead looking out the window, hands clenched in your lap.

Iwata eased the car into drive, pulling away from the tunnel entrance. He had called an ambulance for the old man the kids were carrying out, already having given the first aid that he could. Silence settled over the kids, save for the soft purr of the engine and the patter of the rain.

He caught glances of them in the rear view mirror — Megumi stubbornly clenching and relaxing his hands, your eyelids slowly closing, Nobara picking at dried blood under her nails, Yuji fiddling with a broken zipper on his jacket.

God, they were just kids.

They shouldn't have been worrying about life and death, not making choices that adults twice their age couldn't shoulder without cracking. Should have instead been having fun out there, enjoying their youth, enjoying making memories all kids their age do.

He exhaled quietly, one hand tightening on the steering wheel. He didn't say anything. He never did. But he reached forward and flipped a switch on the car's dashboard to heat the seats for them.

Yuji leaned back a little more, Nobara let out a tired hum of approval, Megumi let his head fall back against the seat finally, his eyes closing and your shoulders loosened slightly.

It wasn't much. But it was something.

11th of May; 07:29. — kugisaki nobara.

"You think they're going to come out of this alive?"

"God, I hope not."

11th of April; 07:30. — gojo satoru.

"Well!" Gojo Satoru announced cheerfully, "Who needs actual curses when the real horror is whatever this — " he waved a hand in the direction of his two students, " — unresolved..bit…thing…is supposed to be. Hm. That sentence got away from me."

Neither Megumi nor you looked at him, and Gojo didn't need them to. He understood their silence perfectly well, after all. One could call him the whisperer of anguished teenagers, if one will. Not that anybody would, but he thought there was a high chance it could be true.

He sighed loudly, exaggerated. "Y'know, I didn't set this training camp up because I love early mornings or physical labour. I set it up because I actually care."

Still no answer. His lips twisted slightly, and he clapped his hands once, loud enough to echo through the wooden beams of the dojo they were occupying, the two kids sitting in front of him on the ground. Megumi stared down at the floor, his posture rigid. Next to him, you had your arms crossed, staring right past Gojo's shoulder at the wall.

"Alright, group meeting, just us three. Megumi, dear exchange student, and your incredibly good-looking, well-adjusted teacher."

That got your eye twitching, at least. Megumi's jaw flexed like he was grinding down a curse by tooth alone. Not quite efficient, but at the very least, he had them react to something. Sigh. Kids were so difficult these days.

"You two are good sorcerers. Really, of course still lots to learn, but good. Smart even, shockingly so actually, considering the choices you've both been making lately."

Megumi exhaled slowly. "We're getting the job done."

"Are you? Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you are one outburst away from killing each other."

Then his voice dropped, just enough to remind his students that they were his students after all, "You can hate each other all you want once the job's done. But while you're out there? You work together. You trust each other. Or I pull you both off the field. Permanently."

That definitely got some reactions.

Megumi's head whipped up, a disbelieving, annoyed look on his face, the one Gojo loved to see, and you narrowed your eyes in response, "You can't be serious."

Ah, the poor exchange student by day, spy by night. How interesting it was to watch you scuttle under his attention, knowing the implications his words had on your situation. When he caught you in the restricted section, he had toyed with the idea of sending Kyoto a memento about what he really thought about having a child sicced on him by the higher-ups. A reminder that consisted more of a body part than it did of anything verbal, but he wasn't cruel enough to succumb an innocent person to that kind of torture.

Though, of course, he did think it would have been a good shock for them. And really, what would they have done? What could they accuse him for that he couldn't point right at them?

After all, they had started it.

"Oh, I'm so serious," he sang, the smile still there, but it didn't quite reach his eyes anymore, "This is your mission now: finish this training camp. Together. No sulking. No bickering. Just work. And progress, of course. I know, it's boring. Tough luck."

He stepped forward, clapping a hand on each of their shoulders, his slender fingers pressing in ever so slightly with something akin to encouragement, "So! You've got two choices: succeed…or succeed. Because that's all I'm offering."

Megumi glared at him viciously, like he thought maybe he shouldn't have come under Gojo's patronage. He thought he might have deserved it— nah, who was he kidding.

"Breakfast's in an hour, and if either of you come late, I'm making you sit next to each other and hold hands."

The look of disgust mirrored on both of your faces had him try to suppress a giggle. Oh, he should have done that earlier.

AUTHOR'S NOTE | thank you for reading!!

TAGLIST | @binkibuns @1l-ynn @nscuit @julieannah (tagged you guys because you seemed excited about the first part so i hope i'm not disturbing you with it!!)

#jjk #jujutsu kaisen #megumi x you #jjk megumi #megumi fushiguro #fushiguro megumi #megumi x reader #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x you #jjk x you #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk angst #megumi angst #jelly writes #jelly fic: epithimia

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