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Rating:
Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning:
No Archive Warnings Apply
Category:
M/M
Fandoms:
呪術廻戦 | Jujutsu Kaisen (Manga), 呪術廻戦 |
Jujutsu Kaisen (Anime)
Relationship:
Fushiguro Megumi/Itadori Yuuji
Additional Tags:
Alternate Universe - College/University
Language:
English
Stats:
Published: 2020-12-22 Completed: 2021-03-27
Words: 113,514 Chapters: 7/7 Comments:
802 Kudos: 8,419 Bookmarks: 3,338 Hits:
370,100

first love, late spring

cityboys

Chapter 4
Notes:
all the itacilized lines while megumi is
reading are quotes from frankissstein by
jeanette winterson.

December 06 · 02:37

I—Hi. Is this going? Do I just talk after your

voicemail message ends and—it goes? I’m
just—I’m calling because—I know you said to
text you when I get home, but I wanted to
hear your voice. I guess I wasn’t expecting
you to not—You’re probably asleep. I hope
you are. Yeah. Alright. Sleep well, Yuuji.

December 08 · 11:23

—the hell am I doing? I don’t know why I’m

—I—I’m reading an article about quokkas for
class and it made me think of you. Made me
think it would make you smile. I can—I can
just send it, right? I can just send it. Ignore
this voicemail.

December 08 · 13:45

I still haven’t sent it. I think I’m scared you

won’t open my text. It’s one thing if you read
it and not respond, but if you don’t open it at
all, when I know you open all your messag—
I’m not sure. I don’t know. This is stupid.

December 10 · 03:31

Did you mean it? No, I’m sorry. Of course

you meant what you said. But the way you
said it? No, that sounds even worse. You left
the other night without me giving me the
chance to say anything, and—that’s fine. I
just really want to hear your voice. We don’t
have to talk about what you said. We could,
but we don’t have to. I just—This is the
longest I’ve ever gone not hearing from you
at all and I—I don’t know. I should sleep.

December 10 · 22:19

So I—I’m not—I’m a little—You can probably

tell but—I just have to tell you that—last
night—last night, I dreamt that I met you in
high school. It didn’t really feel like a dream.
It wasn’t anything extravagant, either. Maybe
that’s why it felt real. Like a memory from a
different life. You were out on the track field,
surrounded by people. I was just watching.
Just a passer-by. You looked at me once,
then you went back to talking with your
friends. You had a yellow hoodie on. You
were so bright in the sun. Then I woke up,
and there was so much sun in my room, but
you weren’t—Anyway. It got me thinking. If
parallel universes are real, then there’s one
out there where we meet much earlier in life.
But I wonder, do we give something up in
that universe? If we met much earlier in that
one, if I met you when we were fifteen, is
there a possibility that we have a lot less
time together there than we do in this
universe? Is there a universe where we’re so
young when we meet but we lose each other
not too long after? Is that a morbid thought—
Hold on, I’m trying to think like you. If we
were having this conversation, we’d probably
argue a little about how if there are universes
where we meet, there are universes where
we don’t. If there’s a universe where you
save my life, there’s a universe where you
take it. If there’s a universe where I save
your life, there’s a universe where I take it.
That one’s definitely morbid. But I don’t
disagree with this hypothetical argument I’ve
given hypothetical you. I do think there must
be universes where we don’t meet at all. I do
think there must be universes where we hurt
each other somehow. I’d just argue because
I don’t want this universe to be one of those.
I’d argue because I hate to think of a
universe where we d—

December 11 · 17:22

I heard from the twins that you hurt yourself

skating yesterday afternoon. God, Yuuji, I
don’t care if it’s just a scratch, you better not
be going to work or class or fucking practice
if—It better be just a scratch. I’ll kill you if
it’s anything more—

December 12 · 08:12

Todo told Mai that you’re doing okay—but I

still just—I don’t know why I keep leaving
these voicemails. I wanted to check in and
wish you luck on your presentation today. I
hope I got the date right. But I—I really—I
really mi—Yeah. Okay. Bye.

December 12 · 23:52

Do you remember that time you made me

and Kugisaki do an exercise for your set
design class with you? You had a list of these
specific feelings that your prof made you take
down—you and Kugisaki laughed so much
about it—and we had to list stuff that we
associated with each one and build an
imaginary set from there. You were really
good at it. The list said something like
"opening your eyes for the first time at the
top of Mount Takao" and you immediately
started listing off things even though you’d
never been up there. I remember listening to
you and thinking about how hard it is to build
a place for another person. Not just to
describe it, but to build it in a way that lets
someone find their place in it. For it to be a
place to fully exist in, a place to return to.
That’s the wording you used, I think, so
many nights ago. You said—you wanted to
take one moment between us and make it a
place I can return to whenever I need it. And
right now, I’m thinking—if anyone can figure
it out, if anyone has figured out a way to
build a moment, a feeling, into a place meant
for coming home, it’s you. It doesn’t matter if
it’s a coffeemaker or borrowed keys to your
apartment or your arms. It’s you.

December 13 · 00:00

Call or text me whenever—whenever

anything. Whenever you want to. Whenever
you need to. Whenever you’re ready. I’ll be
here.

"Welcome to The—" Kugisaki’s voice, flattened by

how much cheer she’s trying and failing to force into
it, drops right into relief as soon as she spots
Megumi. It shows on her face for a blink, just as
soon replaced with exasperation by the time Megumi
has reached the counter. "I can’t believe—Fushiguro,
I told you he’s bled more from his damned cat than
he had from this stupid injury—"

"That’s not why I’m here," says Megumi. He slides

his phone, screen up, towards Kugisaki. "I didn’t
even know you’d be on shift."

Kugisaki doesn’t pick up the phone, refusing to

interrupt her vigorous typing into the tablet behind
the counter. Her fingers land so hard that the stand
it’s propped against shakes, and Megumi keeps his
expression stony as he waits, sparing half a prayer
to the customer that has Kugisaki so frustrated.

Two bouquets stand on either side of her, one of

them wrapped and tagged and the other still far
from half-finished, more a collection of flowers in the
same palette than the gradient-bright arrangement
Megumi knows it will be before the night is over. The
fact that Kugisaki is alone in the shop working the
administrative side and helping with the bouquets at
the same time means that the orders are farther
above average than they already are on a normal
day; she doesn’t even seem to notice or care that
there are dark-pink petals stuck against the brown of
her hair and her apron, busy gritting her teeth at the
tablet.

"Damn it, I hate working here during the holidays.

Who looks at midwinter and thinks to get something
from a flower shop? Not single people, let me tell
you," Kugisaki mutters. She drags Megumi’s phone
closer with two fingers, but it’s several more seconds
before she even reads it. "What kinda occasion is
this for?"

"A wedding reception." Kugisaki’s gaze snaps up to

him, and Megumi adds, determined to not allow an
opening for any other line of interrogation, "My older
sister’s getting married on the twenty-seventh."

"You have an older sister?" says Kugisaki. She

spares Megumi a dirty look when he only shrugs, but
she doesn’t pause in copying the order number off
the email open on Megumi’s phone. She pulls up a
window on her tablet. "Fushiguro Tsumiki? Says here
she already had a few appointments with Fumi about
what bouquets she wants."

"I’m just here to confirm they’ll be ready before six

p.m. on that day," says Megumi, a lazy rewording of
the message Geto had sent him. "And to double-
check whether someone has to come pick them up
while the wedding is happening or if they’re getting
delivered."

Visiting the florist was originally Nanako’s errand to

run, one point in a long list of bridesmaid duties, but
in the past twelve hours, it’s been passed across
multiple hands, collecting more non-wedding-related
errands along the way until they all reached Megumi
in one clump, the only option left in their circle
because Gojo, despite his multiple doctorates, could
not be trusted with the life-or-death undertaking of
getting charcoal instead of coal for his own barbecue
grill. It’s a small blessing that Kugisaki is working at
Megumi’s last stop of the day; he doesn’t think he
has enough social energy left for retail small talk,
even if Kugisaki’s lack of desire for it doesn’t
necessarily mean Megumi’s safe.

Kugisaki whistles now, squinting at the tablet. "Is

this Hachioji as in Ukai Toriyama? Your sister’s
having her reception at Ukai Toriyama? What does
Yuuji think about th—"

Megumi isn’t sure if it’s worse that she breaks off so

cleanly, words dying right at the syllable like
realization stopped her thoughts altogether, or if he’d
prefer it if she continued and allowed him to act, at
least, like Itadori hasn’t been ignoring all of his
attempts at talking. But Kugisaki doesn’t bother
looking apologetic, something defensive about even
the way she refuses to meet Megumi’s eyes.

"Do you know?" says Megumi, only because he

doesn’t have to elaborate.

"Of course I know," says Kugisaki. The wary

sharpness in her eyes remains, but there’s no lack of
care there, either, for Megumi’s situation. "I haven’t
been bringing it up with him, though. Have you
talked at all since?"

"No." Megumi looks down at his shoes. "It’s been a

week."

Everything he knows about how Itadori’s doing, he’s

gotten in fragments directly from Kugisaki or
indirectly from Todo. It’s the only way he can be
certain, on a rational level he has to keep pulling
himself up to, that Itadori isn’t harboring any
bitterness towards him. If he did, his friends and
Megumi would all know. Anything on the spectrum of
anger from simple annoyance to full-blown irritation
isn’t an emotion Itadori ever holds back on, and
Megumi can’t imagine Itadori will ever choose being
passive-aggressive in silence over the chance to vent
or snap back in a conversation. He also can’t
imagine Kugisaki and Todo would be as indulgent as
they have been with assuring Megumi that Itadori is
alive and well and not in fact bleeding out from a
scratch across his arm if Itadori wants nothing to do
with him at all.

But he also knows that it’s a testament to how

unused he is to being separated from Itadori that
he’s entertaining the possibility of anger at all. Had
this been last Wednesday, he would have brushed it
off, would have been able to talk himself out of
leaving yet another voicemail, would have reminded
himself that Itadori clearly hadn’t planned to tell
Megumi all of that and needs his own space to
process it. Days later, separated from Itadori for
much longer than they ever have been since they
met, he’d endured teasing from both the Zenin twins
and Kugisaki just for any crumb of news about
Itadori, had left a lengthy rambling voicemail under
the wrong assumption that his edible hadn’t yet hit,
and, as of today, has given into entertaining even
the most unprovable of scenarios.

It’s embarrassing, in retrospect, but Megumi has

long since motorbiked past the point of caring about
even that. He just wants something, some kind of
lead or morsel so that he can stop being the person
that was confessed to and then left to aimlessness
right after.

"You know," says Kugisaki, typing once again into

the tablet, "I’ve been dying to talk to you about
that."

"Disneyland?" Megumi waits for a nod. "About

Ozawa?"

"What? No—what? What about Ozawa?"

"Nothing. Nevermind."

Kugisaki taps her tablet one last time before passing

a glare over Megumi. "You weren’t subtle with
Disneyland, you know. It sickens me how not subtle
you were. You probably think you were being clever
—which you were. I’ll give you that. But you were
not subtle."

"I don’t know what you’re talking about."

"Taking Yuuji to Disneyland in the middle of the

holiday season. At 8 P.M. Knowing full well that’s a
time where only couples go. Come on. Are you trying
subliminal messaging?"

"Apparently," says Megumi, "I didn’t need to."

"Fine. Okay." Kugisaki tosses him his phone. He

catches it one-handed. "So we’re going down that
route. Don’t say I didn’t give you an out."

"I don’t want an out." Megumi watches, face blank,

as Kugisaki wraps both arms around the unfinished
bouquet. She’s immediately dwarfed by it as she
hauls it up, but she’s steady on her feet in making
her way to the door behind the counter. "I want
confirmation about my sister’s bouquet."

"I’m waiting for Fumi to message me back," Kugisaki

calls over her shoulder. "She knows the situation
better. Calm your ass down."

She disappears into the next room.

It’s another minute before she pops her head back

out, scowling at Megumi like he should have already
known to follow.

He has to duck to enter, almost tripping down an

unexpected half-step onto the pea gravel of the
indoor greenhouse. He pauses at the doorway, eyes
widening in surprise at the assortment of blues,
pinks, greens and reds tripled in number from the
arrangements and pots in the main store. Flowers
that are all unrecognizable to him past the difference
of one to the other, but nevertheless stark and
startling coming off a December evening spent
outside.

Kugisaki is set up on the lone wooden table in the

middle of the chaos, reappearing from behind her
bouquet with a pair of shears.

"Fushiguro," she says. "You know it’s kind of fucked

up, right? That you’re going around looking that
mopey and asking about Yuuji when you’re not even
sure what to say to him?"

Hesitant, Megumi steps into the greenhouse. "How

do you know I’m not?"

"Because if you were, you’d be reaching out to him a

lot more. Not doing the bare minimum to listen to
your impulses then thinking that’s enough for him to
eventually come to you."

"Are you saying it’s bad for me to give him space?"

Megumi doesn’t blink even as Kugisaki brandishes
her shears, snipping twice at the air between them.
"Because I think you’re crediting me with a lot more
capacity for agency than I actually have."

"Buddy. Your track record with Yuuji speaks for

itself," says Kugisaki. "You’re the type to not give a
shit about a full-on brawl even if people were
beating the shit out of each other right in front of
you, but if you take that exact same scenario, not a
single thing changed, and involve Yuuji, even if he
was just watching, even worse if he’s in the fight—
you’ll be out there deciding it’s your responsibility to
intervene and make sure he’s fine."

That’s not fair, but Megumi doesn’t have it in him to

hash out why. "I think you just called me a bad
person."

Kugisaki rolls her eyes. "No, you’re plenty good. Not

disgustingly good like Yuuji, but you’ve got a solid
moral compass on you," she says, a hint of distaste
crawling into her voice. She clears her throat. "No,
no, what I’m calling you is subjective and impulsive
when it comes to Yuuji. You can be so passive about
the weirdest stuff—then it involves him, and
suddenly you’re in other people’s workplaces
skulking around like a kicked dog waiting for your
owner to let you back into the house."

Megumi narrows his eyes. He can’t tell if Kugisaki

means to hurt him, or if she’s going for what stings
thinking that the cut it inflicts would be more shallow
than how it does feel, right now, as he approaches
her table. "I’m waiting for confirmation."

"And I will let you know the moment that

confirmation comes in, sir," Kugisaki bites back, with
a dismissive wave of her hand. "Jeez. Dealing with
people like you was so much easier when people
caught feelings for Yuuji and not the other way
around. So, so, so much easier when he had no
interest in relationships and just rejected people
nicely."

Her voice has dipped again, enough that Megumi

knows none of this is for him. He watches her lay out
a series of flowers in front of her, arranging and
rearranging them in a row, waits until she notices.
"Has he done that a lot? Reject people?"

"Of course he has. It’s Yuuji," says Kugisaki, flat like

she doesn’t also regularly call him a potato, and has
once, on record, told him he has no chance of being
popular. "It’s never serious, though. People develop
crushes on him at best. They ask for a date,
explicitly—" At this, she glances at Megumi. "—and
he turns them down, always offers to be friends. It
works. Works better than it ever would have
otherwise, in cases like Yoshino."

Megumi starts. "Yoshino Junpei?"

"How do you think they met?" says Kugisaki, dust-

dry. "My point is, lonesome people gravitate towards
Yuuji, but that means it’s rarely ever more than a
temporary infatuation. Nine times out of ten, they’ve
never met anyone like him before and just really,
really like having him around—which works fine for
everyone even with him as a friend. He’s not an
intense rom-com hero type of guy, after all."

There’s a separate thesis here, somewhere, waiting

to pounce from beneath the nonchalance that’s
barely hiding it in the first place. Kugisaki likes
listening to herself talk and can do so for hours—
Megumi found this out very quickly and has since
found comfort in it, even more when it’s her and
Yuuji having conversations that never end because
they keep finding new tangents to spiral down—but
there’s a mulish restlessness to her today, a kind of
tension waiting for release that she doesn’t seem to
want, either. It leaves both of them on edge, renders
Megumi feeling like he’s waiting for a drop of water
to fall on his forehead, cold and unexpected, at any
point now.

"What is he, then?" he says. "If not a rom-com

hero?"

"One of those stupid boys that are made for people

to have their first ever crush on from the ages of
thirteen to fifteen," says Kugisaki, matter-of-fact, as
if this is supposed to make perfect sense for
Megumi. When she looks over and sees that it
doesn’t, she scoffs. "Come on. The boy who notices
you did your hair differently? The boy who sits next
to you and forgets his textbook once so you have to
share and he tells you that you smell nice or that
you have cute handwriting? The boy who saves you
from a stray basketball in gym class once and then
you start getting flustered thinking about holding his
hand because you’re like fourteen and having a
crush is fun and sweet and sparkly and not really
about love yet? He’s a safe answer, too, always, at
girls’ talk—"

"You’re writing an entire shoujo manga here."

"That’s it." Kugisaki points at Megumi like this is a

philosophical breakthrough. "Yuuji’s a shoujo manga
character. But not the hero. He’s the second lead.
He’s made for the flutter-iness that doesn’t really
progress past that. He’s—what’s a good example—
the childhood friend that walks with the heroine to
school and calls her by her nickname. Maybe she
likes him in the beginning, maybe he’s liked her all
along, but he never really makes her feel the same
intense feelings that the infuriating man-child of a
male lead does. He’s too sweet, he’s too patient, too
nice."

Megumi doesn’t disagree, entirely, but he thinks

back to how Itadori’s vicious slams against the
whack-a-mole machine at Disneyland had gained in
ferocity as the rounds went by, thinks back to how
he’d started whisper-screaming at it until Megumi
dragged him off, and—He disagrees a little, and it
isn’t a bad thing at all. "Is he?"

"No, but that’s what Yuuji is to other people on the

surface. Makes me sick." Kugisaki gathers a fistful of
flowers, snips an inch off their stems in one go.
Megumi winces. "I get it, though—He’s safe to like.
He’s a first love archetype if you don’t dig too deep
or spend actual time around him when he’s being a
brat. Don’t tell me that’s not why you got snatched
up, too."

With his foot, Megumi slides out a stool from under

Kugisaki’s table. He regrets taking a seat as soon as
he does; he feels very small, trapped under both the
bouquet and Kugisaki. "He was hardly a first love
archetype when I first met him."

"What are you talking about? Can you not try to be

cool? I fully introduced you to each other and your
eyes went—"

"I noticed him before that. Kind of hard not to see

the guy yelling in the middle of the room with Todo
Aoi," says Megumi, growing careful when Kugisaki’s
eyes whip up to him. "He was playing a drinking
game. Wearing a basketball team hoodie. Firing
insults at the guy he was up against."

Good ones at that. Juvenile, but sharp-edged enough

to dig and maybe impale if Itadori had truly wanted
them to. That was one of the first things Megumi had
thought to himself, with a onceover that had lingered
for too long on Itadori’s frame, poised to throw a
ping pong ball: that Itadori Yuuji spoke, for better or
for worse, without care for what he was saying, yet
somehow said what he needed to in the moment
anyway.

It will prove true for everything else about Itadori,

later on—will show itself in how he throws himself
into situations and leaves the thinking for after, if at
all, will show itself in how haphazardly he lives his
life, as if long-term is never an option and all he can
do is string together whatever he has at any given
moment until it works. Megumi hadn’t learned that
yet, though, the first month into knowing Itadori.
He’d been attracted to Itadori in those early days
because of his recklessness, because of the
infallibility that comes with that recklessness. Itadori
seemed to live with such abandon, only saved—or at
least Megumi thought—by an inherent luck. It didn’t
matter that he could always be baited into a dare,
could always be provoked into an argument, could
always be invited out to somewhere even when it’s a
bad idea—he made it work somehow, a juggling act
that never faltered because Itadori matched its
momentum by sheer force of being himself. And
Megumi had been the passerby who couldn’t help
but be intrigued, who couldn’t help but want to
examine for himself how true that facade was.

He startles alongside Kugisaki when the storefront

bell rings, a tinny noise that travels to where they
are. He watches her huff and stomp back to the
store, voice melting into painful cheeriness as she
greets what sounds like a customer picking up the
finished bouquet. It leaves him to stare at the
wooden table in front of him, unseeing.

Kugisaki isn’t wrong. Itadori was safe to like. He has,

on the surface, all the brightness of a fire but none
of its capacity to sear and burn, has all the
gentleness of candlelight and none of its potential to
grow into a house fire.

But Megumi knows that isn’t all true. He’s been

allowed brief glimpses of everything else in between.
And that, the current Megumi is magnetized by. The
multitudes that make up Itadori, the dimensions, the
layers. The three sixty every morning after. The
snark on the other side of his sincere sweetness. The
surprising, unsettling maturity behind every moment
of childishness.

Part of the initial allure was getting close enough to

inspect those contradicting layers—until those
contradictions just added up to the Itadori Yuuji that
Megumi knows, until it’s too late and he’s looking at
Itadori from mere steps away, seeing his lips move,
trying to process words formed by a mouth that he
had just kissed. Until it’s just Megumi, watching
Itadori not as a multi-hyphenated collection of
everything he is but just as a boy Megumi’s age, in
all the impossibility and simplicity of that. Until any
contradictions that existed there before are no
longer separate, no longer parallel to each other, no
longer small things to pick out and cherish every
time he’s allowed access to a new one. Until it’s just
all here, right in front of Megumi, every single bit of
what Itadori is and isn’t bare in his eyes as he says,
I like you so much, Megumi.

Resourceful, then, is how Megumi would describe

Itadori. Financially, socially, physically, intellectually,
emotionally. Never deliberate in that
resourcefulness, either. It’s not the luck that’s
inherent to Itadori; it’s a tendency to know how to
navigate his limits and ensure he doesn’t get people
involved in them, no matter how misled he might be
in that. It’s likely why he turned down all those
people, why he offered to be friends, why the
friendships worked. It was never anything else, to
begin with, and Itadori must have known it.

"Oh," says Megumi, when Kugisaki returns, even

more petals stuck to her apron. She sweeps a hand
past them, but doesn’t snag a single one. "That’s
what you were trying to get at. I’m one of the
lonesome people who gravitate towards Yuuji."

Kugisaki gapes at him. "The fact that it took you this

long—"

"You think it’s temporary infatuation on my part?"

Megumi interrupts, the edges of the question
dagger-sharp in his rush to get it out. Kugisaki’s
eyes flash, more guarded instinct than anything else,
and Megumi lowers his voice. "After five months of
this?"

Kugisaki resumes her position behind the bouquet,

hands on her hips. She thinks for a while. Megumi
can hear her tapping her foot, restless.

"If it’s not temporary infatuation," she says,

matching Megumi’s tone syllable by syllable, "then
what is it, Fushiguro? Can you even tell me?"

It’s not meant to be a challenge, but Megumi still sits

there like it is, staring hard into the deep burst of
red in the middle of the bouquet in front of him.

"I don’t care if you keep this up with Yuuji for five
months or five weeks or five years. I don’t care if
both of you think that what you have going is good
as it is. I don’t care if you, Fushiguro Megumi, seem
the most whipped of the bunch," Kugisaki continues,
when Megumi holds onto his silence. "That doesn’t
mean shit to me. I care that Yuuji loves like an
unhinged maniac and he happens to like you more
than he’s ever liked anyone in his life, probably, and
I care that you’re also a really good friend of mine,
which makes you the absolute last person I wanna
see break my best friend’s heart." She shrugs, a
motion at once violent and solemn. "But you didn’t
hear that from me."

Out in the street, far, far behind Megumi, a car

honks. Once and it’s gone, the echo lasting longer
than the sound itself.

Refusing to deflate in the stiff silence, Kugisaki picks

her shears back up. She softens as she does—as
much as Kugisaki can soften—something
indiscernible to Megumi catching up to her.

"Look," she tries, her voice kinder if no quieter, "I do

know you’re fond of Yuuji. Anyone can see that. I
know you two have had a lot of fun for almost half a
year now. I know I can trust you to take care of each
other, and I’ll also kill Yuuji dead if he proves me
wrong in any of this." She sighs. "But if any and all
heart-breaking bullshit can be avoided by you just
rejecting him now? I’m not so nice or romantic that
I’m gonna tell y’all to try it anyway. Maybe I would,
if it was with anyone else."

Kugisaki doesn’t say it, just lets it hang implied

between them, so Megumi does it for them both.
"But not with Yuuji."

"Not with that idiot, no." Kugisaki snorts. "He’s so far

gone about you that he won’t even realize if you’re
also one of the people he’s better off not being in a
relationship with. He’ll take anything." There’s a low
hum from the pocket of her apron. She pulls out her
phone with a sigh. "And I also don’t want you
committing half-heartedly to him, of all people, and
believing the whole time that you’re not. You don’t
want that, either, for yourself or for him. Am I
wrong?"

She taps through her screen one-handed without

putting down her shears, leaves them pointed at
Megumi.

"No," he says. "You’re not wrong."

Kugisaki doesn’t look up from her phone. "Sort

yourself out, Fushiguro," she says. "Don’t think that
time and vague feelings of care and understanding
and affection and all that nice bullshit automatically
makes a good romantic relationship. You can have all
that and not be able to sustain any of it for another
five months, all because you forced a shift where
you shouldn’t have. I love getting to tell people I told
you so, but don’t make me that person here."

There’s a second, a minute change in pitch, where it

doesn’t sound like she’s talking about Megumi and
Itadori at all. It could have just as easily been
imagined, but very few things are, in moments of
vulnerability from Kugisaki. She never talks about
her childhood and her parents, just as Megumi and