Synopsis: An unlikely meeting brings Yuuji Itadori and Megumi Fushiguro together. Reeling from the aftermath of his grandfather's death, Yuuji happens on a weary Megumi in the midst of coming to terms with his mental health diagnosis. Craving independence, seeking comfort, can the two find refuge within each other?
Pairing: Yuuji Itadori × Megumi Fushiguro
Word Count: 4.1k
Content/Warnings: Mental health (OCD/Bipolar/Anxiety attacks/PTSD/Grief), Slow Burn, Smoking, Parental SatoSugu, Alternative Universe: College/University, Loneliness, Angst and Feels, Aged-Up Character(s).
Cross posted to AO3 • Masterlist
Megumi sat down on the grass, reclining back on his palms. Smoke billowed above karaage and taiyaki stands, hand-held sparklers floated through the night. Through it all, the summer breeze carried Yuuji’s laughter through the crowds. It washed over Megumi, lifting the corners of his mouth to smile over at the kids piling on top of his boyfriend.
Megumi never imagined he’d have a reason to love summers in Sendai this much.
A single arm emerged, exposing a yukata sleeve and a hand gripping on to a basketball. Then, ruffled pink hair.
Megumi resisted the urge to pinch himself. Instead, he reminded himself that this wasn’t the sweetest dream he'd ever had.
“Megumi! You’re my last hope!”
Right, he thought, this was their life now. This was their story. It hadn’t started here, but before them. To tell it faithfully, he had to start at the beginning. With the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Megumi threw his head back and laughed, dusting off his yukata and heading to his boyfriend’s rescue.
It started when Satoru and Suguru met in high school, and slowly fell in love. Their story didn’t start perfectly either, but along the way they made it work, made a home, and took in Megumi and Tsumiki when Toji failed them.
Satoru came from a rich, unloving clan and Suguru came from an unstable home environment he finally escaped in college, when Satoru and him got their first apartment. Satoru noticed how Suguru found it easy to drink through his dark periods, and then his manic ones as well.
Satoru handled all the late-night arguments, the weeks where Suguru disappeared, almost failing school. Though Satoru still seized up whenever he thought about that day. Luckily, Suguru got sober, started going to therapy and transferred his major to psychiatry. The rest was history. Now, Satoru made sure that Suguru took his medication every morning whilst reminding him that he loves him.
In the beginning of college, Megumi hadn’t wanted to live on campus because he felt he didn’t desire the change. He had Shiro and Kuro, his two dogs he adored, and he never wanted to be without them. That changed when Shiro passed during Christmas and Kuro was so heartbroken that she passed by the new years of that year. Everything started to change when Tsumiki left to study abroad. Megumi felt a little more exposed without his sister to hide behind. Then, Suguru transferred over to a different office, one closer to home because there were more bipolar patients that needed him in the district they lived in.
When he started getting home earlier, he noticed things. Megumi’s hair on the bathroom floor. Masses of screwed-up notepad paper in the bin. The scent of bleach so strong it burned his eyes.
Somewhere along the stress of volunteering, midterms, and the loss of his beloved dogs, something changed for Megumi. Sure, he was always particular, and although he resented being called secretive by Satoru, he was private. Nobara often called him a control freak, but he knew that people didn’t see the half of it, because he kept it that way.
It had been working this long, even if it was starting to become inconvenient sometimes.
It was purely innocent when one night at dinner Suguru asked Megumi, “Have you been cutting your own hair?”
Suguru always promised that he would never seek to diagnose them, or use what Megumi called his ‘therapy speak.’ Satoru at least was quick to laugh, almost choking when he realised how much shorter strands of Megumi’s hair were.
But there was a silence filling the room. It charged the air and demanded to be noticed.
“Am I not supposed to laugh, Sugu?” Satoru frowned, setting down his cutlery. They rarely fought, these were the two people he loved most in this world.
Time had seemed to have stopped as Suguru and Megumi stared at one another.
“I have, so what?” Megumi finally said, shoving a large spoonful of his pasta in his mouth.
Suguru immediately softened. “I’m just checking on you. I’ve caught you doing it every day for the past two weeks.”
”Can either of you tell me what I’m missing here?” Satoru asked, dread slipped his arms around him, like an old friend.
“Nothing, honestly. I’m just catching the split ends.”
”You won’t have any hair left-“
Suguru squeezed Satoru’s knee under the table, shooting him a look. The ‘let me handle this’ look.
“Okay, well, the doorbell app pops up on my watch when I’m not home, you know? It tells me when someone is in front of the door.”
Megumi almost choked on his carbonara.
“It’s not a big deal, Suguru,” he tried, but his voice was barely above a whisper. He could feel the shame stirring in his gut, ruining his appetite.
”You check that the door is unlocked, a lot.”
He shook his head as a look of concern passed over Satoru’s face. “Everyone does that.”
A small part of Megumi never wanted Satoru to see him vulnerable. He wanted to keep those treasured memories they had intact, all the picnics, amusement park trips, gaming marathons. He didn’t want him to know, or see him like this.
”Twenty times in a row? If you’re struggling you can tell us. We are here for you, Megumi. I know you want to move out this semester but-“
“Thank you, but I don’t want to talk about this.”
Before Suguru could speak, Megumi had already left the table.
That was the first sign of a problem, in Satoru’s eyes. It was something not even he had noticed, perhaps Megumi himself hadn’t either and that was entirely the issue. It was months later when Megumi called Tsumiki studying abroad in the states, and asked for her to send him melatonin. He started to struggle sleeping because he was too fixated on the way his body felt weird, like how his heart was beating, and how his chest rose.
The intrusive thoughts were much worse at night too. He worried about everyone he loved dying, he worried about Tsumiki dying in California, or Toji driving drunk in Okinawa, Satoru crashing his car rushing to get halfway across Tokyo to see them for dinner. He thought about the fact he ran into his bedroom with his shoes on that morning to grab one of his veterinary textbooks, and so now his room was contaminated. But he was too tired to get up and clean any longer. He ran his fingers through his hair and felt an uneven strand, one completely asymmetrical to the other side.
He almost wanted to scream.
Instead he slipped out into the back yard to sit out and watch the stars. That always calmed him. He found Suguru smoking a cigarette and doing the same. Suguru had that knowing look in his eye when he asked one last time, “Seeing Shoko for a psych evaluation wouldn’t be as scary, would it?”
“You’re like a hawk,” Megumi said, looking up at him.
”I’m a parent, that’s what we do. I just don't want you to suffer like I did. You and Tsumiki mean everything to us.”
“I know. You changed our entire lives.”
”You know, Megumi, when I got diagnosed as bipolar. My whole world didn’t shift in the way you’d think. Does that make sense?”
Megumi shook his head, waiting as Suguru took a deep drag of his cigarette. “I mean, I already knew I was a little different. But it was something no one could see, so it felt so isolating at times, even when I had Satoru. I put him through a lot back then, before we had you two. I guess what I’m saying is, it helped me stop feeling like my world was on fire. It helped me understand myself a bit more, so I knew how to help others understand me a little better too.”
The words were almost too hard for Megumi to say. He couldn’t meet Suguru’s eyes.
”Did you feel shame?”
“Of course,” Suguru puffed out a large cloud of smoke, “until I realised that it helped me understand others more. I felt more connected to being human in a way. I feel more, so I understand more, and that’s okay. It can be a blessing, you know? In my work, in my personal life.”
They both chuckled.
Something welled in Megumi’s chest at Suguru’s words. The familiar scent of his seven star cigarettes wrapped around him. Once more, he couldn’t bring himself to meet his eyes, instead he whispered, “Okay. I think I want to. I’m ready to— see Shoko.”
Suguru patted his shoulder, letting Megumi’s tears fall silently into the night.
”Thank you, Suguru.”
”Don’t mention it.”
Satoru wanted to understand what Megumi was going through so badly, but he just seemed to put his foot in his mouth every time. He started to panic whenever Megumi disappeared without saying where he was going, when he saw him studying too hard, and ripping his nails off so much that they bled.
The day Megumi got diagnosed with OCD, Satoru went out to see Nanami and uncharacteristically got pissed from drinking too much rice wine. Nanami brought him home that night and Satoru fell asleep sobbing into Suguru’s chest. He was just so worried that the people he loved the most might leave him. He knew that he was being overbearing, and that he might just push Megumi away, but he couldn't help himself.
All of this led to the night that changed everything. That started a new, imperfect story between two imperfect individuals.
Suguru was on a business trip for a few weeks, leaving Megumi and Satoru at the dining table alone most nights. Megumi did all he could to avoid Satoru, but wherever he went he seemed to pop up anyway. Satoru had been plagued by the same nightmares he’d gotten when Suguru had gotten bad, he longed for the scent of seven star cigarettes (even though he always complained about the smell).
Satoru was an amazing guardian. He knew how to be serious when it mattered, but lately every conversation with Megumi seemed to end wrong. It made him restless, especially when he couldn’t fall asleep beside Suguru.
One particular night, he arrived home at the end of his tether. He was angered by the traffic, dejected by the fact he’d lost a case for the first time since he became a lawyer. Suguru wouldn’t be there to hold him to sleep when he got home. Suguru wouldn’t be there with his kiss the chef apron, and his warm brown eyes.
He found Megumi studying on the couch when he came in. He didn’t resist ruffling his hair like he did when Megumi was small. Megumi pretended to hate it but he welcomed the familiar comfort of feeling small again. He relished the days Satoru would pick him and Tsumiki up from school and take them somewhere fun. He vividly remembered walking beside Satoru’s long lanky legs. It reminded him of the first time they went to the Ginza art aquarium and the staff asked if they were father and son because they had the same ‘sea urchin’ hair.
Satoru headed into the kitchen to pour himself a large glass of red wine. He never liked to drink in front of Megumi, or even Suguru. He didn’t even drink often, but it had been a long day.
He tentatively offered to order food in. Megumi reluctantly agreed, beginning to swipe through endless hygiene ratings and reviews on his phone.
Satoru prided himself on being good at many things, but cooking was not one of them.
He yawned as he tugged away his tie. ”Found somewhere yet?”
Megumi shook his head, “I could make chicken and-“
”That will take hours, Megumi,” he whined, he knew all too well how much Megumi needed to disinfect everything a thousand times when he made chicken, let alone the relentless probing process.
“I’m getting better. I can do it.”
Satoru cursed himself, asking himself what Suguru would say. He felt dizzy, the red wine had already gone to his head because he’d skipped lunch so instead he said, “I can’t believe I didn’t notice.”
Megumi turned around to see Satoru, staring toward nothing. His glass already empty. “Notice what?”
”How hard things have been for you.”
Megumi sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “It wasn’t always this bad, I think school, Kuro and Shiro…”
He had finally started medication and he was in what Shoko described as the ‘shitstorm’ before it got better, and what Suguru said was approaching the beast before you defeated it.
“Stress, I know,” Satoru came to sit down on the couch, frowning when Megumi stiffened up, bunching his body together. “What?”
”You’re wearing your outside clothes.”
Satoru huffed, slapping his thighs before standing. He went to change and stopped, “Megumi, you are the strongest kid I know. How did this happen? Is it my fault or something? Were Sugu and I not… enough for you?”
Megumi’s mouth opened and closed.
”Is it my fault?”
“No, no. It’s not your fault, Satoru. I’ll move out soon-“
”You’re not, you won’t. We don’t think it's a good idea for you right now.”
”Suguru’s not even here right now! So how can you even say we? He told me before he left that he thinks I can do it.”
”Yeah? Well I say no! I’m your guardian too and my word goes!”
”Why do you care so much about me? I’m tired of caring, and loving people. All it does is make my stupid fucking brain taunt me even more. Do you know how much I worry about you and Suguru? How much my mind shows me you two dying? How I always think that I’m gonna die when I get the flu or one of my migraines? Or I eat out somewhere and the place looks dirty? It all sounds so fucking dumb but-“
It was like a dam broke. Megumi never cried, especially not in front of Satoru.
“Hey, it’s okay.” Satoru pulled him into a hug, letting Megumi soak his shirt. Megumi’s breaths quickly steadied as his fingers ran through his hair. ‘How is moving out gonna help?’ he asked, his voice soft, just like when he was a kid.
”I can be closer to my friends, Nobara, Inumaki, Yuuta, everyone.”
I just don’t want you to see me like this.
”No, I don’t feel ready for you to go yet.”
”Satoru. This house is so empty now when you two are at work. Please just say you’ll think about it.”
”I’ll talk to Suguru.”
Not too far from the Suguru/Satoru household lived Yuuji and his soon to be ex-roommate Junpei, rewatching one of their favourite human earthworm movies over cheap microwave popcorn. Junpei’s NYU acceptance letter sat on the dining room table, and Yuuji couldn’t help but feel like it was a third person sitting beside them.
Junpei’s suitcases waited by the front door, ready for their midnight flight.
Yuuji tended to get lonely. Even nights like this, when they laughed until their bellies were sore, and cried over stupid campy horror flicks. Yuuji had the sense that the loneliness he felt inside might never go away. In a twisted way, his panic attacks had begun to feel like the only constant in his life. He missed his grandpa’s house back in Sendai, the scent of cigarettes, the hard boiled sweets that always sat on the coffee table, the tiny old tv that was always on the highest volume, the sound of pachinko tokens jingling in grandpa Wasuke’s pocket.
When it was time for Junpei to make his way to the airport, the end credits of Human Earthworm 3 were rolling. He headed out for a final cigarette on the balcony, and Yuuji flopped down onto the sofa with his eyes shut.
The scent of tobacco rolled in through the door, reminding him of his grandfather. Visions of him lying askew on the kitchen floor flashed in his mind. He dragged his hands over his eyes, as if to swipe the images away.
He could feel the shift, the end of watching movies and swapping secrets over beers after a long week. When Junpei finally left, the apartment already felt too quiet. Yuuji suddenly ran to the balcony, waving as the smoke from the butt of Junpei’s cigarette cut through the night air.
He bellowed out, “Jun-chan! Be safe in New York! I’m proud of you! Have a safe flight!”
His face crumpled when he heard. “Try not to miss me too much Yuuji! Please visit my mom! And get laid! FaceTime me!”
He headed back inside. He didn’t wanna cry. He figured he could call some of the basketball team down for some drinks, maybe Hakari and Toudou? Or he could invite Nobara and her girlfriend Maki?
His lips wobbled and slow tears ran down his cheeks. He pressed the heel of his palms into his eyes. “This sucks.”
Maybe he could call the college councillor Nanami, he always told Yuuji he could call him if he were ever in crisis. But Nanami had a home, a partner, and a family. He couldn’t do that.
“Come on, Yuuji. You got this.” He yanked himself up, he’d go for a walk instead. He’d do everything he could to ignore the part of his brain scanning for panic.
The crisp warm air of spring was supposed to comfort Yuuji, but all he wanted to do was escape it. He thought about going to his favourite club, finding someone pretty to take home. But he was so tired of that, he was tired of the empty gaze in some guy’s eyes when they kissed with everything but love.
Yuuji already had so much love in his life. He didn’t want to keep burdening the people he loved with his loneliness. It was enough. He told himself this every single day.
Whilst he walked to his favourite park a little away from the hustle and bustle of campus, Megumi lay awake in his bed. These days taking his medication felt like taking a gamble with Russian roulette on his sleep. Sometimes it knocked him out, other times he lay awake, all night.
He tried not to rely too heavily on the melatonin Tsumiki sent. She'd been so worried the first time he ran out in under two weeks. She lectured him on the science of melatonin and circadian rhythm for hours. At least that had put him to sleep.
When he asked his friends how they slept, Yuuta said he watched horror films to sleep, Inumaki watched food ASMR, Nobara said she called Maki to talk her to sleep and Maki said she liked to watch 2000’s shoujo anime like Nana.
His hands shifted across his duvet, searching for Shiro and Kuro. He sighed.
They always helped him sleep and made him feel so safe. He didn’t care about all the germs on their paw pads, he loved their little sighs, the way they jumped up to greet him in the morning with little howls and stretches. He used to love walking them at night too, because he usually worried about bad people who roamed around in the shadows.
He knew it was stupid, they lived in a nice neighbourhood. It was the stupid OCD in his brain he struggled to separate himself from.
Satoru’s words rang in his mind again and again.
I can’t believe I didn’t notice.
Megumi hated that he didn’t notice it either. Suguru was always the best person to talk about this stuff with. He always said, “We often know ourselves the least, Megumi.”
“Fuck this,” he muttered, as he gulped down his medication and headed out for a walk in his crocs and pyjamas.
Halfway into Yuuji’s walk he realised that he’d forgotten his headphones and was actually humming an old citypop song aloud.
Megumi found his limbs becoming heavier and heavier, somehow everything began to weigh down on him. But he kept walking. He hated when Suguru had to go on his training work trips that took weeks. Satoru would get lonely, and start randomly drinking. He hated that he felt like he was disappointing them both, but he was tired of that quiet house. That was when his thoughts got bad, when there was so much time and space that anything and everything horrific became a possibility.
When he reached the park, he recalled Shoko’s advice from their last exposure and response therapy session. She told him that the more he fought the OCD logic the more likely he could recover.
“When Kuro and Shiro used to jump on you, you’d fall onto the grass right?”
“Right?” Megumi answered, skeptical.
“So, how about you try sitting down on some grass, for a picnic or while you read in between classes?”
He did just that, too tired to fight the heaviness in his limbs. The grass tickled his back, and his calves, he thought about bugs, he thought about germs until stars above him faded. The night breeze cooled down his skin. His eyelids flickered and opened once or twice, before they finally shut.
When Yuuji finally reached his favourite little park, he was happy to find it empty and devoid of noise. He chortled to himself, sometimes the sounds of other people made it worse. It made him feel emptier.
He grabbed a cold barley tea from the vending machine and cracked it open and then gasped.
Someone was lying on the grass.
The bottle smacked into the concrete.
His breath stuttered, and his ability to breathe abandoned him. He stumbled closer. The tea left the bottle in staggered glug sounds. He turned back and saw his grandfather’s blood all over the kitchen linoleum.
He squinted, gasping for breath. He rubbed his eyes and saw the tea again instead.
The man on the grass looked just like his grandfather. For a second.
His mind went blank the closer he stepped.
Somehow he looked so familiar. He stopped. He knew this person. He was Nobara’s girlfriend’s cousin, Megumi Fushiguro.
Yuuji yelped, crashing backward onto the grass. His mind was screaming at him to move. He couldn’t let history repeat itself. He needed to save him.
But he couldn’t catch his breath.
Megumi looked so peaceful. Yuuji’s hands were numb, they felt like huge blocks of ice. He couldn’t fit them in his pocket, they were too heavy. He couldn’t move his fingers enough to clutch his cellphone.
“I need to save him.”
He pressed his ear to Megumi’s chest, and found there was a steady breath. He smelt like peppermint, and his body was warm. He was alive.
His breath steadied.
What the hell was he doing?
He shook him gently, once, and then again with more force, “Hey, are you okay? Hey! Megumi?”
He started to gasp again, frantically fishing out his phone. It rang and it rang until Nobara’s voice sounded, sobering him. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Nobara? Wait what? Why did I call you? Something bad, Nobara. I can’t freaking breathe.”
“Hey? Hey? Slow down, what’s going on, Yuuji? Are you okay?”
“Maki’s cousin. He’s at the park, passed out-“
“Oh fuck. No. Maki! It’s Megumi! He’s passed out somewhere!”
“Right, Megumi, right? Okay, what do I do? I don’t know what to do. Megumi, wake up. Please.”
Tears streamed down his face. He could barely get his words out.
Maki’s voice crackled through the phone. He could hear Nobara panicking right beside her. “Yuuji? Where is he? Is he drunk?”
He shook his head, the words wouldn’t leave his mouth. He couldn’t do this, not again.
“Yuuji!”
“Yes! Wait no, no, I don’t think so, but he’s unconscious.”
“Take him to a hospital, please!”
“Okay, okay. There’s one near here. I’ll be faster than an ambulance. I’ll run—I’ll go!”
“I’ll call that idiot Satoru. By-“
“Wait who?”
“His guardian. Go! Now!”
He shoved his phone in his jeans and picked him up with all the grace he could muster. “Please be okay, Megumi.”
Megumi’s head lolled against his shoulder.
Yuuji tightened his grip.
He almost blacked out as he ran several blocks to the hospital in minutes. Amongst it all, he was comforted by Megumi's black hair brushing softly against his neck. Yuuji thought that despite all of this, Megumi somehow still looked so delicate and peaceful in his arms. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was supposed to find Megumi just like this.
the best fanfiction you've ever read was written by a woman in her 40s before she made dinner for her kids. it was written by a teenager after school when they should've been studying for a history test. and a barista came up with the idea while they cleaned the espresso machine and busser fact-checked it on their break and the post-doc edited between writing grant proposals and the nurse apologized for typos in the notes after a long shift and behind every drabble and one-shot and multi-chapter fic there is a person with a wonderful and interesting and chaotic life and it is such a privilege that we get to be apart of it because they decided to do this thing we all share, for fun.
Synopsis: An unlikely meeting brings Yuuji Itadori and Megumi Fushiguro together. Reeling from the aftermath of his grandfather's death, Yuuji happens on a weary Megumi in the midst of coming to terms with his mental health diagnosis. Craving independence, seeking comfort, can the two find refuge within each other?
Pairing: Yuuji Itadori × Megumi Fushiguro
Word Count: 4.1k
Content/Warnings: Mental health (OCD/Bipolar/Anxiety attacks/PTSD/Grief), Slow Burn, Smoking, Parental SatoSugu, Alternative Universe: College/University, Loneliness, Angst and Feels, Aged-Up Character(s).
Cross posted to AO3 • Masterlist
Megumi sat down on the grass, reclining back on his palms. Smoke billowed above karaage and taiyaki stands, hand-held sparklers floated through the night. Through it all, the summer breeze carried Yuuji’s laughter through the crowds. It washed over Megumi, lifting the corners of his mouth to smile over at the kids piling on top of his boyfriend.
Megumi never imagined he’d have a reason to love summers in Sendai this much.
A single arm emerged, exposing a yukata sleeve and a hand gripping on to a basketball. Then, ruffled pink hair.
Megumi resisted the urge to pinch himself. Instead, he reminded himself that this wasn’t the sweetest dream he'd ever had.
“Megumi! You’re my last hope!”
Right, he thought, this was their life now. This was their story. It hadn’t started here, but before them. To tell it faithfully, he had to start at the beginning. With the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Megumi threw his head back and laughed, dusting off his yukata and heading to his boyfriend’s rescue.
It started when Satoru and Suguru met in high school, and slowly fell in love. Their story didn’t start perfectly either, but along the way they made it work, made a home, and took in Megumi and Tsumiki when Toji failed them.
Satoru came from a rich, unloving clan and Suguru came from an unstable home environment he finally escaped in college, when Satoru and him got their first apartment. Satoru noticed how Suguru found it easy to drink through his dark periods, and then his manic ones as well.
Satoru handled all the late-night arguments, the weeks where Suguru disappeared, almost failing school. Though Satoru still seized up whenever he thought about that day. Luckily, Suguru got sober, started going to therapy and transferred his major to psychiatry. The rest was history. Now, Satoru made sure that Suguru took his medication every morning whilst reminding him that he loves him.
In the beginning of college, Megumi hadn’t wanted to live on campus because he felt he didn’t desire the change. He had Shiro and Kuro, his two dogs he adored, and he never wanted to be without them. That changed when Shiro passed during Christmas and Kuro was so heartbroken that she passed by the new years of that year. Everything started to change when Tsumiki left to study abroad. Megumi felt a little more exposed without his sister to hide behind. Then, Suguru transferred over to a different office, one closer to home because there were more bipolar patients that needed him in the district they lived in.
When he started getting home earlier, he noticed things. Megumi’s hair on the bathroom floor. Masses of screwed-up notepad paper in the bin. The scent of bleach so strong it burned his eyes.
Somewhere along the stress of volunteering, midterms, and the loss of his beloved dogs, something changed for Megumi. Sure, he was always particular, and although he resented being called secretive by Satoru, he was private. Nobara often called him a control freak, but he knew that people didn’t see the half of it, because he kept it that way.
It had been working this long, even if it was starting to become inconvenient sometimes.
It was purely innocent when one night at dinner Suguru asked Megumi, “Have you been cutting your own hair?”
Suguru always promised that he would never seek to diagnose them, or use what Megumi called his ‘therapy speak.’ Satoru at least was quick to laugh, almost choking when he realised how much shorter strands of Megumi’s hair were.
But there was a silence filling the room. It charged the air and demanded to be noticed.
“Am I not supposed to laugh, Sugu?” Satoru frowned, setting down his cutlery. They rarely fought, these were the two people he loved most in this world.
Time had seemed to have stopped as Suguru and Megumi stared at one another.
“I have, so what?” Megumi finally said, shoving a large spoonful of his pasta in his mouth.
Suguru immediately softened. “I’m just checking on you. I’ve caught you doing it every day for the past two weeks.”
”Can either of you tell me what I’m missing here?” Satoru asked, dread slipped his arms around him, like an old friend.
“Nothing, honestly. I’m just catching the split ends.”
”You won’t have any hair left-“
Suguru squeezed Satoru’s knee under the table, shooting him a look. The ‘let me handle this’ look.
“Okay, well, the doorbell app pops up on my watch when I’m not home, you know? It tells me when someone is in front of the door.”
Megumi almost choked on his carbonara.
“It’s not a big deal, Suguru,” he tried, but his voice was barely above a whisper. He could feel the shame stirring in his gut, ruining his appetite.
”You check that the door is unlocked, a lot.”
He shook his head as a look of concern passed over Satoru’s face. “Everyone does that.”
A small part of Megumi never wanted Satoru to see him vulnerable. He wanted to keep those treasured memories they had intact, all the picnics, amusement park trips, gaming marathons. He didn’t want him to know, or see him like this.
”Twenty times in a row? If you’re struggling you can tell us. We are here for you, Megumi. I know you want to move out this semester but-“
“Thank you, but I don’t want to talk about this.”
Before Suguru could speak, Megumi had already left the table.
That was the first sign of a problem, in Satoru’s eyes. It was something not even he had noticed, perhaps Megumi himself hadn’t either and that was entirely the issue. It was months later when Megumi called Tsumiki studying abroad in the states, and asked for her to send him melatonin. He started to struggle sleeping because he was too fixated on the way his body felt weird, like how his heart was beating, and how his chest rose.
The intrusive thoughts were much worse at night too. He worried about everyone he loved dying, he worried about Tsumiki dying in California, or Toji driving drunk in Okinawa, Satoru crashing his car rushing to get halfway across Tokyo to see them for dinner. He thought about the fact he ran into his bedroom with his shoes on that morning to grab one of his veterinary textbooks, and so now his room was contaminated. But he was too tired to get up and clean any longer. He ran his fingers through his hair and felt an uneven strand, one completely asymmetrical to the other side.
He almost wanted to scream.
Instead he slipped out into the back yard to sit out and watch the stars. That always calmed him. He found Suguru smoking a cigarette and doing the same. Suguru had that knowing look in his eye when he asked one last time, “Seeing Shoko for a psych evaluation wouldn’t be as scary, would it?”
“You’re like a hawk,” Megumi said, looking up at him.
”I’m a parent, that’s what we do. I just don't want you to suffer like I did. You and Tsumiki mean everything to us.”
“I know. You changed our entire lives.”
”You know, Megumi, when I got diagnosed as bipolar. My whole world didn’t shift in the way you’d think. Does that make sense?”
Megumi shook his head, waiting as Suguru took a deep drag of his cigarette. “I mean, I already knew I was a little different. But it was something no one could see, so it felt so isolating at times, even when I had Satoru. I put him through a lot back then, before we had you two. I guess what I’m saying is, it helped me stop feeling like my world was on fire. It helped me understand myself a bit more, so I knew how to help others understand me a little better too.”
The words were almost too hard for Megumi to say. He couldn’t meet Suguru’s eyes.
”Did you feel shame?”
“Of course,” Suguru puffed out a large cloud of smoke, “until I realised that it helped me understand others more. I felt more connected to being human in a way. I feel more, so I understand more, and that’s okay. It can be a blessing, you know? In my work, in my personal life.”
They both chuckled.
Something welled in Megumi’s chest at Suguru’s words. The familiar scent of his seven star cigarettes wrapped around him. Once more, he couldn’t bring himself to meet his eyes, instead he whispered, “Okay. I think I want to. I’m ready to— see Shoko.”
Suguru patted his shoulder, letting Megumi’s tears fall silently into the night.
”Thank you, Suguru.”
”Don’t mention it.”
Satoru wanted to understand what Megumi was going through so badly, but he just seemed to put his foot in his mouth every time. He started to panic whenever Megumi disappeared without saying where he was going, when he saw him studying too hard, and ripping his nails off so much that they bled.
The day Megumi got diagnosed with OCD, Satoru went out to see Nanami and uncharacteristically got pissed from drinking too much rice wine. Nanami brought him home that night and Satoru fell asleep sobbing into Suguru’s chest. He was just so worried that the people he loved the most might leave him. He knew that he was being overbearing, and that he might just push Megumi away, but he couldn't help himself.
All of this led to the night that changed everything. That started a new, imperfect story between two imperfect individuals.
Suguru was on a business trip for a few weeks, leaving Megumi and Satoru at the dining table alone most nights. Megumi did all he could to avoid Satoru, but wherever he went he seemed to pop up anyway. Satoru had been plagued by the same nightmares he’d gotten when Suguru had gotten bad, he longed for the scent of seven star cigarettes (even though he always complained about the smell).
Satoru was an amazing guardian. He knew how to be serious when it mattered, but lately every conversation with Megumi seemed to end wrong. It made him restless, especially when he couldn’t fall asleep beside Suguru.
One particular night, he arrived home at the end of his tether. He was angered by the traffic, dejected by the fact he’d lost a case for the first time since he became a lawyer. Suguru wouldn’t be there to hold him to sleep when he got home. Suguru wouldn’t be there with his kiss the chef apron, and his warm brown eyes.
He found Megumi studying on the couch when he came in. He didn’t resist ruffling his hair like he did when Megumi was small. Megumi pretended to hate it but he welcomed the familiar comfort of feeling small again. He relished the days Satoru would pick him and Tsumiki up from school and take them somewhere fun. He vividly remembered walking beside Satoru’s long lanky legs. It reminded him of the first time they went to the Ginza art aquarium and the staff asked if they were father and son because they had the same ‘sea urchin’ hair.
Satoru headed into the kitchen to pour himself a large glass of red wine. He never liked to drink in front of Megumi, or even Suguru. He didn’t even drink often, but it had been a long day.
He tentatively offered to order food in. Megumi reluctantly agreed, beginning to swipe through endless hygiene ratings and reviews on his phone.
Satoru prided himself on being good at many things, but cooking was not one of them.
He yawned as he tugged away his tie. ”Found somewhere yet?”
Megumi shook his head, “I could make chicken and-“
”That will take hours, Megumi,” he whined, he knew all too well how much Megumi needed to disinfect everything a thousand times when he made chicken, let alone the relentless probing process.
“I’m getting better. I can do it.”
Satoru cursed himself, asking himself what Suguru would say. He felt dizzy, the red wine had already gone to his head because he’d skipped lunch so instead he said, “I can’t believe I didn’t notice.”
Megumi turned around to see Satoru, staring toward nothing. His glass already empty. “Notice what?”
”How hard things have been for you.”
Megumi sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “It wasn’t always this bad, I think school, Kuro and Shiro…”
He had finally started medication and he was in what Shoko described as the ‘shitstorm’ before it got better, and what Suguru said was approaching the beast before you defeated it.
“Stress, I know,” Satoru came to sit down on the couch, frowning when Megumi stiffened up, bunching his body together. “What?”
”You’re wearing your outside clothes.”
Satoru huffed, slapping his thighs before standing. He went to change and stopped, “Megumi, you are the strongest kid I know. How did this happen? Is it my fault or something? Were Sugu and I not… enough for you?”
Megumi’s mouth opened and closed.
”Is it my fault?”
“No, no. It’s not your fault, Satoru. I’ll move out soon-“
”You’re not, you won’t. We don’t think it's a good idea for you right now.”
”Suguru’s not even here right now! So how can you even say we? He told me before he left that he thinks I can do it.”
”Yeah? Well I say no! I’m your guardian too and my word goes!”
”Why do you care so much about me? I’m tired of caring, and loving people. All it does is make my stupid fucking brain taunt me even more. Do you know how much I worry about you and Suguru? How much my mind shows me you two dying? How I always think that I’m gonna die when I get the flu or one of my migraines? Or I eat out somewhere and the place looks dirty? It all sounds so fucking dumb but-“
It was like a dam broke. Megumi never cried, especially not in front of Satoru.
“Hey, it’s okay.” Satoru pulled him into a hug, letting Megumi soak his shirt. Megumi’s breaths quickly steadied as his fingers ran through his hair. ‘How is moving out gonna help?’ he asked, his voice soft, just like when he was a kid.
”I can be closer to my friends, Nobara, Inumaki, Yuuta, everyone.”
I just don’t want you to see me like this.
”No, I don’t feel ready for you to go yet.”
”Satoru. This house is so empty now when you two are at work. Please just say you’ll think about it.”
”I’ll talk to Suguru.”
Not too far from the Suguru/Satoru household lived Yuuji and his soon to be ex-roommate Junpei, rewatching one of their favourite human earthworm movies over cheap microwave popcorn. Junpei’s NYU acceptance letter sat on the dining room table, and Yuuji couldn’t help but feel like it was a third person sitting beside them.
Junpei’s suitcases waited by the front door, ready for their midnight flight.
Yuuji tended to get lonely. Even nights like this, when they laughed until their bellies were sore, and cried over stupid campy horror flicks. Yuuji had the sense that the loneliness he felt inside might never go away. In a twisted way, his panic attacks had begun to feel like the only constant in his life. He missed his grandpa’s house back in Sendai, the scent of cigarettes, the hard boiled sweets that always sat on the coffee table, the tiny old tv that was always on the highest volume, the sound of pachinko tokens jingling in grandpa Wasuke’s pocket.
When it was time for Junpei to make his way to the airport, the end credits of Human Earthworm 3 were rolling. He headed out for a final cigarette on the balcony, and Yuuji flopped down onto the sofa with his eyes shut.
The scent of tobacco rolled in through the door, reminding him of his grandfather. Visions of him lying askew on the kitchen floor flashed in his mind. He dragged his hands over his eyes, as if to swipe the images away.
He could feel the shift, the end of watching movies and swapping secrets over beers after a long week. When Junpei finally left, the apartment already felt too quiet. Yuuji suddenly ran to the balcony, waving as the smoke from the butt of Junpei’s cigarette cut through the night air.
He bellowed out, “Jun-chan! Be safe in New York! I’m proud of you! Have a safe flight!”
His face crumpled when he heard. “Try not to miss me too much Yuuji! Please visit my mom! And get laid! FaceTime me!”
He headed back inside. He didn’t wanna cry. He figured he could call some of the basketball team down for some drinks, maybe Hakari and Toudou? Or he could invite Nobara and her girlfriend Maki?
His lips wobbled and slow tears ran down his cheeks. He pressed the heel of his palms into his eyes. “This sucks.”
Maybe he could call the college councillor Nanami, he always told Yuuji he could call him if he were ever in crisis. But Nanami had a home, a partner, and a family. He couldn’t do that.
“Come on, Yuuji. You got this.” He yanked himself up, he’d go for a walk instead. He’d do everything he could to ignore the part of his brain scanning for panic.
The crisp warm air of spring was supposed to comfort Yuuji, but all he wanted to do was escape it. He thought about going to his favourite club, finding someone pretty to take home. But he was so tired of that, he was tired of the empty gaze in some guy’s eyes when they kissed with everything but love.
Yuuji already had so much love in his life. He didn’t want to keep burdening the people he loved with his loneliness. It was enough. He told himself this every single day.
Whilst he walked to his favourite park a little away from the hustle and bustle of campus, Megumi lay awake in his bed. These days taking his medication felt like taking a gamble with Russian roulette on his sleep. Sometimes it knocked him out, other times he lay awake, all night.
He tried not to rely too heavily on the melatonin Tsumiki sent. She'd been so worried the first time he ran out in under two weeks. She lectured him on the science of melatonin and circadian rhythm for hours. At least that had put him to sleep.
When he asked his friends how they slept, Yuuta said he watched horror films to sleep, Inumaki watched food ASMR, Nobara said she called Maki to talk her to sleep and Maki said she liked to watch 2000’s shoujo anime like Nana.
His hands shifted across his duvet, searching for Shiro and Kuro. He sighed.
They always helped him sleep and made him feel so safe. He didn’t care about all the germs on their paw pads, he loved their little sighs, the way they jumped up to greet him in the morning with little howls and stretches. He used to love walking them at night too, because he usually worried about bad people who roamed around in the shadows.
He knew it was stupid, they lived in a nice neighbourhood. It was the stupid OCD in his brain he struggled to separate himself from.
Satoru’s words rang in his mind again and again.
I can’t believe I didn’t notice.
Megumi hated that he didn’t notice it either. Suguru was always the best person to talk about this stuff with. He always said, “We often know ourselves the least, Megumi.”
“Fuck this,” he muttered, as he gulped down his medication and headed out for a walk in his crocs and pyjamas.
Halfway into Yuuji’s walk he realised that he’d forgotten his headphones and was actually humming an old citypop song aloud.
Megumi found his limbs becoming heavier and heavier, somehow everything began to weigh down on him. But he kept walking. He hated when Suguru had to go on his training work trips that took weeks. Satoru would get lonely, and start randomly drinking. He hated that he felt like he was disappointing them both, but he was tired of that quiet house. That was when his thoughts got bad, when there was so much time and space that anything and everything horrific became a possibility.
When he reached the park, he recalled Shoko’s advice from their last exposure and response therapy session. She told him that the more he fought the OCD logic the more likely he could recover.
“When Kuro and Shiro used to jump on you, you’d fall onto the grass right?”
“Right?” Megumi answered, skeptical.
“So, how about you try sitting down on some grass, for a picnic or while you read in between classes?”
He did just that, too tired to fight the heaviness in his limbs. The grass tickled his back, and his calves, he thought about bugs, he thought about germs until stars above him faded. The night breeze cooled down his skin. His eyelids flickered and opened once or twice, before they finally shut.
When Yuuji finally reached his favourite little park, he was happy to find it empty and devoid of noise. He chortled to himself, sometimes the sounds of other people made it worse. It made him feel emptier.
He grabbed a cold barley tea from the vending machine and cracked it open and then gasped.
Someone was lying on the grass.
The bottle smacked into the concrete.
His breath stuttered, and his ability to breathe abandoned him. He stumbled closer. The tea left the bottle in staggered glug sounds. He turned back and saw his grandfather’s blood all over the kitchen linoleum.
He squinted, gasping for breath. He rubbed his eyes and saw the tea again instead.
The man on the grass looked just like his grandfather. For a second.
His mind went blank the closer he stepped.
Somehow he looked so familiar. He stopped. He knew this person. He was Nobara’s girlfriend’s cousin, Megumi Fushiguro.
Yuuji yelped, crashing backward onto the grass. His mind was screaming at him to move. He couldn’t let history repeat itself. He needed to save him.
But he couldn’t catch his breath.
Megumi looked so peaceful. Yuuji’s hands were numb, they felt like huge blocks of ice. He couldn’t fit them in his pocket, they were too heavy. He couldn’t move his fingers enough to clutch his cellphone.
“I need to save him.”
He pressed his ear to Megumi’s chest, and found there was a steady breath. He smelt like peppermint, and his body was warm. He was alive.
His breath steadied.
What the hell was he doing?
He shook him gently, once, and then again with more force, “Hey, are you okay? Hey! Megumi?”
He started to gasp again, frantically fishing out his phone. It rang and it rang until Nobara’s voice sounded, sobering him. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Nobara? Wait what? Why did I call you? Something bad, Nobara. I can’t freaking breathe.”
“Hey? Hey? Slow down, what’s going on, Yuuji? Are you okay?”
“Maki’s cousin. He’s at the park, passed out-“
“Oh fuck. No. Maki! It’s Megumi! He’s passed out somewhere!”
“Right, Megumi, right? Okay, what do I do? I don’t know what to do. Megumi, wake up. Please.”
Tears streamed down his face. He could barely get his words out.
Maki’s voice crackled through the phone. He could hear Nobara panicking right beside her. “Yuuji? Where is he? Is he drunk?”
He shook his head, the words wouldn’t leave his mouth. He couldn’t do this, not again.
“Yuuji!”
“Yes! Wait no, no, I don’t think so, but he’s unconscious.”
“Take him to a hospital, please!”
“Okay, okay. There’s one near here. I’ll be faster than an ambulance. I’ll run—I’ll go!”
“I’ll call that idiot Satoru. By-“
“Wait who?”
“His guardian. Go! Now!”
He shoved his phone in his jeans and picked him up with all the grace he could muster. “Please be okay, Megumi.”
Megumi’s head lolled against his shoulder.
Yuuji tightened his grip.
He almost blacked out as he ran several blocks to the hospital in minutes. Amongst it all, he was comforted by Megumi's black hair brushing softly against his neck. Yuuji thought that despite all of this, Megumi somehow still looked so delicate and peaceful in his arms. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was supposed to find Megumi just like this.
Synopsis: An unlikely meeting brings Yuuji Itadori and Megumi Fushiguro together. Reeling from the aftermath of his grandfather’s death, Yuuji happens on a weary Megumi in the midst of coming to terms with his mental health diagnosis. Craving independence, seeking comfort, can the two find refuge within each other?
Pairing: Yuuji Itadori x Megumi Fushiguro
Word Count: TBD
Content/Warnings: Mental health (OCD/Bipolar/Anxiety attacks/PTSD/Grief), Slow Burn, Smoking, Parental SatoSugu, Alternative Universe: College/University, Loneliness, Angst and Feels, Aged-Up Character(s).
A Levi Ackerman drabble series for @thedrabblecollective May 2026 Drabble Challenge.
When Levi was a soldier, he was a master of weapons and warfare. Now, as a civilian struggling to find his place in this world, he's given a new tool for survival.
Is the pen truly mightier than the sword?
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jacobvanloon
prguitarman
blakekathryn
izzy806
gummygunk
