Tutor!Fushiguro Megumi x Reader
.synopsis : you spend months swallowing down your feelings for your tutor, convincing yourself that he doesn’t notice you, doesn’t like you. when you finally lose control and think on impulse, you’re curtain you’ve ruined everything—until he doesn’t pull away from you…
.tags : gn!reader(no pronouns used or any physical features mentioned), sfw, fluff, crack(my very poor attempt at it), mutual pining, tutor/student dynamic (they are the same age), idiot4idiot, touch starved behaviour from reader, anxiety, slowburn for 2k words, reader has anxious habits and a anxious personality, poor communication on megumis part(resolved by the end), happy ending, uncapitalized, vaguely proofread, if there’s anything i missed please lmk!! (wc: 2.4k)
.note : this original was supposed to be a blurb but i got carried away…..as you can see tell by the wc. ANYWAY PLEASE ENJOY READING THIS IF YOU ARE!!!!! (read on ao3)
megumi has this habit of praising you with a hand on the small of your back when you try to concentrate and do your work. and the way the words come off his tongue are all too teasing—that is how you see it at least. but megumi seems to be all too oblivious to it.
“you’re doing much better,” he stares at the sheet before you, and then to the side of your face. “compared to how you were when we started, this is great progress.” he says it like it’s no big deal.
you’re face is hot and voice nervous as his palm smoothes over your back. up, down, up, down. slowly and deliberate, like there was secret intent behind the motion. you let out a nervous laugh that sounded more like a tense sigh, “really? you think so?”
“i do,” he says simply, moving his fingers to the next problem. “try this one, it’s a bit different but i think you can do it.” offering you an indulgent expression, not quite challenging but not undemanding either.
so, you do as asked. you pick up your pencil and write out the problem, trying your best to solve it. and as you’re writing you realize it is very different from the problems you’ve been doing for the past week. so you’re not too surprised when you finish writing—sceptical of your answer from the very beginning—megumi laughs to himself a little before taking the pencil out of your hand. his hand brushing against yours ever so slightly, and it makes you tremble which quickly makes you shifting your hands into your lap.
“so much for that,” you laugh nervously again, a bad habit you tend to have around megumi.
“it’s alright, i guess that was a bit of a stretch to ask of you.” his gaze averts back to your face and he gently raises his hand to rest on your shoulder. “let me break it down for you,” taking his hand off your shoulder, already writing on the paper before you can comprehend what happened.
megumi carefully brakes down the problem, showing you a shortcut on how to solve it. you listen to his every word like your life depends on it. “dose that make sense?”
“yeah,” you nod in agreement.
he passes you back your pencil and says, “try this one now.” pointing to the new problem he had written after he finished demonstrating how to solve the one you had trouble with.
“okay,” you give him an easy smile, taking the pencil from his loose grasp and recalling how he calculated the problem.
you lay out the details, slowly as to not rush and mess up. when you hesitate for a moment, megumi isn’t afraid to tell you you’re doing everything correctly, “don’t overthink it,” he’ll rub your back again. your chest stirs up again, tingling with butterflies. and then, he praises you again, “very nice,” and again, “you’re doing so good,” and you can’t take it anymore.
“don’t say it like that…” you whisper, embarrassed. your face is so hot you think he can probably feel how warm it is from where he sits beside you. you put the pencil down unable to finish the problem, and bring your hands over you face, hiding behind them. your shoulders slouch and you almost curl in on yourself in your seat.
your heart thumps rapidly against your rib cage, and all he has to say is, “…like what?” confused and innocent, like he has no clue what his touch and words do to you.
still hiding behind your palms you sigh and then let out another nervous laugh, “never mind.” you couldn’t possibly tell him, your consciousness is already eating away at you enough as is you don’t need regret to consume you whole.
megumi watches you for a second, trying to put together the puzzle of what it could be that’s got you so anxious. he unfortunately, does not come across the missing piece, still much too confused why you are so flustered.
was it something i said?
was it all the touching? megumi isn’t a touchy guy himself but he thought maybe you’d appreciate it, but now he’s rethinking it because what if he’s coming off as a total pervert and you don’t know how to tell him to stop touching you.
you’re such a perv, fushiguro! why do you keep touching like that!? weirdo.
he’s wary now. he assumes it’s all the touching, scratching the back of his neck with worry and blurting out, “i’m sorry, i’ll stop touching you. i didn’t mean anything by it.” you can hear the sincerity in his tone, he’s mortified. can’t even look at you anymore.
“no, no, no,” you’re giggling, it’s awkward and so out of place for the situation. but you can’t help it. removing your hands from your face and looking at megumi. “its not that, you can keep touching me—“ and the words come out before you can stop them. now you’re the one that’s mortified. regret caught you in its grasp and is chewing off your limbs, agonizingly slowly, one by one.
“shit, i-i i didn’t mean it like that,” you’re tumbling over your words, “i mean i-i don’t mind if you touch me—“ god, that sounds even worse. you want to bury yourself. what is wrong with you? beads of sweat forming on your neck as you, for some strange reason continue rambling further escalating the tension into hell.
“i mean like…that’s not why i was…” you stop yourself, unable to say the word ‘embarrassed’. such a silly word that you know will get him curious. you can see his ears are red and so is his face, you think he’s embarrassed as well, so adding more into the suffocating conversation will make it even more excruciating. so, instead of saying anything at all you start laughing.
when you thought it couldn’t get anymore worse, it does. as you hiccup with laughter your eyes look at the side of megumis face, at first refusing to meet your gaze, but the second he heard you laughing his head turned and now he was staring at you. face of apathy but behind it you could sense confusion and offence. you start panicking even more, that’s when little tears start to form in your lower lash line.
you manage to apologize in between your uncontainable laughter, “i-i’m sorry, i c-can’t stop.” your face is so hot. beyond embarrassed at this point. this is so humiliating. just stop. stop laughing. stop walking around shattered glass when it comes to megumi. stop avoiding it. it’s been over 6 whole months since megumi had became your tutor, and you’ve harboured feelings for him longer. you’ve always been straight forward about your feelings, so why was this like a crack in your path?
before you could mumble another apology you move your hands to cover your face again, far too ashamed to continue looking at him. from below you hands you can hear him move and get up from his chair. he leaves the room.
you did something wrong, you think. he’s probably getting your jacket to send you on your way. you know your anxious laughter is a bad habit, this always happens in the most serious situations. you’re such an idiot, what is wrong with you? you had the chance to tell him, but you didn’t. now pay the consequences.
you remove you hands from your face putting them in your lap, and all of a sudden you feel small. the oxygen is being suppressed from your lungs, not enough blood flow to your brain. too dizzy to stand and run away. before your mind has the chance to fully shut down and go on a never ending cycle of self blaming the door opens and megumi comes back with a glass of water, startling you.
“here,” he says, passing the tall cup to you. you look up at him through your lashes, blinking. you can feel the tears tickling your cheeks as you eyes open and close for a few seconds longer.
megumi presses, extending his arm forward so you have no other choice but to take the glass from him. “thanks,” you barely whisper, bringing the cup to you lips taking a sip, clearing your throat of dryness.
“i’m sorry,” you say, placing the cup onto the table. “i tend to laugh when i’m nervous.” you admit, as if it wasn’t already the most obvious thing. he takes his seat next to you and looks over to you.
a small laugh falls from his lips, “yeah, i’ve noticed that.”
you giggle again, “don’t take offence to it, i’m very sorry.”
“stop that,” megumi glares at you, but there’s so real heat behind the action. “i don’t need your apologies. it’s not like you can help it.” he tells you, turning his attention back to the work in front of you and probably looking for something for you to work on next. “anything else you’d like to say before we continue—“
“i like you!” you practically yell, interrupting him. 10 seconds pass and nothing is said. then thirty, forty, fifty, a whole minute. and neither you or megumi utter a single word or sound. he just stares at the papers like you had just said something crazy—which you did and now are regretting every decision you’ve ever made in your life.
what have you done? it was an impulsive thought, you shouldn’t have said anything. what do you do now? how do you get out of this situation?
and of course you do the thing you’re best at, ramble nonsense that will probably make everything one million times worse. “oh my god,” you sound like you’re about to cry, and maybe you are. “i’m so so so sorry, i shouldn’t have blurted that out like that i—“
megumi looks at you finally and before you can continue whatever it was you were going to say he interrupts you this time, “i said quit apologizing,” he says. “don’t apologize when you didn’t do anything wrong, it’s stupid.” he looks away, face flustered beyond comprehension. maybe he was the stupid one here. because for the past 6 months megumi has been trying to figure out the right way to tell you this exact same thing without sounding like a total idiot. and now, here you were blabbering it out just like that; a love sick idiot.
megumi looked away to the side like he was trying to find something, but it was only to get his thoughts and feelings straight. “…” he opens his mouth but nothing comes out. he’s unsure of himself, not if he likes you or not—he likes you. but how to say it, finally admit that he does. what if right now isn’t the right time to say it? he’s not thinking right because right now is definitely the right time to say this but the words just won’t come out. “…let’s just get back to work.”
the words come out more harsh than he meant for them to come out. you can feel your heart cracking, sinking into the pit of your stomach making bile rise into your mouth. your face displays exactly how you feel; rejected. tears fill your lash line threatening to spill. you try to defend what he said, maybe he’s just not ready yet, maybe he’s nervous, maybe this isn’t rejection. but frustration and sadness is quick to take over you.
you’re not good enough, that’s it. megumi needs more than you, you’re too much, you say the wrong things at the wrong time. you laugh too much, you apologize too much. it annoys him and that’s why he doesn’t like you back. other people have qualities you lack, and you just don’t have what he needs and wants in a partner. no, no, no, no, he’s probably already in a relationship—that no one knows about and he just doesn’t know how to tell you he’s not interested without being harsh—
“i think i’d like to go home now, if that’s okay.” he can tell you’re upset. he hears it. your voice is missing the excitement it usually carries, it doesn’t sound like you. that’s when megumi knows he’s messed up, you probably think he doesn’t like you back. communication is so hard sometimes, he thinks.
he looks back at you, “hold on,” he’s words stopping you before you can get up. his hand reaches up to scratch his nape. “i don’t know how to say this…” megumi releases a brief sigh, building up the courage to say it. your out of character expression making his own heart sink; it bangs against his rib cage, thud, thud, thud. here it comes, you think, ‘i’m already dating someone…’, but it doesn’t. after a few seconds of silence you realize he’s trying to say something else.
“…i like you too…” the words felt all too uncomfortable coming from his mouth. not because they’re not true, but because actually saying it made things real.
weight is instantly lifted off his chest and he feels sick. he looks around your face for something, anything. but you’re just so lost that you don’t even know how to react. but what if in the span of two minutes you decide that you didn’t like him anymore and he was about to get rejected?
complete nonsense. “you do…?” you are very surprised. you were already trying to get over the rejection because what else could you have done? he pretty much said he didn’t like you back. but now, that crack that almost cracked your heart in half is sewing itself together, that the gleam you always have in your eyes is coming back to you. your mini depression is over. “i didn’t think you did,” you say, laughing nervously.
“oh, sorry,” megumi pauses, “i didn’t want to mess it up.”
“you kind of did,” you giggle at his struggle. “but it’s okay, i forgive you for hurting my feelings.” and the way you say it makes him feel awful about what he had said, but that is quick to turn into an eye roll because he recognized that tone; you’re teasing him.
“tsk, asshole,” there’s so real spite behind it. he turns to look away from you. you take offence to it and weakly punch the side of his arm.
“hey!” you fake anger, “i am extremely hurt here.” you place your hand to your chest feigning offence.
“don’t push it now,” he says, pushing your hand that was still on his arm off of him. “we still have work to do.”