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“Hey guys,” Yuuji starts one day, as they’re laying splayed out on Nobara’s bed, the three of them eating snacks and passing time together. “Have you ever heard of the egg theory?” He’s still munching on some peanuts, and his words are muffled by the chewing.
Next to him, Megumi wrinkles his nose in distaste. “You’re disgusting,” he states, completely ignoring his question.
“What, is that like that theory of the egg and the chicken?” Nobara questions. She’s holding a hand-fan, and the whirring noise is soft as she turns the setting up. It has been hot all week, a persistent heatwave hanging over the whole city. “Which one came first?”
“No, it’s different, I think?” Yuuji tilts his head in thought. “I don’t know, I just saw this on Instagram.”
“When are you guys going to stop social media as a credible source of information?” Megumi mumbles as he turns the page of his manga.
Yuuji pinches his cheek teasingly, because he sounds so cute when he’s acting all grumpy. “It’s like this theory where we are actually everyone. Like, I’m reborn in another person’s body every time I die, and it does not end until I’ve lived everyone’s life. Basically, you are everyone and everyone is you. It’s some sort of reincarnation, only, you reincarnate as every single person that has ever lived, until there are no more people left. Kinda funny, isn’t it?”
“Yuck,” Nobara states. “Does that mean I’m Gojo Sensei in another life?”
“Yeah, but also, Gojo Sensei is you.” Yuuji states. “And I am him, and you, and you are also me and he’s me too. I think?”
“Eh?”
A beat of silence passes, both Nobara and Yuuji contemplating as they stare at the white-painted ceiling, until Yuuji opens his mouth again, gasping. “Wait!”
Nobara looks up, bewildered. “What?”
“That means I’d be Jennifer Lawrence in one life!”
Next to him, Megumi rolls his eyes so hard he thinks they might fall out of his head.
***
It’s not until they’re walking through the hallway, halting in front of Megumi’s door, that he dares to ask Yuuji: “what’s with all the egg-talk earlier?”
And Yuuji, Yuuji cracks a timid smile, tilting his head, a lock of his strawberry hair falling past his face. He swipes it away, and then he says, “You know, I think that if that egg theory is true, we shouldn’t be so scared anymore. After all, if you are me and I am you, it won’t matter if one of us gets hurt, will it? We’re one and the same; I am Yuuji, and Yuuji is Megumi.”
“So, what are you saying?” Megumi watches the boy’s face with some wonder.
“I’m saying, I wouldn’t mind being you and carrying your burden for you. Because it only means you’ll do it for me too, right?” Yuuji’s smile widens. “We’re the same, you and me, really.”
In the dark of the hallway, Megumi doesn’t quite yet grasp those words. Instead, he foolishly reaches out to Yuuji, grabs hold of his wrist and kisses him promptly on the mouth. It’s the beginning of his downfall, he likes to think, but really, his downfall had happened a long time ago already.
Meeting Yuuji, it was always supposed to be like this.
***
It was always supposed to be like this.
All this time, Yuuji’s purpose was to save Megumi. Megumi swore the same thing to him, whenever he was feeling sentimental, during those rare moments of vulnerability. “I’ll kill you if you die,” he’d told Yuuji, and Yuuji had smiled, told him it would be okay.
And, isn’t this ironic, baby? Yuuji thinks this as if Megumi can somewhere hear him, and laugh a bitter laugh over this whole debacle. Yuuji can almost visualize his boy, grinning wryly as if he’s tasting something bitter. “It’s not funny,” he’d say. “This is serious, Yuuji.”
Do you get it now? I get it now, Gumi. His throat is sore and his limbs ache but he does not feel the humming presence of Sukuna like he has gotten so used to, and for one stupid, foolish moment, he wants to think Sukuna has completely disappeared.
But then Megumi -
(sweet, sweet Megumi, who loves ginger and plays footsie with him under the dinner table and who sometimes talks in his sleep, which always wakes Yuuji up but he doesn’t mind, because it’s Megumi, and losing sleep is a small price to pay to be able to be close to him and Yuuji loves him so much, he’s feeling sick just thinking about it)
- he’s now grinning a disgusting, predatory grin, the expression too foreign for his face, and, and Yuuji’s world stills for a moment as the boy’s mouth opens, but it’s not his words that come out.
Right here, Yuuji is already Megumi and Megumi is already Yuuji. His voice forms a word, but it’s not Megumi’s word, just his voice alone, coming out in a short but devastating--
“ Brat .”