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It was happening again.
Yuuji knows, no matter how he's not supposed to, because it's what he's woken up to for the past two weeks. The cold sweat where his arm meets Megumi's side. The increasing frequency of a gasp and the twisted expression on an otherwise tranquil face. The full-bodied shiver that runs through Megumi's, and consequently Yuuji's, body despite 1. Yuuji running so hot at night he feels like he could fry an egg on himself and B. it being the middle of July. It doesn’t take a genius, something that Yuuji has been pointedly told that he is not , to see the trouble beneath that unguarded expression and make out what his mumbled words mean. And maybe it helps that what haunts Megumi haunts him too.
Yuuji was the one who’d snuck into the room, tired of hearing the struggle from behind a wall, not just for Megumi’s sake but for his own selfish desire to witness what he shows no one else. He’d taken Megumi’s grumbling while scooching over as an invitation to burrow under the covers for the nth time these past several months. When he’d crawled in to blockade Megumi between himself and the wall, the mattress had already remembered his shape.
Now, pressed so snug that black hair tickles his face, he feels the final shuddering breath, as if breaching water’s surface, before he hears it. The signal he’s become familiar with as the end of Megumi’s torment. His side heaves under the weight of Yuuji’s palm, and his soaked-through shirt would be enough to convince him that he really did just come up for air.
Megumi lingers in the haze of his nightmare longer than usual before finally stirring. He props himself up enough to glance back at the boy stuck to his back, and looks away just as quickly when Yuuji’s eyes meet his.
“Go back to sleep,” is the only thing Megumi groans out, with one leg poking from under the covers like he’s ready to take off to keep his pride.
“Lay back down, then.” Yuuji tries not to sound too desperate. It takes all cognizant thought to stop his arms from tightening around his midsection. He can already feel the resistance in Megumi’s body telling him not to push it. So he eases his touch, all while hoping to slow the wall Megumi’s already building between them.
“I’m not tired”, he lies through his teeth. The blissful warmth of his body is taken from him when Megumi moves just out of reach. Yuuji can feel the empty space widen again, in his hands, in his chest. He can’t say he’s surprised. Of however long it’s been since he started his own nightly covert operations to sneak into Megumi’s room without the others noticing, this was the way it ended half the time. Yuuji waits, Megumi comes back (or doesn’t), and they fall into an uneasy sleep again.
“Which was it?” Yuuji should know better than to push it too far at this point. But he can’t help himself when pushing is what got him into Megumi’s bed in the first place. Sometimes, he thinks–hopes, rather–that he’s the only one allowed to. It can do good, he reasons with himself, to have a reminder that the person sleeping next to him is just as likely to wake with images of what they’ve seen, what they’ve lost. He doesn’t expect his question to get a response at this point–
“I saw you…” Megumi suddenly whispers and trails off, his body and his mouth clearly not on the same page. He’s only half committed to sitting up, still refusing contact while his words extend a hand that pleads for it. He is contradiction. The wounded animal that does not want but needs. Who bites and snarls at the offered hand but inches closer still. Yuuji has learned to wait. Patience is not something that comes naturally to him, and yet…
And yet.
Yuuji knows. He’s sure that he knew what it was about before he’d even asked. The silence that follows is filled by the rain. He casts a life line, a testing touch to Megumi’s outstretched hand, counting pieces of his spine with his fingers. By the time he gets to seven, some of that tension is gone with a new kind of apprehension in its place. Gently, gently his hand runs up slowly as if petting a skittish cat.
It runs to the back of his neck, lingering there, thumb passing back and forth on his nape before softly squeezing with his palm. Itadori silently celebrates his success in spite of the reason why the comfort was needed in the first place as he watches Megumi’s head tilt back into the touch.
It travels to the side of his face, his rough hands not accustomed to holding fragile things. The stroke of his thumb urges Megumi to face him, but does not demand. When he’s rewarded with down-turned eyes and long lashes, he targets the furrow in his brow, smoothing it like a fault in clay.
Both hands aim to remedy his barely-healed exhaustion now. Soothing his eyelids when they close to the slope of his nose. He’s so close he can hear the unsure shudder of his breath underneath the unbothered exterior. He can smell the cologne he’d offhandedly commented on finding alluring when being dragged to the mall with Kugasaki, when he’d pretended he hadn’t seen the flash of Megumi’s phone when they walked away. Just thinking about that ridiculous mysterious act he puts out makes him want to do something he shouldn’t.
So of course, he does.
The ghost of Yuuji’s lips press to his. So achingly soft it could have been an accident, but the way he intertwines his hand with Megumi’s tells him otherwise. He tethers them together as if he wasn’t sure Megumi would stay.
“Fushiguro…” he can’t bring himself to open his eyes as he whispers it out. They would betray the fear of rejection that brews underneath. Maybe Megumi no longer wanted to entertain this, he thinks, and this really will be the last time his hands touch his face or their lips meet. It’s not as if this hasn’t happened before, but with no definitive title to this thing they’ve got going on, there’s always a chance.
But he doesn’t pull away, and he revels in the way that despite stiffening, Megumi opens for him like a soft fruit, one that he leans in to taste again. Not out of hunger, but to savor, with a slowness that could be called lazy.
The next time they part, Megumi chases his lips sleepily, and the mumbled rare “Yuuji…” is almost lost to the storm outside.
Megumi won’t need to check him for his heart anymore, because surely he can hear it pounding out of his chest. Suddenly, despite being able to feel his breath against his cheek, the distance between them feels far too great.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs, the way he always does. Shaking an unfamiliar nervousness, he rests their joined hands over the steady thrum in his chest.
“I’m okay,” he assures once more for good measure, if not just to watch the phases of Megumi’s expression shift. It doesn’t take long for his face to land back on mild annoyance.
“Idiot…” he gets mumbled back, any bite of insult instantly softened by the grip he has on Yuuji’s shirt that, now that he thinks about it, is probably Megumi’s. The fond smile on his face fades when green eyes meet his sooner than he expected, and that unexplainable urge rises. Yuuji wants to say it. I wanna be able to kiss you all the time, not just now. I wanna be something different than friends. And I want everyone to know.
But those eyes are gone as soon as they come. Megumi’s forehead fits into his shoulder and Yuuji can’t get the words out now that the door has closed. They both already know, he figures, it should be obvious when he tangles their legs together and pulls him closer. As if he could tuck Megumi away from the big, bad world forever. His touch is received and gets a reply in the form of fingers around his midriff and a hand splayed across his back.
They’ve done this song and dance more times than Yuuji can remember. But he’ll never forget the first. Megumi’s flushed face when they’d finally pulled away, the rain drowning out everything besides his heartbeat, which he swore the other boy could hear. Yuuji’d been so convinced that Megumi was gonna hit him after that he’d awkwardly shimmied from the bed before another word was spoken and slept in his own.
But now, it’s so natural that they fall into a rhythm. Gentle, slow, never prodding or going too far. Yuuji wants to be greedy. To be the only one who knows the short intake of breath Megumi makes before kissing him. To be the sole person who sees the embarrassed-but-I-can’t-let-you-know expression on that otherwise stone facade. To reach out and know that he’ll be received in kind.
But Yuuji knows his time is limited. Once his promise to the higher ups is fulfilled, he–this vessel –can’t go on. He couldn’t ask for more than these, stolen kisses on stolen time. He shouldn’t, but the more Megumi allows, the more he selfishly takes. He wants for more and more and more.
Yuuji ignores the heat rising to his face by giving Megumi a firm squeeze, like one would give to their favorite stuffed animal.
“M’gumi…” he chances, mumbling under the blanket of rain and the blood rushing in his ears.
“I’m here,” he gets back, under his breath but there.
Yuuji acknowledges him with a hum. The rumble of distant thunder and the patter of rain slowly clear the haze of sleep, but everything’s so warm he never wants to leave these blankets.
“Wanna kiss you again,” he comments, feigning a disinterested suggestion, half-hoping Megumi didn’t hear and half-wishing he hadn’t said anything at all. He’s getting just as bad as Megumi, acting as if he couldn’t care either way when every part of Yuuji just wants to stick to his side and never be pried off.
Even the rain can’t cover the deafening silence that follows. He really should have just kept his mouth shut. Yuuji wonders if Megumi even heard him, and if he did when he’ll throw him another “Idiot” or “Go to sleep” or, his personal favorite, “Don’t say stuff you don’t mean, Itadori”, because it means he gets to prove him wrong.
And Megumi, who prickles at foreign touch and smacks Yuuji over the head when he gets too mushy, doesn’t do either.
“Then do it…” he challenges from his place lodged in the space between Yuuji’s neck and shoulder. And he’s so shocked he almost wants to laugh. Megumi’s muffled voice makes him realize how ridiculous they are, dancing around this as if they had time that they don’t.
“Okay,” Yuuji replies dumbly, and complies.