Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Yuji barely noticed the first thing that followed him to Tokyo.

It was a thin, invisible tug behind his ribs, like someone had looped a string through him when he wasn’t looking and given it an experimental pull.

He’d felt it in Sendai too, especially in the quiet weeks after the funeral, but back then it was easy to confuse it with everything else that hurt. Grief had its own gravity; who could tell where one pull ended and another began? 

For a while, life had simply… folded in on itself.

He stopped going to track practice first. It was easy to say he needed time, that he’d rejoin the club later.

Later never came.

Then he started missing classes, telling himself he’d catch up online, that he’d just stay home today because getting dressed felt like a group project.

Days blurred together until every creak of the old house sounded wrong. Every familiar corner felt misaligned without his grandpa there to fill it with muttering and superstition and complaints about modern variety shows. Yuji slept too much and not enough, drifting in and out of shallow dreams where he kept expecting to hear the TV volume click down and his grandpa call his name from the other room.

People tried, in the ways people do.

His homeroom teacher called.

A guidance counselor left voicemails about grief resources and temporary leave of absence forms. 

Friends texted less and less when his replies boiled down to sorry, can’t and maybe next time. 

He’d sit in the dark on the tatami, ignoring messages and eating convenience store bread for dinner because cooking for one felt like admitting something permanent.

On paper, he was eighteen and technically an adult, capable of living alone and making independent decisions. In reality, he was eighteen and very aware of the dishes piling in the sink, the unopened mail, and the uniform jacket still draped over the chair where his grandpa had last hung it.

Through it all, the tug persisted. Some days it was barely there. Other days, he’d be halfway down the hall and feel his chest going cold for no apparent reason. He’d stop, say his name under his breath the way his grandpa had taught him, and wait until the feeling loosened. He didn’t tell anyone about that part. Superstitions were one thing; admitting you felt watched by empty air was another.

Choso noticed anyway, even from Tokyo.

At first, it was late-night calls where Choso asked, You eating?  with that flat tone that wasn’t really a question, then came the weekend visit where Choso walked into the house, took one look at the dishes, the mail, the way Yuji’s uniform jacket was still where his grandpa had put it, and went very quiet.

Yuji had tried to play it off. “I’m fine,” he’d said.

Choso had looked at him for a long time.

A few days later, adults started using words like transfer and guardian and change of environment. His homeroom teacher mentioned a high school in Tokyo that would accept a mid-year third-year transfer. The counselor used phrases like reset and fresh start.

Nobody said out loud that they were scared of what would happen if he stayed in that house alone until graduation.

Choso didn’t bother dressing it up. On the phone, his voice had been blunt: “You’re moving in with me.”

“I’m eighteen,” Yuji had argued weakly. “I can take care of myself.”

“You’re eighteen, and you forgot to renew the gas bill,” Choso had replied. “Pack a bag.”

Yuji could’ve fought harder, probably, but part of him was relieved that someone else was steering for a bit.

So, months after the funeral, with the worst of the numbness scabbed over but not gone, Yuji found himself on a train to Tokyo with a duffel bag, a stack of documents, and that tug still sitting under his sternum like a secret. 

The second thing that followed him to Tokyo was the label of transfer student.

Setagaya Municipal Aobadai High wasn’t expecting him. Mid-year transfers in the third year were rare. He was expected to walk in wearing a new uniform that still smelled like plastic wrap and carrying a hope that felt both naive and necessary. Going back to school meant alarms again, uniforms again, other people again. It meant not waking up at noon and realizing the only voice he’d heard all day was the delivery driver’s. It meant he could try to be the version of himself his grandpa liked best: the one who moved forward even when things were heavy.

He’d learned that kind of forward momentum at home.

His grandpa didn’t do “maybe.” He did rules, and not the normal kind:

Don’t whistle at night.

Don’t sleep with your feet toward the door.

Don’t bring home stones from riverbeds.

If you feel a chill for no reason, say your name out loud. Make sure it’s still yours.

When he was little, Yuji had laughed at them because they sounded like bedtime stories written as instructions. When he got older, he laughed less, not because he suddenly believed in ghosts, but because his grandpa believed in them the way he believed in weather, and his grandpa had lived long enough to treat patterns like proof.

Then, one day, the pattern broke.

The house went quiet.

The next time Yuji heard his grandpa’s voice, it was from a hospital bed, thinned out around the edges.

“You’re still being followed,” his grandpa rasped, staring at a point somewhere over Yuji’s shoulder. “You know that, right?”

“By who? I’m not that popular” Yuji tried to joke.

"Not who,” he'd said. His grandpa’s gaze snapped back to him, suddenly very serious. “When you feel the tug, don’t pretend you don’t. When your skin goes cold, you move. You hear me?”

Yuji had nodded because arguing felt like tempting something he couldn’t see.

He still didn’t really believe in curses, but he believed in his grandpa.

Three days later, his grandpa was gone.

After that, staying in Sendai felt like haunting himself.

So here he was, months later, in a cramped apartment on the fourth floor in Tokyo, with the low hum of the city coming up through the floor.

The tug had come along for the ride.

Yuji sat cross-legged at a low table, cheeks full, staring down at the bowl of curry Choso had shoved at him the second he walked through the door.

It had been a while since he’d seen his older brother in person. Choso had left for Tokyo for university a few years ago and mostly existed as a disembodied voice and random bank transfers with captions like for food or don’t tell grandpa. Seeing him in 3D again, within arm’s reach, was weirdly grounding, like the world had snapped back into alignment by half a degree.

“This is really good,” Yuji said around a mouthful.

Across from him, Choso frowned. “Don’t talk with your mouth full. You’ll choke.”

He said it like a curse instead of a concern, but his eyes kept flicking over Yuji’s face, checking his expression, the color in his cheeks, the way he was holding himself. It wasn’t subtle. It was the kind of staring people did after they’d watched you fall apart once and were now monitoring for aftershocks.

Yuji swallowed, exaggerated and noisy. “I survived.”

“Barely,” Choso muttered, but he still reached across the table to nudge Yuji’s bowl a little closer, like the extra three centimeters would somehow put him out of reach of danger.

It felt… normal, in a way Yuji hadn’t felt in months.

“So,” Choso said at last, lifting his own spoon, eyes still on him, “first day. You excited?”

Yuji’s mouth was already full again, so his answer came out as a muffled, “Mm-hm!”

Choso kept looking at him.

Yuji hurried to swallow. “Yeah,” he said properly. “I mean, I’m nervous, obviously. New school, third year, everyone already has their little friend groups, but…” He poked at the rice once, then shrugged, a small smile tugging at his mouth. “I’m kinda excited too.” 

Choso nodded. "Good. You should be."

“You’re not gonna give me the focus on your studies, don’t get distracted speech?” Yuji asked, genuinely surprised. “New school, new start, don’t disgrace the family name,” he added in a fake serious voice.

“I could,” Choso said, unamused. “But you’d forget it the second you saw a vending machine with a limited-edition flavor.”

“That’s not—” Yuji started, then immediately remembered how he’d nearly missed his transfer in the station because a grape-soda-can-with-a-dragon-on-it had caught his eye. He shut his mouth. “…Okay, that’s… partially fair.”

Choso’s mouth twitched. “Besides,” he said, scooping up more curry, “you don’t need another adult telling you to be afraid of everything. Grandpa did that enough.”

Yuji poked at a piece of carrot, chasing it through the sauce. “He wasn’t trying to make me scared,” he said quietly.

“I know,” Choso replied. “Doesn’t change the fact that it stuck anyway.”

Yuji couldn’t argue with that. He took another bite instead, letting the warmth settle in his chest. For a moment, the room felt almost peaceful—until that smell crept in. It came from the far side of the room, where the tiny kitchenette ended and Choso’s so-called storage corner began. It slunk under the edge of the window, threaded itself through the steam from the curry and the clean-dish detergent, and settled into the air like it paid rent.

Yuji paused mid-chew, eyes narrowing. “…You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said.

Choso didn’t look up. “Eat.”

“I am eating,” Yuji said. “That’s the problem. I’d like to taste my food without also tasting your… side hustle.”

Choso gave the barest sigh. “It’s not that strong.”

“It smells like the balcony is auditioning for a reggae video,” Yuji complained. “My uniform is gonna absorb this.”

Choso finally lifted his eyes, unimpressed. “You’re exaggerating.”

“I’m superstitious,” Yuji shot back. “There’s a difference. Grandpa would lose his mind if he smelled this. He’d start throwing salt at the walls and demanding we boil mugwort or something.”

“Grandpa thought looking at crows too long cursed your grades,” Choso said. “He’s not the scale.”

Yuji set his spoon down and leaned back, squinting toward the storage corner like he could stare the odor into revealing itself. “When are you going to get an actual job?” he asked.

“There it is,” Choso muttered. “Knew that was coming.”

“I’m serious,” Yuji said. He leaned forward on his elbows, curry forgotten for the moment. “Convenience store. Warehouse. Delivery. Literally anything that doesn’t make the apartment smell like a haunted greenhouse.”

Choso rolled his jaw, eyes dropping back to his bowl. “I have a job," he said, stabbing at a piece of potato.

“You have clients,” Yuji said. He lifted his hands to make air quotes, fingers snapping into place a little too hard. His knuckles actually cracked with the force, which kind of ruined his moral high ground. “That’s not the same thing.” 

Choso went quiet, shoulders going still in that way that meant the conversation had shifted from mildly annoying to dangerously close to serious.

“It’s not like I didn’t know,” Yuji went on, because his mouth had never understood the concept of dropping it. “You’re not subtle.”

That got Choso’s eyes back on him, at least. 

“I was extremely subtle,” Choso said. He lifted his spoon again, pushing rice around the bowl. “Until one nosy middle schooler decided to visit unannounced.”

Yuji felt his ears heat, the memory flushing up with the same mix of embarrassment and fondness as always. He scratched at his cheek, looking away for a second.

“Okay, first of all, Grandpa sent me,” he said. “Go check your brother is eating real food, not cup noodles every meal, remember?”

The memory slid in so clearly it might as well have been a photograph.

It was his second year of middle school. His backpack had been too big for his shoulders, straps cutting into his jacket as he stood on the shinkansen platform with a ticket in one hand and Grandpa’s handwritten instructions in the other. First time riding alone. First time going to Tokyo without an adult right next to him. Grandpa had patted his back once and said, You’ll be fine, in that tone that meant, You better be.

Yuji had been buzzing the whole ride down. Big brother, big city, big adventure. He’d spent half the trip imagining dramatic reunions where Choso cried a little (never going to happen) or ruffled his hair (more likely) and then took him somewhere cool to eat.

Instead, he’d opened the door to Choso’s first Tokyo apartment and been hit in the face by that same sweet, heavy thing that was curling through this room now. It smelled like grass and burned sugar and bad decisions. Back then, he hadn’t had a word for it, just a brain screaming danger and a nose screaming what is that.

“Choso?” he’d called, toes nudging out of his shoes.

Choso had popped up from behind the low table, eyes wide, hair loose around his face, hands full of little baggies he tried to hide behind his back in slow motion. There had been an ashtray on the table, a window cracked open in the dead of winter, and a haze in the air that definitely wasn’t from miso soup.

“Yuji,” he’d said, voice cracking. “You’re early.”

“You smell weird,” fourteen-year-old Yuji had replied, because subtlety was a skill he had not unlocked yet.

Behind Choso, some college guy in a beanie with bloodshot eyes and the posture of a melted candle had raised a hand in lazy greeting. “Yo,” he’d said. “Is this your cousin or, like… your conscience?”

Yuji had spent the next three hours learning more slang than any middle schooler needed, eating convenience store karaage while three different guys argued about strain names, and silently counting all the ways Grandpa would have combusted on the spot if he’d seen any of it.

Back in the present, Yuji narrowed his eyes at his brother. “You told me it was herbal incense that time.”

Choso had the decency to look at least ten percent sheepish. “You were a kid.”

“I was in my second year,” Yuji said. “Not a toddler. I could read. The bag literally said premium indica on it.”

“You shouldn’t have been snooping in my drawers,” Choso said, reaching for his water like that ended the argument.

“You shouldn’t have labeled your crime,” Yuji shot back.

Choso’s mouth twitched. He chased a grain of rice around his bowl with his spoon. “Point is, you’ve known for years. Why bring it up now?”

“Because I live here now,” Yuji threw his hands up. “I didn’t care as much when I was two prefectures away and you were just mysteriously always having cash, but I gotta go to school from here. I don’t want my new teacher, Gojo, sniffing me on day one and being like, Ah, you’re on that Setagaya loud.”

“Gojo’s on something stronger than anything I sell,” Choso muttered into his bowl.

Yuji blinked. “What?”

“Nothing,” Choso said quickly. He set the bowl down and laced his fingers together on the table, like he was switching modes. “Look. I’m careful. I don’t sell to high schoolers. I don’t keep stuff around when it matters. The smell is from earlier, that’s all.”

“That’s still the problem,” Yuji said. “You have earlier.”

Choso’s mouth flattened. He put his spoon down properly this time. “Do you think I like this?”

“I don’t know,” Yuji said. He spread his hands, helpless. “You’re weird. Maybe you do. Maybe you and your plants are in a committed relationship.”

Choso just stared at him for a second.

“Rent exists,” he said finally. “Electricity exists. Tuition exists. My scholarship doesn't cover everything."

“We could both work,” Yuji said immediately, leaning in. “I can get a job too. I’m strong. I can carry, like, five crates of oranges by myself.”

“You’re going to focus on school,” Choso said, with something closer to fear than annoyance. “You just lost Grandpa. You just moved cities. You’re not getting off the train and straight into manual labor.”

“It’s not straight, it’s like… slightly to the side,” Yuji tried. “Even just weekends. I don’t want you doing this forever.”

“I’m not doing it forever,” Choso said. “I’m doing it until I get through exams and land something that can actually pay.”

Yuji frowned, brows scrunching. “You could already land something now. You’re smart. You just have to… apply. And not smell like this at the interview.”

“I don’t smell like this at interviews,” Choso said, genuinely offended. He sat up straighter. “I have a system.”

“Your system sucks,” Yuji said, deadpan.

Choso dragged in a long breath, the kind that seemed to deflate him on the exhale. He scrubbed a hand over his face, fingers pressing briefly into his eyes before sliding back into his hair.

“I don’t want you worrying about it,” he said.

“Well, too late!” Yuji said, flinging his arms out wide enough to jostle the table. 

That earned him an actual snort.

Yuji leaned forward over the table, sensing the crack in the wall and refusing to let it seal. “Just—promise me you’ll at least start looking?” he said. “Part-time. Full-time. Normal-time. Something. So when I graduate, I’m not introducing people like, this is my brother, Choso, he’s great and his hobbies include tax fraud and horticulture.”

“I do not commit tax fraud,” Choso said instantly, scandalized. “I report some of it.”

“Some of it,” Yuji repeated, horrified.

“I’m kidding,” Choso said, then paused, eyes shifting away for half a second before he added, “…mostly.”

Yuji dropped his face into his hands and groaned into his palms. “I hate it here.”

“You love it here,” Choso said. “You get free food and a short commute.”

“I get asthma,” Yuji said, voice muffled by his hands.

Yuji rolled his eyes so hard it made his skull feel lighter. “You keep saying that like it’s supposed to reassure me.”

“It should,” Choso said. “You’re the one who tried to microwave instant ramen without water that one time.”

“I was nine,” Yuji protested. “And grieving my lack of supervision.”

Choso snorted and dipped his spoon back into his bowl like the argument was officially over.

The moment lightened, but the heaviness in Yuji’s chest didn’t really move. It just… shifted to a different seat. He scooped another bite, but his appetite had dulled around the edges. The curry still tasted good. His body, on the other hand, felt like someone had left a window open inside it.

Ever since he’d stepped off the train in Tokyo, there’d been this… edge. 

He’d felt it at the ticket gate when his IC card had beeped, and the crowd had flowed around him, carrying him out into the station like a current. He felt that strange tightness at the base of his neck, like eyes were on him from somewhere he couldn’t pinpoint. 

He’d felt it in the convenience store, hand hovering over rows of onigiri, brain debating between tuna mayo and salmon while his eyes caught on a stack of magazines, and, for no good reason, he’d suddenly pictured his grandpa’s empty chair at the kitchen table. The air had felt thin until the cashier had said, “Next in line,” and the world had snapped back.

He’d felt it just now, too, when the smell from Choso’s job had crept across the room, and his brain had gone, danger, in the same flat, automatic voice it used for icy steps and late trains and crossing lights that started blinking too fast.

When your skin goes cold, you move. When you feel the tug, you don’t pretend you don’t.

The thing was, it wasn’t really cold. His skin prickled sometimes, sure, but that could be anything.

He stared at the half-empty bowl in front of him, spoon resting in the dent he’d made in the rice.

Strange sense of dread? Check.

New city, dead grandpa, dealer brother, new school tomorrow, one-way ticket out of everything he used to know? Also check.

“Probably just anxiety,” he muttered under his breath.

Choso glanced up, catching the tail end of the mumble. “What?”

“Nothing,” Yuji said quickly. “Just thinking too much.”

“That’s new,” Choso said dryly.

Yuji stuck his tongue out at him like a very mature eighteen-year-old, then went back to eating, forcing himself to finish the curry one determined spoonful at a time. If he could do this, he could survive homeroom. That’s how his brain decided to scale things.

He decided, very firmly, that the feeling was just… adjustment. He was allowed to be on edge. People didn’t lose the only adult who’d raised them, move to a different prefecture, and feel amazing about it. That would be weirder.

So yeah. Weird dread, sure. Heavy chest, sure. A few pricks along his spine when the train had gone through a tunnel, yeah, okay. That was all part of the package.

But ghosts?

Curses?

Invisible things following him from Sendai to Tokyo just to make his life more complicated?

That was a lot, even for his bloodline.

He shoved the last spoonful of curry into his mouth like punctuation and set the spoon down with a soft clack.

“Thanks for dinner,” Yuji said, pushing his bowl toward the middle of the table with his fingertips. “It was good. Criminal smell aside.”

“You’re welcome,” Choso said. “Slander aside.”

Choso stood, collecting both bowls with a clack of ceramic, and carried them to the sink. The tiny kitchenette barely fit him; when he turned, his elbow almost brushed the fridge. 

Yuji watched his back for a moment, the familiar outline of him against a completely unfamiliar city.

Then he rolled off the cushion and flopped onto his temporary bed in the corner.

Bed was generous. It was a futon folded out over the narrow strip of floor between the table and the TV stand, close enough to the couch that if he stretched his arm out, he could touch the leg.

The actual bedroom was technically Choso’s. Right now it was “full of stuff,” which Yuji had glimpsed earlier as a chaotic shrine of textbooks, laundry, and suspicious cardboard boxes. Choso had promised, with the vague authority of an oldest sibling, I’ll clear it out. You can move in there after a few days.

Until then, the living room was Yuji’s.

He sprawled on his back on the futon anyway, claiming as much space as the tiny apartment allowed, arms spread like a starfish. 

The dread crouched somewhere behind his ribs.

He stared up at the ceiling for a few seconds, tracking the faint shadow of the ceiling fan that didn’t work, listening to the muted city noise bleeding through the glass, then he blew out a breath and spoke softly into the room.

“Yuji Itadori,” he said, half a joke, half a test. “Yuji Itadori. Yuji Itadori.”

His own name sounded small in the space, bouncing off the walls, slipping under the curtain, dissolving into the steady drip of the faucet and the hiss of the tap as Choso rinsed dishes.

Nothing changed.

The air didn’t drop ten degrees. The single overhead light didn’t flicker. No ghost grandpa appeared at the foot of the futon to whack him with a rolled-up newspaper and tell him to sleep with his head in a different direction.

Good.

See? he told himself. Probably nothing.

He shifted onto his side, tugged the blanket up over his stomach, and let his fingers curl loosely around the edge. From the kitchenette, Choso shut off the tap and clattered a dish into the rack. Outside, a siren wailed and then faded.

For the first time in a long time, he had somewhere to be in the morning that wasn’t just the other side of the same room.

Yuji let his eyes drift shut.

The next morning, the classroom smelled like heater dust, old chalk, and the faint leftover perfume of someone’s convenience-store bread. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Outside the windows, the sky was that pale winter blue that made everything look a little washed out.

Yuji stood at the front of Class 3–2, indoor slippers squeaking on the floor, hands pressed stiffly at his sides like he was posing for a passport photo. His heart was doing laps in his chest. His mouth was dry. His brain kept helpfully replaying, Don’t trip. Don’t say something stupid. Don’t introduce yourself as “Hi, I’m Nervous.”

He was terrified. 

He was also… kind of thrilled if he didn’t think too hard about the dead-grandpa part or the “being followed” part, it felt almost like a reset button. 

“Relax,” Gojo murmured beside him, far too cheerful for homeroom. He smelled faintly like expensive soap and bad ideas. “You’re creasing the aura with all that tension.”

“I don’t think auras crease,” Yuji whispered back.

Gojo tilted his head. “Spoken like someone who hasn’t seen enough.”

Yuji had no idea what to do with that, so before he could decide whether to be reassured or more nervous, Gojo turned to the class and clapped once, cutting through the low murmur of half-awake third-years.

“Alright, my little sardines!” he announced brightly and lazily at the same time. “New addition today. Try not to traumatize him in the first five minutes, I promised the office I’d keep him alive.”

A few students snickered. 

Yuji bowed automatically, hands at his sides. “I’m Itadori Yuji. I just moved here. Please take care of me!”

He straightened and tried to smile like a normal person and not like a cornered raccoon. He’d practiced that line three times on the train, mouthing the words at his reflection in the window. It still felt weird now.

Gojo nodded, looking pleased. “Excellent. Strong diaphragm. We love to see it.”

He snapped the attendance clipboard shut and swept his gaze over the room, humming under his breath.

“Seating, seating…” Gojo mused. “Where should we put him…”

Yuji followed his line of sight over the rows of desks. Some were perfectly centered with notebooks already laid out. Some were half-buried in pencil cases and crumpled worksheets. There were a few empty seats here and there. He didn’t really care where he ended up, as long as it wasn’t dead center like a museum exhibit.

Gojo’s finger tapped the edge of the clipboard. His mouth curved.

“There,” he said, pointing toward the third row by the window. “Next to Kugisaki.”

Yuji’s gaze landed on the girl in question.

Sharp bob. Sharper eyes. She sat half-turned toward the window, chin resting on her hand, looking like she was judging the entire sky and finding it mid. Her blazer was unbuttoned just enough to say I follow the rules but only under protest. A glossy magazine peeked out of her desk, half-hidden under her textbook.

She lifted her eyes to Yuji and raised one brow, unimpressed, then looked Gojo’s way. “Why me?”

“Because you’re so warm and welcoming,” Gojo said without missing a beat. “And because your grades survive constant distraction, so one more won’t kill you.” 

“That’s profiling,” she said.

“Correct,” Gojo confirmed cheerfully. “Itadori, third row, window side. Go, go, transfer duckling.”

Yuji’s feet moved before his brain could panic about every glance sliding over him.

Up close, Kugisaki looked even more intense. Not mean, exactly, but like she’d already ranked everyone in the room on a secret scale and was deciding where he belonged on it. Her blazer was perfectly fitted, her bob was razor-sharp, and her expression said I dare you to waste my time.

Yuji stopped beside the empty desk and bowed again out of reflex, bag strap creaking on his shoulder. “Uh— Itadori Yuji. Please, um… be kind to me?”

Her mouth twitched. “You already said that,” she pointed out. “Pick a new line.”

Yuji’s brain gave him absolutely nothing.

“I… also enjoy food and air?” he blurted.

A tiny huff escaped her, which was the kind of laugh someone would deny later. “Great. We have so much in common.”

He slid into his seat, trying not to squeak the chair too loudly. The desk was cool under his palms, the window to his left a rectangle of pale winter light and the faint outline of the courtyard. His heart was still pounding, but excitement had crept back in around the nerves.

Window seat. Not front and center. Not banished to the very back with the kids who already looked like they’d mastered truancy. Next to someone who, terrifying or not, at least talked to him.

He could work with this.

At the front, Gojo started in on his homeroom spiel about schedules and exam dates and the beautiful concept of responsibility, scrawling across the board in big looping letters that took up twice as much space as necessary.

Yuji pretended to listen. 

He could feel Kugisaki looking at him out of the corner of her eye.

“So,” she said under her breath, just loud enough for him to hear over the chalk and the rustle of paper, “Itadori Yuji, who enjoys food and air. You from Tokyo?”

“Sendai,” he whispered back. “I just moved in with my brother.”

“Divorced parents, dead parents, or academic parents?” she asked, like she was checking boxes on a form she’d filled out for thirty other people already.

He blinked. “Um. Dead grandpa.”

She nodded once. “Huh. Okay.”

“That’s it?” Yuji asked before he could stop himself.

“What, you want an I’m sorry?” Kugisaki said, eyes still on the board. “You look like if I say that, you’ll either cry or make a joke about it, and I don’t have the energy for either before first period.”

Yuji considered that.

“That’s… fair,” he admitted.

She flicked her gaze back to him, examining him, but his time, there was a little more curiosity in it. “Setagaya is better than Sendai,” she decided.

“You’ve never been to Sendai,” Yuji said.

“I don’t need to,” she replied. “You’re here now. That’s the data.”

It was backwards logic, but somehow it made him smile anyway.

“Kugisaki, Itadori,” Gojo cut in from the front, without even turning around. “If you’re sharing with the class, it better be the answers to this question.”

Yuji jerked his head up like he’d been caught stealing.

He had absolutely not heard the question.

On the board, there was a half-finished sentence about risk factors in urban environments and something underlined twice, but his brain had been busy doing social calculus instead of actual note-taking.

“Yes,” he said.

Gojo paused mid-sentence, marker still pressed to the board. “…Interesting,” he drawled. “I haven’t actually asked you anything yet, Itadori, but I appreciate the enthusiasm.”

A few people snickered. Someone near the windows let out a quiet, delighted pfft. Yuji could feel Kugisaki staring at him.

Heat crawled up his neck. He cleared his throat. “What was the question?” he asked, aiming for innocent and landing squarely on I have absolutely not been paying attention.

Gojo tapped the board with the marker, where risk factors in urban environments was written in big, looping letters. “Since you’re so eager to participate,” he said, “give me one example of a dangerous point in the city.”

Yuji’s first thought was rooftops, which felt a bit too on the nose considering his entire grandpa backstory and the way his ribs were currently humming.

He panicked and said the second thing that popped into his head.

“Convenience store ice cream freezers,” he blurted.

The room went very, very quiet.

Gojo tilted his head. “Bold answer,” he said.

Yuji’s mouth, sensing an audience, decided to betray him completely. “You know, because people open the glass door and lean in,” he rushed on, hands starting to mime the motion without his permission, “and then someone behind them isn’t paying attention and crashes into them, and then they knock their heads and drop the ice cream, which is tragic, and also the floor gets slippery, so that’s like a chain reaction of dangers—”

He heard himself and clamped his mouth shut so fast his teeth clicked.

Gojo considered the answer. “You know what?” he said at last. “Technically, I did say anywhere you personally think fate likes to trip people. So points for creativity, Itadori. And concern for dessert-based casualties.”

Yuji exhaled, shoulders sagging. “Thank you,” he said weakly.

Gojo let the class’s laughter dissipate before he tapped the marker against the edge of the desk.

“However,” he said, “for the sake of the actual assignment, we’re going to aim for something a little more statistically rich.” His gaze drifted past the middle rows of half-attentive students, past the kids pretending to take notes, all the way to the back row near the window. “Fushiguro?”

Chairs creaked as a few people half-turned to look. Yuji followed their line of sight.

He’d been vaguely aware all morning that someone was sitting back there. It was the kind of presence your brain labels as background, so it can spend energy on louder problems. It was easier to focus on the obvious than to examine the nagging hum at the edge of his consciousness.

But when Yuji actually turned and saw him, it was like his mind flipped to a different channel without warning. A tightness he hadn’t realized he was holding clenched under his ribcage, then pulled taut. He sucked in a breath so fast he nearly choked on it. The weird feeling hit him all at once with familiarity that made no sense.

Megumi Fushiguro sat with his back straight but not stiff, elbow propped on the desk, knuckles resting lightly against his cheek. Sunlight from the window cut across his hand and the side of his face, picking out the delicate curve of his long lashes and the sharp line of his jaw. From a distance, his expression read as bored, but it was the kind of boredom that looked intentionally disengaged rather than apathy. It made Yuji’s skin prickle. How did you look that controlled while doing nothing?

The tug behind his ribs tightened like someone had been waiting for this exact moment.

I don’t know him, Yuji thought instantly. I’ve never met him. I would remember. I remember faces.

His hands begged to differ.

His fingers tightened around his pencil until the cheap plastic protested. His leg started bouncing under the desk, and when he pressed his hand down to stop it, the muscle twitched anyway. He felt pinned in place by his own involuntary movements and a pull he couldn’t name.

Megumi’s gaze slid over, like he’d felt the attention. 

Their eyes met.

Up close, even across a few desks, his eyes were darker than Yuji had expected. It was the look you gave someone who had answered a normal question in the most wrong way possible, and that wrongness had lodged under your skin.

Yuji’s throat went dry. He lifted his eyebrows, a helpless little sorry I exist face, and mouthed without thinking, What? 

Megumi held Yuji’s gaze for one long, measured second. Then he looked away with precise finality, like he had just decided, silently, not my problem. 

It should’ve been nothing. People looked and looked away all the time.

Yuji’s body refused to file it away. His skin buzzed, fingertips to spine, like he’d brushed an electric fence that hadn’t sparked hard enough to knock him over but definitely hard enough to warn him. 

At the front, Gojo tapped the edge of the desk with his marker. Tap, tap. “Well, Fushiguro?” he said, sounding far too entertained. “Give us a counterpoint to Itadori’s frozen death trap.”

Megumi’s eyes drifted toward the window. “The crosswalk by Sangenjaya Station,” he said. “The one with the diagonal crossing.”

Gojo’s marker paused mid-air. “Oho. Specific. Why that one?”

“Too many vectors at once,” Magumi answered. “Pedestrians coming from four directions, cars trying to turn, cyclists cutting between them. People rush the last few seconds of the light. They’re watching the timer, not the cars. Or each other.”

Yuji blinked before he felt that tug again. His chest tightened with a you’ve been here before sensation that made no sense, because he definitely hadn’t.

Damn, he thought, a little dazed. Okay. That’s… weird. He’s just a guy. He’s just a guy talking about crosswalks. Why does my body think this is a boss battle?

It felt like some part of him was leaning toward Megumi without permission, waiting for something it couldn’t name. Like if Yuji blinked too slowly, he’d open his eyes and see something else sitting there instead of a boy with dark hair and a tired, irritated face. And under all of that, worse than all of that, was the sudden awful certainty that Megumi could tell Yuji was… off. 

Yuji snapped his gaze down to his desk so fast his neck twinged, staring hard at the word freezers he’d accidentally written in the margin earlier. His pencil squeaked as his grip tightened, plastic groaning in protest.

He felt Kugisaki’s chair shift beside him and sensed her lean just slightly into his personal space.

“If you keep making that face,” she whispered without moving her lips, eyes still on the board, “I’m going to punch you.”

Yuji swallowed and whispered back, “I’m not making a face,” which was objectively false.

Kugisaki’s gaze slid toward the back row, then flicked back to Yuji. Her mouth twitched. “Sure,” she murmured. “Whatever you say, weirdo.”

On the board, Gojo underlined the word intersections with a flourish.

“Textbook answer,” he declared happily. “That’s the energy you want for this project. No offense to Itadori’s freezer crusade.”

“Some offense,” Kugisaki rolled her eyes. 

Yuji sank lower in his seat. “I was just trying to be original,” he muttered to no one in particular.

Gojo kept pacing along the front row. “So. Homework preview: you’ll be going out in pairs to observe these places in the wild. Take notes on patterns, near-misses, your own miraculous survival, et cetera…”

Yuji forced himself to look up and focus, pulling his thoughts back from where they were spiraling.

Pairs. Right. Partners. Normal. People did that all the time. He could do that. Go to a crosswalk, don’t die, write about it. Easy.

He inhaled deeply, counting: in on four, out on four. The tightness eased a fraction, then came right back when Gojo continued.

“…and since I know if I let you choose,” Gojo went on, tapping his marker against his palm with a wicked smile, “half of you will form gossip clusters and the rest will be stranded, I’ll be assigning partners.”

A collective groan rose from the class.

Gojo’s smile only widened. “Which means, Kugisaki, you’re with Tanaka. Ino with Takagi…”

Names kept dropping, one after another.

Then Gojo’s finger slowed on the attendance sheet. He paused, just long enough to be dramatic, and Yuji had the sudden sinking feeling of watching a roulette ball click into place.

“And,” Gojo said sweetly, “Fushiguro with Itadori.”

Yuji blinked. For half a second he convinced himself he’d misheard. Out of all the thirty-something possible names after Fushiguro, Gojo had to say his. The one Yuji had looked at, what, three times total, and every single time his body had reacted like someone had pointed a loaded gun at him that only he could see.

“Cool. Same. Obviously.” Yuji cringed at his own filler words. “Everyone has Line. Wow, that was a stupid thing to say.” 

Megumi’s expression didn’t change. “QR,” he said.

Right. QR. Simple. 

Yuji unlocked his phone. Or tried to. His thumb missed. Then he opened the camera instead of the app. Then, inexplicably, the calculator. His brain watched this happen in slow motion and offered no assistance. Finally, mercifully, the Line QR screen popped up.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “My phone’s, uh… nervous around new people.”

“That’s not how phones work,” Megumi replied flatly.

“Mine does,” Yuji said weakly, feeling the heat creep up his neck.

He held up his QR code.

Megumi leaned in just close enough for the scanner to register it. For a moment, Yuji caught the faint scent of his shampoo, some clean, generic thing that should’ve been forgettable. His brain filed it away anyway, like it was cataloguing clues

A small notification bloomed across Yuji’s screen:

Fushiguro Megumi has been added.

Megumi straightened, angling his own phone so Yuji could see his screen now displaying Yuji’s QR code. “Your turn."

“Right. Yeah. Sorry.” Yuji lifted his phone again, leaning in to scan. The corner of Megumi’s desk dug into his ribs. His heart thumped so loudly he had the insane thought that the microphone might pick it up.

Another notification flashed, this time on Megumi’s phone:

Itadori Yuji has been added.

Seeing his own name there, on Megumi’s screen, made something in him lurch, like being written down made this partnership more real than it already felt.

“Okay,” Yuji said, too brightly because he didn’t know how else to sound. “Now if we die at the crosswalk, at least the police will know who to blame for my last messages.”

Megumi stared at him. The sentence caught up to Yuji half a second too late. He heard it again in his head and cringed internally.

“I mean,” he blurted, hands flapping once before he could stop them, “that was a weird joke. Not a death wish.”

Megumi’s eyes narrowed. “Then stop talking about dying.” 

“Right,” Yuji said. “Good note.”

He could feel himself overheating. He tried to breathe slower, in through the nose, out through the mouth, the way Grandpa had shown him when panic got its claws in. 

“So,” Yuji tried again, lowering his voice in hopes of sounding less like a lunatic, “for the actual assignment. When do you want to… you know. Go?”

Megumi glanced toward the front, like he was making sure Gojo wasn’t about to teleport into their conversation. Gojo was still busy explaining to someone in the second row that near-miss was a valid data category and absolutely not him justifying his teaching style.

“After school,” Megumi said finally. “Today.”

He had been expecting something with enough distance for him to pretend this feeling in his chest would go away on its own.

“Today?” he repeated. His stomach did a small, confused somersault. “Wow. Okay.”

“We have a deadline,” Megumi said. “Putting it off won’t make the cars slower.”

Yuji briefly considered arguing that, emotionally, procrastination did in fact change the speed of everything in the universe. Then Choso’s voice popped into his head: don’t be stupid, and he decided he wanted to see adulthood.

“Right. Yeah. No, that makes sense.” He nodded too many times. “Today’s good. I’m free.”

That wasn’t exactly true. Choso had told him very clearly, come straight home after school, don’t wander, text me if anything’s weird. But research project didn’t feel like wandering, not really. It felt… necessary. Besides, the tug behind his ribs was already leaning toward yes with way too much enthusiasm.

“Where should we meet?” Yuji asked, forcing his hand to stay on the desk instead of drifting back to his sternum.

“The station,” Megumi said. “Sangenjaya. By the ticket gates. Six.”

“Got it,” Yuji said. “Six at Sangenjaya. I’ll, uh, bring a notebook. And my life-saving instincts.”

“You don’t have those,” Megumi replied immediately, not even bothering to look up as he slipped his phone back into his blazer pocket.

Yuji blinked, caught between offense and admiration. “Wow,” he said, managing a laugh. “Okay. Harsh, but noted.”

Gojo clapped once again, drawing the class’s attention back. “All right, my sardines,” he called cheerfully. “Wrap up your contact exchange!”

A chorus of groans rose from the room. Chairs scraped. Phones disappeared. The buzz of conversation swelled and then slowly thinned as people drifted back to their desks.

Yuji didn’t move right away. He stayed there beside Megumi’s desk for a second too long, fingers fidgeting with the edge of his notebook, like his body hadn’t gotten the memo that the conversation was over.

“So,” he said, because apparently his mouth couldn’t stop making things worse, “just to confirm. Today. Six. Sangenjaya. Try not to die.”

He winced internally as soon as the words left his mouth. It felt like he was trying to staple a joke over a yawning gap.

Megumi’s gaze slid past him toward the board, like focusing on Gojo’s nonsense was less exhausting than dealing with Yuji directly.

“…Yes,” he said finally.

“Cool,” Yuji managed. 

He turned before he could say something else stupid and headed back up the aisle, before dropping into his chair with more force than necessary.

Kugisaki watched him, head tilted, pen paused in her hand. "You look like you just got cursed,” she whispered.

Yuji forced his mouth into something not quite a smile. “Pretty sure it’s just anxiety,” he muttered.

“About him?” she asked. She didn’t bother to glance back; she just jerked her chin in the general direction of the rear window seats.

“I don’t know,” Yuji responded, and it was the closest thing to the truth he had.

Kugisaki snorted softly, satisfied with the answer or maybe just with the strangeness of it. “Well, whatever it is,” she said, uncapping her pen again, “don’t make it my problem.”

Yuji rolled his eyes. He turned back toward the front, forcing his shoulders to unknot one small, stubborn muscle at a time. Tension pooled in the muscles at the base of his neck, and he had to consciously drop his shoulders. Up by the board, Gojo was already off on another tangent about data ethics that somehow involved a near-miss with a dump truck, three pigeons, and a conspiracy about yellow lights. The class laughed in pockets. The normalness of it felt surreal.

Yuji glanced down at his desk, at the empty stretch of notebook paper waiting for him. 

“Okay,” he whispered to himself, just loud enough for the paper to hear, hoping no one else was close enough to overhear. “One thing at a time. Today is… school. Class. People. I’ll figure out the rest later.”

Focus, he told himself again, trying to mimic the tone his grandpa used when Yuji had wanted to skip homework. 

He curled his fingers around his pen, white-knuckle tight for a second, then loosened his grip and forced his hand to move. The pen scratched across the page as he wrote the title in big, dramatic letters—PLACES WHERE BAD THINGS HAPPEN.

Beneath it, in smaller handwriting, he added a line:

Goal: make at least three friends.

He stared at the words for a moment. It felt ridiculous and hopeful and impossible all at once. He almost crossed it out. Instead, he underlined it lightly and moved his pen back up to the title, doodling a tiny gravestone with cartoon eyes beside it. If he pretended it was funny enough, maybe the pressure behind his ribs would ease.

By the time the final bell rang, Yuji was pretty sure the school had personally tried to kill him at least three times and was currently plotting a fourth.

Homeroom had continued through Gojo’s idea of an icebreaker, which apparently meant blindfolding half the class and making them navigate an obstacle course of desks while the other half shouted conflicting directions.

Yuji, still learning the layout of the room, had managed to trip over a chair, knock his shin on a desk, and somehow end up holding a potted plant he did not remember catching. His shin throbbed all morning from the bruise blooming under his uniform pants. His palms still smelled faintly of damp soil and whatever weird fertilizer was in the pot.

Math had involved the teacher calling him up to the board to solve an equation in a notation system he was 70% sure was made up on the spot. He’d stood there, marker poised, brain emitting dial-up noises, until the teacher sighed and said, “Let’s… review,” in a tone that sounded like condolences. 

PE had been dodgeball.

Yuji, objectively athletic, had taken every single hit to the face as if the universe had decided that today was humble him day.

By the third ball, his cheeks were numb from impact. He could still feel the phantom sting of rubber bouncing off his nose hours later.

When he went to splash water on his face afterwards, he caught his reflection in the bathroom mirror and flinched at the red mark across his left cheekbone. “Nice,” he muttered to himself. “Good job, dodging.”

Lunch was a blur of lukewarm cafeteria curry at the edge of a table full of people who already knew where they belonged. Conversations flowed around him in fast, overlapping knots. Kugisaki had waved at him in passing on her way to sit with someone else, which technically counted as social interaction if you were desperate enough.

By the time the last period ended, he’d downgraded his three friends goal to one person who doesn’t actively hate me.

That was when Gojo appeared in the doorway.

“Itadori,” he sing-songed. “Since you’re so full of energy, you’re on classroom cleaning duty this week. Great chance to bond with your environment.”

And then he vanished before Yuji could argue that his environment had already punched him in the face several times.

So now, instead of streaming out of the building with everyone else, Yuji stood in 3–2 with a broom in his hands, watching his freedom evaporate like condensation on a window. 

There were a few others with him at first.

Takagi complained loudly while he lugged the mop bucket down the hall. “I’m not even on duty this week,” he griped to no one in particular.

Ino swept in lazy, half-hearted strokes, humming some pop song under his breath and occasionally using the broom handle as a microphone.

Kugisaki propped a hand on her hip and attacked the back corner with all the righteous fury of someone waging a personal war against dust bunnies.

Megumi was there too, briefly. He stacked the front row desks, wiped down the windowsills with a rag, and somehow made even cleaning look efficient. He didn’t talk to anyone, but his presence bent the air around him just enough that Yuji could always tell when he was on the same side of the room. The tug under Yuji’s ribs quieted and then flared again, like it couldn’t decide whether to relax or brace.

Yuji swept methodically, trying to ignore the way the broom handle vibrated unpleasantly up his wrist whenever he pushed too hard. 

They worked in uneven silence for a while.

At some point, Takagi checked the clock. “I’ve got club,” he said, snapping off his gloves with a dramatic flick. “Floor’s done. I’m out.”

His footsteps echoed down the hall before anyone could respond.

“Same,” Ino added, dropping his broom with a clatter that made Yuji flinch. “If I’m late to practice again, the coach will feed me to the first years.”

He jogged out without looking back.

Kugisaki surveyed her section, decided she’d done more than enough, and tossed her rag into the basket.

"If anyone says this room is still dirty,” she announced, pointing at Yuji with her rag-free hand like she was delivering a curse, “they can lick the floor themselves.” She winked at him, maybe reassuring, maybe threatening, and sauntered out.

Megumi left, too. He finished lining up the front desks, set the cloth back in the bucket, and headed for the door without fanfare.

Yuji, bent over his own row with a broom, looked up. “Hey—”

“I have things to do,” Megumi said, not quite looking at him. 

Before Yuji could ask anything, he was already in the hall, footsteps fading. The door slid shut behind him with a soft click that felt like punctuation.

The door slid shut behind him with a soft click.

Yuji glanced around.

Takagi: gone.

Ino: gone.

Kugisaki: absolutely gone.

“Cool,” Yuji told the empty rows, voice echoing slightly. “Love being the last survivor.”

He imagined the chalkboard tallying up days without incident. Day one: failed.

He shifted his grip on the broom and started shoving dust bunnies out from under the back desks. His spine protested immediately, sending a sharp ache down his lower back. He could hear his grandpa’s voice in his head saying, Bend your knees, not your back, idiot.

After five minutes, his lower back was writing formal complaints to the rest of his body.

After ten, his legs shook like he’d just run suicides in the gym again.

He straightened up too fast and pain shot between his shoulder blades, a bright, stinging arc.

“Ngghhh,” he groaned, arching backward until his back cracked in three separate places. He grimaced at the sound. “I’m eighteen, not eighty. What is this.” 

No one was there to appreciate the performance. 

The broom handle slipped in his sweaty grip and thunked against his thigh. He caught it before it fell and glared at it.

“This is abuse,” he informed the nearest poster.

It was a laminated lab-safety chart, the kind with a generic stick figure in goggles holding a beaker. The little guy stared back at him, as if he’d heard this complaint from generations of students and remained profoundly unmoved.

The broom handle slipped in his sweaty grip and thunked against his thigh. He caught it before it fell and glared at it like it had personally betrayed him.

“This is abuse,” he informed the nearest poster.

It was a laminated lab-safety chart, the kind with a generic stick figure in goggles holding a beaker. The little guy stared back at him with flat, printed neutrality, like he’d heard this complaint from generations of students and remained profoundly unmoved.

“You agree,” Yuji added, tapping the broom handle against the poster’s corner. “I can tell.”

He hunched over again and swept the last of the eraser crumbs, pencil shavings, and miscellaneous floor debris into a pathetic little pile. Each stroke of the broom sent a small electric complaint up his lower back, right between the muscles that had already been wrecked by PE.

“You’re so energetic,” he muttered, slipping into a mocking Gojo voice. “You’re on cleaning duty, Itadori."

The dustpan squealed along the floor as he dragged it over, cheap plastic vibrating in his wrist. He nudged the pile into it with the edge of the broom, wincing when something unidentifiable and faintly sticky came along for the ride. He tipped the dustpan into the trash, tied off the bag with a tug that made his shoulder protest, and hauled it up over one arm. The weight dragged against muscles that were already tired from a full day of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Finally, he wedged the broom back into its corner, balanced the dustpan on top, and let himself sag against the teacher’s desk. His back throbbed in a slow, stubborn pulse. His legs ached. His cheeks still remembered the phantom sting of multiple dodgeballs. His brain felt like it had spent the day tumbling on low spin.

Worst first day ever, he decided, letting his head thunk lightly against the desk, and he still had a crosswalk to face.

Yuji checked the clock above the board and blinked.

4:07 p.m. Already?

He hadn’t realized how long he’d been scrubbing chalk dust off desks until the numbers glowed back at him like an accusation. His phone, when he fished it out of his pocket, agreed. A little notification badge from Fushiguro (projects) sat in the corner of the screen like a reminder: 18:00, Sangenjaya. Two hours.

Plenty of time and not nearly enough, all at once.

He let the phone screen go dark and braced his hands on the nearest desk, taking in the now-spotless classroom. The chairs were tucked in, the windows closed, the board wiped down until his reflection showed faintly in the green. Somewhere in the back of his mind, cleaning had always been a reset button. If he made the room tidy enough, maybe the day would follow. 

“Okay,” he told the empty room. “Game plan. Convenience store. Sugar. Maybe something fried. Then train. Then don’t die in a crosswalk.”

He grabbed his bag from the hook by the back wall and slung it over one shoulder. The strap dug into the bruise his cleaning duty had gifted him, and he winced, not for the first time wishing his muscles would stop reminding him how mortal he was. He flicked the lights off on his way out. 

As he passed the windows that looked out over the courtyard, he slowed.

He felt that low buzzing in his chest again, the one that had reduced to a hum while he’d been cleaning. Now that he wasn’t occupied, he could feel it ramping back up.

He pressed his lips together and kept walking. The tug didn’t control him. He controlled it. He’d go to the convenience store, he decided. He deserved something sweet after cleaning and before the meeting. He needed the sugar to focus. He needed to prove he wasn’t a puppet of his own anxieties. 

At the shoe lockers, he bent to swap out his slippers for his sneakers. One lace was already half-undone from P.E. He stuck his foot in, jammed his heel down, tugged the laces tight with more force than necessary.

“Convenience store,” he muttered, like a promise. “Onigiri, maybe karaage, definitely something sweet.”

He straightened, swung his bag properly onto his shoulder, and pushed through the front doors into the cold. 

The air outside slapped his cheeks awake. The school gate stood ahead, open, framing the street beyond. He could see the top of the convenience store sign from here. For one second, he let himself imagine the warm glow of the aisles, the row of neatly wrapped onigiri, the tiny hot case full of fried chicken. His stomach gave an encouraging little growl. 

He took a step toward it.

The tug behind his ribs yanked like someone had grabbed that imaginary string with a fist and pulled hard.

Yuji stopped so fast his bag swung into his hip. Cold spilled through his chest, down his arms, collecting in his fingers until they tingled. 

When your skin goes cold, you move.

“Yuji Itadori,” he whispered. “Yuji Itadori. Yuji Itadori.” 

His breath fogged in front of his face. Nothing changed. The cold didn’t leave. It shifted up, pressing under his collarbone. His feet felt rooted to the spot. His body wanted to bolt in two directions at once: out the gate toward fluorescent lights and sugar comfort, and back into the building toward… what?

The tug had never actually pointed him like a compass. It was always just pressure. But now it was urgent, pulsing, a fist squeezing and releasing behind his ribs.
 
His gaze dragged upward on its own, as if someone had quietly hooked his chin.

The school building loomed over the courtyard, all dull concrete and rows of windows reflecting the fading sky. Most of them were dark now, but a few still glowed faintly. Above all of that sat the rooftop.

From down here, the roof was just a flat edge and a stretch of chain-link fence, silhouetted against the evening.

And a shape.

At first, his brain tried to file it away as a trick of the light, but then the shape shifted.

Someone was sitting on the outer ledge, beyond the fence. Back to the open drop, legs hanging loosely over four stories of nothing. 

Yuji’s mind flailed for a rational explanation: some maintenance worker? A daredevil first-year? A pile of jackets caught on the wire?

The wind ruffled the blazer, and the figure turned its head slightly, and the outline clicked into a name his body recognized before his brain did.

Fushiguro Megumi.

The cold inside Yuji slammed down another ten degrees.

“Are you kidding me?” he breathed.

Even from this distance, he recognized the ridiculously calm posture in the face of a four-story drop.

The tug behind Yuji’s ribs yanked again, which was a full-body pull that made his knees want to move before his brain could catch up.

Convenience store plans gone.

He spun on his heel, shoved the front doors open again harder than he meant to, and let them slam behind him as he broke into a run down the empty hall.

He’d realize he hadn’t thought about which stairwell to take.

One second, he was in the entryway; the next, he was sprinting down the side corridor, sneakers slapping against tile.

The tug in his chest felt like a fist around his heart, squeezing in time with each footfall.

His mind raced alongside his legs, flipping through every rule his grandpa had taught him, and every risk factor Gojo had jokingly turned into homework.

Don’t ignore the tug.

Identify hazards.

Mitigate your cognitive biases.

How did that apply to someone perched on a roof?

By the time he hit the first flight of stairs, his breathing had gone uneven.

Second-floor landing.

He took the turn too fast, hand sliding along the rail, palm stinging. The pain behind his sternum hurt with each step up, like whatever invisible string lived there was being dragged over teeth.

“Yuji Itadori,” he gasped under his breath, the words tripping over his heartbeat. “Yuji Itadori, Yuji—”

Nothing eased.

The third floor’s door flashed past like a checkpoint. His legs started to complain, but the tug was all up, up, up, so he kept going.

By the time he reached the last set of stairs, a dull burn had settled in his thighs. His back flashed its own little protest where cleaning duty had already abused it. None of it mattered.

The world had narrowed to the concrete under his feet and the rooftop door ahead. He hit it with his shoulder. The door slammed open so hard it rebounded off the stopper, metal shrieking. 

The rooftop spread out in front of him, and there, exactly where he’d seen from the ground, was Megumi.

He sat on the outer ledge, beyond the fence. He had one knee pulled up loosely, one leg hanging out over nothing, blazer ruffling in the wind like it was trying to tug him off balance. His head was tipped slightly down. A thin wire disappeared under his collar; one white earbud sat in his ear, the other dangling against his chest.

From a distance, he’d looked calm.

From here, he looked like a problem set designed specifically for Yuji’s cardiovascular system.

The pain in Yuji’s chest flared so hard he actually staggered, one hand flying up to press against his ribs like he could physically hold himself together.

“Fushiguro!” he yelled, voice cracking on the second syllable. “What the hell are you doing?”

Megumi's shoulders flinched, heel skidding a fraction on concrete as he twisted to look. His weight tipped the wrong way for a second.

Yuji’s own knees nearly gave out.

Don’t startle the guy on the ledge, he thought wildly, every nerve ending lighting up. Great job. A-plus instincts.

Megumi’s hand shot out, fingers catching the chain-link fence with a metallic rattle. He steadied, planted his other foot more firmly, and stared across the rooftop at Yuji like he’d just interrupted something deeply annoying. He yanked his loose bud out and let it drop against his blazer, eyes narrowing.

“…What are you doing?” he shot back.

Yuji’s lungs scrambled to catch up to reality. The cold sat heavy in his chest, not loosening, pressing up under his collarbones like a weight. His hands were shaking.

“What am I—?” he sputtered, taking a few steps forward without meaning to. “You’re—you’re on the wrong side of the fence!”

Megumi blinked slowly as if he genuinely hadn’t considered that detail worth mentioning. He glanced down at the drop, then back at Yuji. “I’m sitting. You’re yelling.”

“You’re sitting over a four-story fall,” Yuji hissed. “With earbuds in.”

“Just one,” Megumi corrected.

The tug in Yuji’s chest pulled again, harder, like his body was trying to drag him across the rooftop physically. Every superstition his grandpa had ever muttered about heights and edges and places the wind collects wrong crowded into his brain at once. His skin prickled all over. The air felt too thin. He took another step closer before he decided to.

“Get back inside the fence,” he blurted. “Seriously. Please. What are you doing out there?”

Megumi’s gaze slid away, toward the distant skyline as if the city lights were more interesting than the panic in Yuji’s voice. His jaw set in a mule-headed way that made Yuji want to shake him. “I like the breeze,” he muttered at last. “It’s quieter out here.”

“Quieter?” Yuji sputtered, incredulous. His mind supplied a dozen images of worst-case scenarios in quick succession—Megumi’s foot slipping, Megumi tumbling, the sickening sound of a body hitting concrete. He swallowed hard. “What, you can’t hear me having a heart attack?”

Megumi didn’t answer. He adjusted his grip on the rusted rail he straddled, legs still swinging over nothing, and shrugged one shoulder.

Yuji watched the easy motion and felt his skin crawl. How was he so calm? How could he not feel that magnetic pull toward safety that tugged at Yuji’s gut?

He took another cautious step, palms sweating. “Fine,” he said through gritted teeth, trying to keep the wobble out of his voice. “If you won’t move, I’m coming to get you.”

And if one of us falls, at least it won’t just be you, his mind added before he could stop it. 

Megumi’s head snapped back around, eyes widening as he seemed to register Yuji’s intent. “Itadori—”

“Fuck it,” Yuji breathed, more to steel himself than anything.

He threw a leg over the fence, fingers tightening on the top rail until they hurt. The metal vibrated faintly under his weight.

This is stupid, he thought dimly. This is monumentally stupid.

For one heart-stopping moment, his foot slipped, the world tilting violently as his grip faltered. Yuji’s stomach lurched; the drop below yawned up at him like an open mouth. He felt the thin edge of the ledge scrape his sneaker and thought, this is how headlines are made: Idiot Teen Falls Off Building Saving Bigger Idiot.

Megumi’s hand shot out instinctively, fingers snagging the sleeve of Yuji’s jacket. “Are you insane?” he snapped. “Get back!”

“I’m trying,” Yuji grunted, scrambling to find purchase.

His sneaker caught on the thin ledge, but not before his weight pitched precariously toward open space. The wind roared in his ears; every instinct screamed at him to retreat, but his body was already moving forward.

Megumi’s grip on him tightened painfully, anchoring him just enough that he could haul himself over the rest of the way. Both of them lurched forward as Yuji’s momentum carried them. It seemed like they might tumble right over the edge. Yuji’s thoughts went quiet. There was only the sensation of gravity pulling the wrong way.

Megumi jerked him toward the safer side with more strength than his lean frame suggested.

Yuji’s hand fumbled for the fence, grabbing onto cold metal as his other leg swung over. He registered the way the old iron groaned under their combined weight. Another part of his brain—one that wasn’t currently screaming—made a mental note to tell someone about the rusty fence.

Then their balance tipped—not outward but back—and they went sprawling in an ungainly heap onto the rooftop concrete with a thud.

He couldn’t breathe. Panic fluttered in his chest as he stared up at the gray sky, fighting the instinct to gasp like a fish out of water.

Beside him, Megumi was similarly sprawled, one arm trapped awkwardly under Yuji’s shoulder.

Yuji let the cold of the concrete seep through his clothes, grounding him, trying to remind his body that it was on solid ground and not still hovering over the abyss. The world spun for a second before settling.

“You dumbass,” Megumi hissed as soon as he could speak, yanking his arm free and shoving Yuji’s shoulder. “What was that?”

“Me saving your ass,” Yuji shot back between ragged breaths. He pushed himself up onto his elbows and glared at Megumi, who was glaring right back. His lungs still burned, but indignation bubbled up anyway. “You were the one out there acting like you had nine lives.”

“I was fine!” Megumi protested, cheeks flushed from exertion. “You almost fell.”

You almost made me fall, Yuji thought reflexively, but he swallowed it, because that wasn’t fair. He sat up fully and rubbed his elbow where it had smacked against the ground, wincing.

“You almost made me fall,” he said anyway, because his mouth often operated faster than his sense of diplomacy. “You can’t just sit out there like it’s a park bench!”

“Oh, so now you care about safety?” Megumi snapped, scooting away just enough to prop himself against the fence. Yuji could see his hands shaking slightly before he clenched them into fists. “You climbed over a roof railing, Itadori. You—”

“And you were hanging over a four-story drop,” Yuji interrupted, his voice rising. “With one earbud in, like you’d hear me scream if you slipped. Do you know how dumb that is?” He could hear his grandpa in his head again—scolding, but with love. He wondered if this was what he sounded like now.

They glared at each other, both breathing hard.

Yuji felt his heartbeat start to steady, the rush of fear slowly ebbing now that they were both securely on the right side of the fence. The absurdity of it hit him suddenly. He let out a shaky laugh that he couldn’t stop, the sound bubbling up from somewhere deep and breaking the tension. Once it started, he couldn’t seem to rein it in. He looked over and found Megumi watching him with the same baffled incredulity.

“What,” Megumi said, slower this time, like maybe Yuji didn’t speak the same language, “is wrong with you?”

Yuji blinked up at the washed-out sky. He wanted to laugh it off, but his mouth felt dry. His dignity was in pieces somewhere on the other side of the fence; his brain was trying to rearrange them into a coherent answer. A flush still colored Megumi’s cheeks—a post-adrenaline pink that made him look more alive and more off-balance than Yuji had seen all day.  Good. Yuji exhaled shakily. Great. That was good.

“I’m… having a weird day,” he offered.

“That’s not an answer,” Megumi said.

“It’s the only one I’ve got,” Yuji admitted.

He swallowed and forced himself upright, wincing as his back and newly-bruised elbow complained. Grit clung to his palms. He brushed them off, noticed that his hands were still trembling, and quickly stuffed them under his thighs like hiding them would hide the whole mess of feeling. He resisted the urge to crack a joke about his hands moving on their own. This didn’t feel like a moment for levity. 

Megumi’s gaze flicked to Yuji’s shaking fingers. His own brows knit together for a fraction of a second, then smoothed as he looked away, as if he’d accidentally glimpsed something private. “You climbed a fence,” he said, voice flat with disbelief. “To get to me.”

Yuji tried to laugh. “Yeah. Surprise. I’m also apparently… the world’s worst climber.” 

Megumi’s eyes dropped to the concrete between his knees, jaw working like he was chewing on words he wasn’t sure he should say. “You could’ve fallen,” he said at last, quieter.

“I know,” Yuji said, his own voice dropping. “That’s why I… did it.”

Megumi frowned down at his hands, brow furrowing, and Yuji could practically see the gears turning in his head: stranger on roof, stranger climbs fence, why would anyone do that?

Yuji scratched the side of his neck, suddenly hyper-aware of how close they were and how little they actually knew each other. 

“I mean,” he added, filling the quiet because quiet made him nervous and nervous made him stupid, “you were sitting out there like the ledge was a chair. And my brain just… stopped. It went straight to worst-case scenario and then skipped the part where I think before moving. It does that sometimes.”

He smiled weakly, like that would soften the insanity of what he’d just admitted. He couldn’t tell if Megumi bought it. He couldn’t even tell if he bought it.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Megumi muttered. “Why.” His eyes darted to Yuji’s face, then away, then back, like he was trying to figure out if this was some kind of weird test. He huffed out a breath that wasn’t quite a sigh. “I don’t know you."

Yuji flinched at the reminder. He’d saved him from something that might not have been a threat. He’d done it because he felt a tug, but from Megumi’s perspective, he was just a reckless stranger who’d decided to be his personal net. He didn’t want Megumi to look at him like he was contagious. So he squinted at the fence, at the gap, at the drop beyond it, and said the safest, stupidest version he could manage.

“Because,” he said, “I’ve had enough people disappear on me.”

“…You didn’t know me yesterday,” Megumi said after a moment, and there was something like genuine confusion there. 

Yuji laughed softly. “I don’t have a very strict policy on who I’m allowed to be worried about.”

“That’s… ridiculous,” Megumi said, but the bite wasn’t really there.

“Yeah,” Yuji nodded like he’d been fairly accused. “I get that a lot.”

Megumi’s eyes dropped to his fallen earbud, then to the phone lying beside it. He picked both up slowly, winding the cord around his fingers in careful, deliberate circles. 

He cleared his throat, desperate to shift the mood. “Also,” he blurted, “you saved me too. Which means… we saved each other.”

Megumi’s head snapped up so fast his hair fluttered. He looked horrified. His cheeks, already pink from adrenaline and cold, darkened. “You didn’t—” he started, before looking away immediately.

The silence stretched. Yuji took that as a tiny, pathetic win. At least Megumi hadn’t stood up and walked away. 

“So,” Yuji said, trying to sound normal and probably failing, “Gojo’s assignment. Risk factors. Dangerous points. Near-misses. Patterns.” 

Megumi looked over at him like he’d lost his mind. “You’re thinking about homework right now?"

“I’m coping,” Yuji said quickly. “Let me cope. This is how my brain processes weird shit—turns it into bullet points.” He pointed at the fence with one finger. “First obvious risk factor: this fence is rusty.”

Megumi’s gaze, perhaps involuntarily, followed the gesture.

“The panel’s bent. There’s a gap wide enough for someone to slip through. The concrete ledge is narrow; if it rained, it’d be slick. Wind up here is stronger than you think. There’s no warning sign that isn’t that sad little authorized personnel thing. And the chain on the door downstairs wasn’t locked," Yuji went on.

Megumi’s expression hardened despite himself. “Human factor,” he added quietly, almost involuntarily. 

“Earbuds as a risk factor,” Yuji agreed. He kept his voice gentle. “That’s why you didn’t hear me until I was already being a problem.”

Megumi’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t deny it. He stared out over the city for a long time. Yuji could almost see the calculation happening: pros and cons, risks and returns, annoyance and gratitude. Then Megumi said, “You still shouldn’t have climbed.”

“Yeah.” Yuji nodded. He swallowed the urge to defend himself, felt it settle in his chest alongside the bigger ache. “And you shouldn’t come up here alone.”

Megumi’s eyes cut back to him, narrow with suspicion and maybe a hint of embarrassment.

Yuji hastened to add, “Gojo was right. It’s more effective with a buddy system.” 

Megumi’s lips twitched like he’d heard something funny despite himself. He shifted, his shoulder brushing Yuji’s for a split second before he could stop it. He immediately pulled back, cheeks darkening further. “Yeah.”

Yuji felt the knot of tension ease another notch. He could still sense that strange tug inside him, but it wasn’t screaming anymore. It had settled into something coiled and watchful, like it had gotten what it wanted for now. He wiped his palm on his pants, trying to steady his voice and still his shaking.

“We can write this up instead,” he said. “It’s practically a textbook case of an AB-level risk scenario.”

Megumi’s mouth twisted. “Gojo will use it to tease us in front of the first-years." 

“Maybe,” Yuji conceded. “But it’s better than pretending nothing happened. We made it worse, and we made it better. That’s data. And if he asks, we leave names out of it.” He shot Megumi a sideways look. “We can even say it was hypothetical. Hypothetically, someone climbs a fence…”

Megumi huffed through his nose. “Fine,” he said. “But you’re writing the first draft.”

“Deal,” Yuji said, smiling despite himself.