[ When Sukuna raises an eyebrow; or actually, when he makes any expression at all (and he doesโ all the time; there is a multitude of Sukuna expressions in his repertoire; ranging from the bawdy to the outright ridiculous)โall of the tattoos on his face move along with it as if in emphases, like the sliding, rippling pelts of tigers. His eyebrow arches now, the strange, sharp symbol at the center of his forehead shifting over to one side along with the pull of skin. ]
Am I boring you, Fushiguro Megumi? [ He sits back in his seat, not even looking mad about it. He watches the boy breathe against the window, the faintest cloud blurring the glass as if he wishes to keep even his own breath to himself. Sukuna's lip curls; he doesn't take his eyes off the boy. ]
I suspect you're used to this sort of thing.
[ This sort of thing. He waves a hand in the air as if to encompass whatever exactly that means. Being sent home with the various clientele and allies and enemies of the Gojo clan. Being in cars with yakuza of ill-repute.
A shrug. ]
My, my. I suppose I'll have to work harder to entertain you.
[ With Sukuna: this could mean a whole array of things. Whether they are or aren't goodโ well. It would be a very small, very specific lot that would be pleased to hear that. Particularly given his reputation.
But stillโ there is no real compulsion in him to torment the boy; there's a quietness to Megumi that does not actually irritate or cause issue with him. It's quietness combined with gentleness that he senses from him; and some faint, near-dead part of his heart knows that the boy's hands would be cool and that he'd be kind and attentive, that he'd be able to lay his head in the boy's narrow lap and feel those hands on his face. Dangerous, he thinks. There's a good reason why Gojo is infatuated with him, why it's Megumi who is his trump card in the long-running cold war against Sukuna's faction.
The car pulls into a vast, upscale hotel building, driving through the below-ground tunnel with its golden lights, to the double doors that slide open; staff standing on either side. Sukuna's men are out first, to open the door.
The yakuza steps out with a roll of his shoulders, and offers a hand to help Megumi on the step down. ]
Don't think I forgot your question.
[ He's keeping his voice low; that treacherous, throaty purr, just for Megumi, hand still out in offer. ]
And yes, what you enjoy does matter.
[ There are two ways to say that; Sukuna chooses the latter: full of implication, and a smirking, teasing glint of teeth in his crook of a smile. ]
[ it is not his first time hearing those words. throughout his life, gojou satoru has said them to him almost like an incantation, as if he truly cares that megumi understand this on a level that goes beyond the textbook meaning and enters something more experiential. sometimes it would sound as if they were different words anyway, 'what you enjoy does matter' becoming 'you can be honest' becoming 'trust me'. it is not that megumi does not want to trust satoru; he already does in many ways, or he would not have entered the situation he has been in nor the one he is in now. the flicker flame of blue diamonds like not-yet dead stars is a physical acknowledgment of that trust. he can't say the same for how he feels regarding the offered hand, but that is not what troubles him most.
here and there, time and again, fushiguro megumi gets blindsided by something he cannot afford to name.
a memory buried: a man who megumi resembles holding him both tight and impossibly careful as if he's never been able to protect a single thing that truly mattered to him in his life. megumi does not recall. but the feeling remains. there is that phrase: sometimes even if the mind forgets, the body remembers. sometimes megumi wakes with his hand seeming to be reaching for that which has not been there for long enough to be forgotten; it hurts.
or: the curl of satoru's long slender fingers at the back of his neck grounding him rather than irritating him, suddenly so sharp and prevalent megumi can feel how he breathes and how he does not only look but truly sees him in a way that is so overwhelming as to thieve the breath out of him entirely. words that accompany such moments: "there you are." still here. still as close to belonging as he's ever been; a function and a role is as good as anyone gets in this world perhaps.
or: this, the lick of a flame at his ankles embodied in an outstretched hand and eyes that never seem to leave him.
if megumi were an animal, some would say he would be a dog and others a cat and neither would be wrong. some would say he would be extremely loyal and they would not be wrong. and some would say if you leave him alone in the truest sense of the word for long enough, he'll suffer even if he never says so, even if that life-or-death loyalty simply locks him into a self-possessed waiting room. a dog. a cat. a boy in an alley or in an estate or at the wealth clad foot of a yakuza's metropolitan domain. these are not different things and that is the problem.
that is the danger.
despite his best effort, megumi looks away. his hand reaches out not even a breath before retracting and letting himself out of the car, standing of his own accord, and managing with an old courtesan's grace to somehow step out in front of sukuna without conveying offense. pale hands stay folded behind his back and his head is inclined not so much in respect but an effort to keep his gaze somewhere away from that smile and the effect of a focus so singular impressed upon him. ]
I admit I don't follow. I am not here for you to entertain me, though I am here by your request.
[ this he says as quiet as a shrug, mild and true; the moon reflecting back the sun because that is what it does. at the same time, he does not outright offer to entertain the yakuza lord either. ]
[ Sukuna says, and his hand, just for a moment, touches very deliberately to the small of Megumi's back; just at the dip of his spine in a casual, though emphatic press. The doors to the building slide open; a private entryway, naturallyโ it looks more like a hotel lobby than anything else, though there's a curious minimalism to the architecture that invokes some hint of a temple in its lofty silence, but the dim, warm lights are those expensive finishes of first class restaurants. Sukuna waves off his cronies, and they disappear back to the car, effectively dismissed, and he steers Megumi, a hand briefly guiding him by the point of his shoulder, towards a line of tall elevator doors. ]
You're like those kabukicho girls, the hostesses.
[ He glances at Megumi, sidelong, and smiles; a little crooked, his tattoos shifting as he does, exaggerating his expressions to the point that they're nearly comical. ]
You're that type. You know, I heard a storyโ
[ The doors ping, and open to them; the interior of the elevator is no different to the rest of the building; all honeyed lights and a vague hint of some overpriced architect's portfolio. Seeming to feel that he might lose Megumi to a wrong turn, Sukuna steers him here, too, and presses the number for the penthouse (gone seem to be the rules of engagement; the superior is supposed to take the back of the elevator, supposed to leave the pressing of the floor number to the younger or the inferiorโ Sukuna does not have time for those who act like shoguns in their own houses; instead he takes over, wants to do everything himself, by his own hand). ]
A girl in that forty-something clubโ you know the one, the women all have the same surgery. Anyway, [ Heโ seems to like to talk; stories come naturally to Sukuna; his voice belongs to a different time, like an aural relic that does not belong in this modern elevator. ] โa girl gave a client her business card as he left the club, but it was the one that she'd written her customer schedule on the back of, for herself. All of the men had vulgar nicknames, and she'd made sarcastic notes of their conversations, right on the back of her meishi. The guy posted it on the internet because she'd called him baldy.
[ He hisses a soft sound of bemusement, and his hand finds Megumi's lower back again as the floors ping past. ]
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you were a woman, you'd have top spot at those clubs, by virtue of just how much you keep to yourself.
[ Sukuna seems to find this idea rather entertaining, and he eyes Megumi then with an arch look, mood still very agreeable for the moment; hand a warm, companionable slant against his back, thumb drawing back and forth against the fine fabric of the boy's jacket. ]
[ to repeat himself serves little to no purpose, but megumi ends up wondering it anyway: does it matter? he is not here to be known or recognized; he is not anywhere in time or place for such a thing. rather he exists on the stable anchor's curve of his sister's health and his long-lasting history with one gojou satoru. it is that the diamonds in his ears are blue, not zen'in green; it is that the books of stars in his room at any one of gojou's places are reliably from one or the other, with the rare outlier from the one called nanami. his world is small and that world exists in a much bigger marble of a thing the balance of which seems to oscillate in a way he does not care for but also cannot change.
i wonder if anyone in the world knows you at all.
it would not please sukuna to know satoru has already asked him this and that they both have spoken it similarly to him though at very different points in his life: the answer is no. perhaps not even himself, though at least one might argue that the self is often the last to be familiar because we can't help it. whatever the reason, it somehow has little bearing on megumi's answer, which, when he raises his head to glance up mildly, is the same soft-spoken neutrality as before. ]
How many people in the world know you?
[ how a question can be neutral, one would have to enact a conversation with megumi's tone incarnate. but somehow he manages, not stepping 'away' from sukuna's hand so much as stepping towards the elevator doors as they open.
a slight turn of his head has light catching on the blue in his ears as the green in his eyes, refracts the colors back into each other until they are casts of the originals. anything of sukuna's is neither impressive nor unimpressive. it is not like megumi has never been in the penthouse of someone with power and money; he is gojou satoru's ward after all. well. "ward". if anything bothers him now, it is how his own mind keeps returning to how satoru set this up despite asking him without asking: is this okay? does he not know him well enough now to understand? megumi who says 'no' day to day has done himself a disservice it may be, in that when it matters most, 'no' is not something in his wheelhouse, not in the position of one who may serve a purpose. how could he?
his preoccupation might do better to focus on the man behind him, but it is that distinct lack of fear in the ex-zen'in that keeps him from doing so. if the warmth of sukuna's hand at his back almost seemed to burn, well, no matter. and if the notion that he is not to be returned also felt too true than boast, well, he must handle that when it comes to pass.
megumi has a habit.
he tells himself things are fine. he tells himself things are fine. he tells himself things are fine.
it's fine.
outside, so high up, here is the delusion of touching the sky but megumi knows better than that.
[ And for an answer like that, he certainly does flash a grin that turns the whole thing on its head. The expression melts in a moment, turning into a put-upon moue. ]
Maybe I'll tell you a thing or two. If you ask me, very nicely.
[ And then, the boy is away from him; slippery thing, this oneโ he likes the idea of taking Gojo Satoru's toys, but he also doesn't like it when they don't play along. Orโ well. He could learn to like this one, he supposes; he likes pretty things; likes collectables. But also the impression of gentleness has not faded yet, and he has the feeling that this boy is precious to the clan head for a reason that he has not yet fathomed, but has the outline of set in his mind. Some men do not understand what it is that they have; he suspects that this is the case here.
He wonders, if Megumi belonged to him in the way he does to the Gojo clan, if he would part from him so easily.
There's an answer for that almost immediately: what has Ryomen Sukuna ever let go of that does not have bloodied claw marks raked through it?
He's no bleeding heart, but he has always been a jealous man.
The doors open to reveal the penthouse; that same dim lighting stretching along the length of an open-plan, vast suite. It's rather showy, of course; the walls are hung with kimono and tapestries that probably were stolen from a museum, but also potentially bought on an auction so private that even the museums were unaware of them. There's a certain Japanese sensibility in the place; Sukuna seems fond of thisโ a lot of yakuza fancy themselves more modern, these days, like to parade around in suites at the Ritz-Carlton in Roppongi, or at the top of the Grand Hyatt, but his lair seems more like a transplant from an old temple; something cut from much older flesh and stitched a bit roughly into the facade of a very sleek Shinjuku skyscraper.
Well.
First thing's first.
He walks up, behind Megumi, closing the space between them to take his jacket. The mobster leans in, speaks against the boy's ear in his drawling, purred voice: ] I think it'll be better for you if you take out those earrings and put them somewhere for safe keeping.
[ The suit jacket he sets aside, over the back of an armchair (mid-century modern; he's got a few expensive looking pieces that don't appear to be antique).
He doesn't back off though, stalking in, close once more, but not touching. ]
Or I'll take them out for you.
[ Bloodied ears won't be as pretty, but hey. Anything to upset the Gojo lot. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Am I boring you, Fushiguro Megumi? [ He sits back in his seat, not even looking mad about it. He watches the boy breathe against the window, the faintest cloud blurring the glass as if he wishes to keep even his own breath to himself. Sukuna's lip curls; he doesn't take his eyes off the boy. ]
I suspect you're used to this sort of thing.
[ This sort of thing. He waves a hand in the air as if to encompass whatever exactly that means. Being sent home with the various clientele and allies and enemies of the Gojo clan. Being in cars with yakuza of ill-repute.
A shrug. ]
My, my. I suppose I'll have to work harder to entertain you.
[ With Sukuna: this could mean a whole array of things. Whether they are or aren't goodโ well. It would be a very small, very specific lot that would be pleased to hear that. Particularly given his reputation.
But stillโ there is no real compulsion in him to torment the boy; there's a quietness to Megumi that does not actually irritate or cause issue with him. It's quietness combined with gentleness that he senses from him; and some faint, near-dead part of his heart knows that the boy's hands would be cool and that he'd be kind and attentive, that he'd be able to lay his head in the boy's narrow lap and feel those hands on his face. Dangerous, he thinks. There's a good reason why Gojo is infatuated with him, why it's Megumi who is his trump card in the long-running cold war against Sukuna's faction.
The car pulls into a vast, upscale hotel building, driving through the below-ground tunnel with its golden lights, to the double doors that slide open; staff standing on either side. Sukuna's men are out first, to open the door.
The yakuza steps out with a roll of his shoulders, and offers a hand to help Megumi on the step down. ]
Don't think I forgot your question.
[ He's keeping his voice low; that treacherous, throaty purr, just for Megumi, hand still out in offer. ]
And yes, what you enjoy does matter.
[ There are two ways to say that; Sukuna chooses the latter: full of implication, and a smirking, teasing glint of teeth in his crook of a smile. ]
no subject
here and there, time and again, fushiguro megumi gets blindsided by something he cannot afford to name.
a memory buried: a man who megumi resembles holding him both tight and impossibly careful as if he's never been able to protect a single thing that truly mattered to him in his life. megumi does not recall. but the feeling remains. there is that phrase: sometimes even if the mind forgets, the body remembers. sometimes megumi wakes with his hand seeming to be reaching for that which has not been there for long enough to be forgotten; it hurts.
or: the curl of satoru's long slender fingers at the back of his neck grounding him rather than irritating him, suddenly so sharp and prevalent megumi can feel how he breathes and how he does not only look but truly sees him in a way that is so overwhelming as to thieve the breath out of him entirely. words that accompany such moments: "there you are." still here. still as close to belonging as he's ever been; a function and a role is as good as anyone gets in this world perhaps.
or: this, the lick of a flame at his ankles embodied in an outstretched hand and eyes that never seem to leave him.
if megumi were an animal, some would say he would be a dog and others a cat and neither would be wrong. some would say he would be extremely loyal and they would not be wrong. and some would say if you leave him alone in the truest sense of the word for long enough, he'll suffer even if he never says so, even if that life-or-death loyalty simply locks him into a self-possessed waiting room. a dog. a cat. a boy in an alley or in an estate or at the wealth clad foot of a yakuza's metropolitan domain. these are not different things and that is the problem.
that is the danger.
despite his best effort, megumi looks away. his hand reaches out not even a breath before retracting and letting himself out of the car, standing of his own accord, and managing with an old courtesan's grace to somehow step out in front of sukuna without conveying offense. pale hands stay folded behind his back and his head is inclined not so much in respect but an effort to keep his gaze somewhere away from that smile and the effect of a focus so singular impressed upon him. ]
I admit I don't follow. I am not here for you to entertain me, though I am here by your request.
[ this he says as quiet as a shrug, mild and true; the moon reflecting back the sun because that is what it does. at the same time, he does not outright offer to entertain the yakuza lord either. ]
no subject
[ Sukuna says, and his hand, just for a moment, touches very deliberately to the small of Megumi's back; just at the dip of his spine in a casual, though emphatic press. The doors to the building slide open; a private entryway, naturallyโ it looks more like a hotel lobby than anything else, though there's a curious minimalism to the architecture that invokes some hint of a temple in its lofty silence, but the dim, warm lights are those expensive finishes of first class restaurants. Sukuna waves off his cronies, and they disappear back to the car, effectively dismissed, and he steers Megumi, a hand briefly guiding him by the point of his shoulder, towards a line of tall elevator doors. ]
You're like those kabukicho girls, the hostesses.
[ He glances at Megumi, sidelong, and smiles; a little crooked, his tattoos shifting as he does, exaggerating his expressions to the point that they're nearly comical. ]
You're that type. You know, I heard a storyโ
[ The doors ping, and open to them; the interior of the elevator is no different to the rest of the building; all honeyed lights and a vague hint of some overpriced architect's portfolio. Seeming to feel that he might lose Megumi to a wrong turn, Sukuna steers him here, too, and presses the number for the penthouse (gone seem to be the rules of engagement; the superior is supposed to take the back of the elevator, supposed to leave the pressing of the floor number to the younger or the inferiorโ Sukuna does not have time for those who act like shoguns in their own houses; instead he takes over, wants to do everything himself, by his own hand). ]
A girl in that forty-something clubโ you know the one, the women all have the same surgery. Anyway, [ Heโ seems to like to talk; stories come naturally to Sukuna; his voice belongs to a different time, like an aural relic that does not belong in this modern elevator. ] โa girl gave a client her business card as he left the club, but it was the one that she'd written her customer schedule on the back of, for herself. All of the men had vulgar nicknames, and she'd made sarcastic notes of their conversations, right on the back of her meishi. The guy posted it on the internet because she'd called him baldy.
[ He hisses a soft sound of bemusement, and his hand finds Megumi's lower back again as the floors ping past. ]
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you were a woman, you'd have top spot at those clubs, by virtue of just how much you keep to yourself.
[ Sukuna seems to find this idea rather entertaining, and he eyes Megumi then with an arch look, mood still very agreeable for the moment; hand a warm, companionable slant against his back, thumb drawing back and forth against the fine fabric of the boy's jacket. ]
I wonder if anyone in the world knows you at all.
no subject
i wonder if anyone in the world knows you at all.
it would not please sukuna to know satoru has already asked him this and that they both have spoken it similarly to him though at very different points in his life: the answer is no. perhaps not even himself, though at least one might argue that the self is often the last to be familiar because we can't help it. whatever the reason, it somehow has little bearing on megumi's answer, which, when he raises his head to glance up mildly, is the same soft-spoken neutrality as before. ]
How many people in the world know you?
[ how a question can be neutral, one would have to enact a conversation with megumi's tone incarnate. but somehow he manages, not stepping 'away' from sukuna's hand so much as stepping towards the elevator doors as they open.
a slight turn of his head has light catching on the blue in his ears as the green in his eyes, refracts the colors back into each other until they are casts of the originals. anything of sukuna's is neither impressive nor unimpressive. it is not like megumi has never been in the penthouse of someone with power and money; he is gojou satoru's ward after all. well. "ward". if anything bothers him now, it is how his own mind keeps returning to how satoru set this up despite asking him without asking: is this okay? does he not know him well enough now to understand? megumi who says 'no' day to day has done himself a disservice it may be, in that when it matters most, 'no' is not something in his wheelhouse, not in the position of one who may serve a purpose. how could he?
his preoccupation might do better to focus on the man behind him, but it is that distinct lack of fear in the ex-zen'in that keeps him from doing so. if the warmth of sukuna's hand at his back almost seemed to burn, well, no matter. and if the notion that he is not to be returned also felt too true than boast, well, he must handle that when it comes to pass.
megumi has a habit.
he tells himself things are fine. he tells himself things are fine. he tells himself things are fine.
it's fine.
outside, so high up, here is the delusion of touching the sky but megumi knows better than that.
and it's fine.
it's all fine. ]
no subject
[ And for an answer like that, he certainly does flash a grin that turns the whole thing on its head. The expression melts in a moment, turning into a put-upon moue. ]
Maybe I'll tell you a thing or two. If you ask me, very nicely.
[ And then, the boy is away from him; slippery thing, this oneโ he likes the idea of taking Gojo Satoru's toys, but he also doesn't like it when they don't play along. Orโ well. He could learn to like this one, he supposes; he likes pretty things; likes collectables. But also the impression of gentleness has not faded yet, and he has the feeling that this boy is precious to the clan head for a reason that he has not yet fathomed, but has the outline of set in his mind. Some men do not understand what it is that they have; he suspects that this is the case here.
He wonders, if Megumi belonged to him in the way he does to the Gojo clan, if he would part from him so easily.
There's an answer for that almost immediately: what has Ryomen Sukuna ever let go of that does not have bloodied claw marks raked through it?
He's no bleeding heart, but he has always been a jealous man.
The doors open to reveal the penthouse; that same dim lighting stretching along the length of an open-plan, vast suite. It's rather showy, of course; the walls are hung with kimono and tapestries that probably were stolen from a museum, but also potentially bought on an auction so private that even the museums were unaware of them. There's a certain Japanese sensibility in the place; Sukuna seems fond of thisโ a lot of yakuza fancy themselves more modern, these days, like to parade around in suites at the Ritz-Carlton in Roppongi, or at the top of the Grand Hyatt, but his lair seems more like a transplant from an old temple; something cut from much older flesh and stitched a bit roughly into the facade of a very sleek Shinjuku skyscraper.
Well.
First thing's first.
He walks up, behind Megumi, closing the space between them to take his jacket. The mobster leans in, speaks against the boy's ear in his drawling, purred voice: ] I think it'll be better for you if you take out those earrings and put them somewhere for safe keeping.
[ The suit jacket he sets aside, over the back of an armchair (mid-century modern; he's got a few expensive looking pieces that don't appear to be antique).
He doesn't back off though, stalking in, close once more, but not touching. ]
Or I'll take them out for you.
[ Bloodied ears won't be as pretty, but hey. Anything to upset the Gojo lot. ]
And neither of us will like that.