[ ryomen sukuna exists like a real-life myth. the way people describe him is not unlike how people also speak of gojou satoru — "he who unbalanced the floating world" — but if gojou is the cancelling of its secret gravity then perhaps sukuna is the millennia old earth, its core in its roots neither trees nor blooms but something molten despite its darkness, a night-sun. most people in this world grow up knowing those names and the implications that come chained to them as shadows to the bodies in any given light.
megumi spent six years of his life before that knowing became his own as well.
at gojou's place — well, one of them, — are the animal vestiges of that childhood. he wonders if sukuna would let him have kon, and then he wonders if it would be safe for his oldest friend; by the time the car pulls up, he has already decided not to ask.
standing outside, it is an old practice at this point to ignore the stares. when they go out, business or otherwise, megumi submits himself to gojou's hand and tries not to look too closely at why. if it has anything to do with the rare and strangely gentle contact, if it has anything to do with the look of approval he always receives after, if there are these worn down stones in the river of himself that still want to feel like they serve a purpose; these are their own kinds of gravity and they pool in constant insistence on the subconscious of fushiguro megumi like a black hole.
his heart is conversely an anchor; his morals both dynamic and yet rigid all at once; his actions: decided. debt. proof. worth.
sukuna reminds him of a predatory cat somehow and he wonders if that would be offensive to a man so feared people go out of their ways not to be noticed by him (without success; everyone knows that the rumor that sukuna 'sees everything' is not without basis.) once in the car, megumi both permits and slightly ignores the way there is nothing else to focus on. sukuna and gojou are alike in that way too.
the deft sweep of eyeliner accentuates the shape of megumi's eyes, surprisingly large, unexpectedly green, and always a strange balance of perceived calm and too much thought. he was once told if he kept over-thinking things he would go bald, and that not everything in life had an answer; at the time, he agreed. come to it, he still agrees now, but his perspective has shifted. not everything has an answer, yes; but that does not mean he can stop seeking the chance of it. there are only a handful of things — less — that megumi must do: ensure tsumiki is taken care of, do his best for kon and the rare existence in this city of nue — a bird of prey so large only the gojou 'estate' befits him, despite not being in the city and meaning megumi rarely sees it, repay gojou satoru whatever the cost.
this, tonight, this week, this month, however long, falls into the last.
lowering his gaze to his folded hands, megumi says nothing in reply at first, only after a moment saying, quietly, ]
It is temporary.
[ though his words are polite and mild, the point is sharp and clear. a slight tilt of megumi's head causes the lights outside to catch on his earrings, the facets of them so many and meticulous the sky of them almost seems ablaze. it is at polar contrast with megumi's eyes, still downcast and fanned by his lashes in a way that makes them shadowed and a bit strange though no less pretty. once, gojou told him he couldn't stand to look at him because he looked so much like his father, but that was when megumi was six and things change over nine years.
whether or not megumi ever finds out it was gojou who killed fushiguro toji is yet to be seen.
a soft breath brings into his lungs again the old fire sukuna somehow scents of, like a fire in a forest that's just after rain, deep in the mountains older than any human being, tinged with something that reminds megumi of temples and folklore. he concedes this, however silently: sukuna is as impressive in presence as the hearsay would lead one to believe. but that given, he is still human.
sometimes megumi is not certain he entirely understands what that means either though, and perhaps that says something as to his absence of fear. what he 'recognizes' in sukuna are the animal likenesses and less the human politics of a world such as the one he reigns over.
the way megumi bends his head causes even his bespoke suit to gape at the back of his neck ("megumi-chan eat this, you're wasting away on me." - "shut up please.") and it is little things that often speak most loudly of wealth: take for example, the smoothness of the skin there, everywhere on him in truth, the moon quality of him, the neatly groomed part of his hair that somehow seems unruly but styled, softer in-person than photos seem to convey, trimmed neatly at the nape as if to show off that part of him; and in a way, it is, not so much when he wears the suit as kimono but perhaps that is neither here nor there. suffice to say: gojou takes care of what he deems his.
and megumi, because he cannot help certain parts of himself, holds onto that fact. ]
All things are temporary, [ Sukuna tells the boy, dropping his chin into his palm, and looking at him a bit flatly, though he can't stop one eyebrow from arching, the tattoos moving with it. ] We'll see just where on the scale this is.
[ It's clear enough in the way that the atmosphere of the car halts, that he's not all that pleased with that response. It's not a chill that runs through it so much as the air stops its lazy motion altogether; a feeling, a sense— Sukuna makes the spaces that he inhabits suit him, and they bend for him; turning silent or jovial by turns. The boy is not afraid of him in any way— it's a new thing for the yakuza, he's so inured to terror, used to people cowering from him when he passes, and he likes that; that is the sort of reaction he has worked long and hard to instil (but not so long, and not so hard— not really; the growth there was organic, earned media, if you will. You kill enough people, and the crowds sit up and take notice. He's not some baby bosuzoku with a motorcycle who causes the ojijis to cower at the convenience store counter; he has the city by its throat, the politicians on payroll; this is a career to him, a vocation).
This boy isn't afraid, he thinks. Spoilt in the laps of the Gojo-gumi, he must think he's the prize here.
One pair of green eyes, and a pair of blue diamond earrings, and the child thinks its a princeling. Sukuna has plans to change that view quickly.
He wonders what Gojo will think if he sends the boy back flayed and quartered.
A war would be refreshing, it's been too long since the old clans got to test their mettle in an outright gang war. The eighties were the real days, and the crash muzzled them in the nineties. What a pity, but who knows. He glances over at Megumi, eyeing the boy's fine features. An elegant set, an expensive looking thing. He wants him, naturally, but he wants him in the way that he wants things bought with such a conditional contract that the thing changes form in his hands.
He wants the boy to ask to be brought over, away from his handlers.
That's victory, that's loyalty. He wonders if it's best to win it with the usual cruelty. ]
You think I'll return you?
[ Something nasty enters his voice. The first real sound of the evening— a snarl; it curls in his throat like a claw.
He looks over, eyes catching the light of the passing nightlife: red. Bloodied and red. ]
I don't do business with the Gojo-gumi. There's no deal here.
[ A sneer, and he doesn't touch Megumi at all, chin raising with an imperious tilt. ]
I don't think business is necessary for him to reacquire me.
[ how megumi speaks of himself might be concerning to others, but to megumi himself it is merely fact. it helps in life to know 'what' one is, and if he has to choose a word it would sooner be property than person. if the forest could be contracted by the sea-sky then that would be him and gojou, at a constant proximity of vision, a given. the diamonds in his ears are reminders of it; to whom he belongs. other evidences always fade with time but in megumi's mind they are quite fresh. so sukuna speaks and he hears him, has no doubts that others bend before him with less.
but he is not 'others'.
he meets that gaze mildly with his own, unwavering for now. ]
Rudeness is not my intention. I just think it is important for all of us to be on the same page.
[ only then does he return his focus to the car window, watching lights and shadows as riveting as anything, his hands folded neat and polite in his lap, his back straight and poised in a manner that reeks of how he was 'raised' by gojou not because it is proper but because it is beautiful, and in the modern era — perhaps any era —, beauty is a form of power. not being afraid of sukuna is its own problem and curiosity. he supposes it could be simply explained away by his faith in gojou but somehow it does not feel like that alone.
he wonders what he has to glean in his time with sukuna, what he has to drag back with his own body, to be told he did well; then he loathes himself for wondering.
none of this shows, not exactly. unless sukuna is fluent in seemingly frenetic twitches of megumi's tapered fingers, or a flutter of lashes when he blinks a little too hard for the night hour, maybe some. but even then, not much. a stray versed in strays, in shadows, in quiet places, megumi too is a quiet place, glittering here and there with impressions of both those who are important to him as well as those who deem him important.
Well, then we're on the same page. [ A glance at Megumi, the lights of Shinjuku glancing off of Sukuna's as they drive past the entertainment district. ] See? I can be pleasant. We'll get along just fine.
[ Sukuna's brows arch, and he sits back in his seat, slouching like the oddly casual creature that he is, and his fingers steeple. Whatever that Gojo's lot are up to with this, he doesn't intend to find out. He'll have his fun with the boy, and if he develops a liking for him (too late for that, he supposes; it's the eyes), then he'll keep him. Whether or not Gojo wants him back is besides the point; he'll have to, in Megumi's words, reacquire him.
It's the twitch in the boy's hands that he notices.
Though they are not alike, not in any way— if anything, Sukuna would be the perfect converse to Megumi's gentle calm. Rooms flicker to life or dim as his mood changes; his impression of Megumi is that that atmosphere must turn to a lull; not one of boredom, but one of calm. Though they are not alike— Sukuna knows a stray when he sees one. Having no name himself, having come from a family without history, without a legacy, he was the violent converse of Megumi's path. He'd take it over this sort of un-resistance any day; Sukuna has only ever known how to be a bloodied sword in a crowd; it seems Megumi knows how to be whatever he must be. The twitch in the boy's hands is the quiet tell; he hates this, the whole thing, all of it— perhaps, Sukuna muses, even Sukuna himself. He wonders then, if it is Megumi who will be the one to slip the final knife between his second and third ribs; upward, and to the right.
He leans forwards; sitting up very suddenly, movement like an animal's; acting on a whim that came to him as quickly as the coil of muscle propelled him.
He speaks to the driver, only ever with that lilt of wryness in his tone: ] Take us to the Shinjuku place, not the house.
[ All good yakuza keep a grand estate just outside of Tokyo. He had assumed that Gojo would assume that he would take the boy out there; like a beast dragging something to its den. Well, not so.
Sitting back, he looks over at Megumi, and reaches out, a hand closing on the boy's hand, stilling that very slight tremor. ]
I'll show you the apartment instead. You must be tired of estates and lawns—
[ A beat, then, a stroke of his thumb against the boy's soft wrist. ]
—Gojo's property.
[ Bad joke. He smiles at it (no matter what, he always seems to find himself terribly funny). He takes up that hand in his own, but not to hold, to look at; as one would do with property, his words only ringing truer. ]
Well. Something you have in common with his house, I trust. You enjoy that?
[ there is a part of megumi that wants to answer. there is a part of megumi that never wants to answer. and then there is the space between these parts as if the division of one half of the body and the other, a part not apart. he has the wherewithal to wish he was more offended and the certainty of his debt to cement the fact that he simply is not. property. that is an old term. it seems almost as a criticism and a compliment from sukuna and he does not know why; others have used it and in those instances megumi cringed behind his neutrality and felt foolish for the reassurance of gojou's hand at his waist.
tsumiki once drew constellations on the soft pale flesh of his forearm. she made them up because she said they were his. gojou once made a line with his fingertip from the corner of megumi's eye down to the hollow of his throat and told him he shouldn't trust him. where the appraisal of red eyes and sharp nails falls amongst these memories has yet to be seen. there is no reason for megumi to believe sukuna is interested in him any other way than as a tool in regards to the ongoing not-quite hostility between gangs, clans, and whatever else goes on when he blinks.
he blinks now too, slow, unbothered to the inattentive eye. ]
Does it matter?
[ it ends up being more of a genuine question than he intended, which means he regrets those words; but he does not take them back, instead turning his head away again. to ask what is wanted of him feels pointless; he will find out inevitably or else why is he here to begin with? if he unfocuses his vision, things become soft shadows and lights and the faint presence of smoke or fire he knows is from sukuna, as if he harbors that kind of primordial heat like a mythical being. it is the kind of dark summer that draws shadows in as natural as a breath.
the only other presence as overwhelming as this that megumi has ever experienced was indeed gojou satoru, gojou with his sky eyes and gravityless sensibility of things, satoru who placed his earrings and told him to never take them out, benefactor and...what else? a constant in megumi's life that is neither dog nor bird nor the quiet sense of an empty place that might have been an apartment or an alley or a dark night where everything changed with that terrible silent lack of permission. yet gojou satoru makes sense; it has been nine years.
and despite his sometimes-efforts, megumi is the constellation tsumiki saw him for all those years: trying far out past his actual lifespan.
the vulnerability of caring.
none of it explains the odd draw he feels to the person beside him that is simultaneous to his rejection of him.
it is this awareness that has him leaning his forehead to the window, and when he exhales the window fogs softly like even megumi's breath would rather not be intrusive. this particular angle of his head causes the lights outside to throw the diamonds' refractions out in tiny lances of blue, as if in peculiar warning the way some animals use their colors to entice or discourage, audience depending. ]
[ When Sukuna raises an eyebrow; or actually, when he makes any expression at all (and he does— all the time; there is a multitude of Sukuna expressions in his repertoire; ranging from the bawdy to the outright ridiculous)—all 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 good— well. It would be a very small, very specific lot that would be pleased to hear that. Particularly given his reputation.
But still— 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, naturally— 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 story—
[ 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 inferior— 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 club— you know the one, the women all have the same surgery. Anyway, [ He— 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. ] —a 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 one— he likes the idea of taking Gojo Satoru's toys, but he also doesn't like it when they don't play along. Or— 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 this— 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. ]
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megumi spent six years of his life before that knowing became his own as well.
at gojou's place — well, one of them, — are the animal vestiges of that childhood. he wonders if sukuna would let him have kon, and then he wonders if it would be safe for his oldest friend; by the time the car pulls up, he has already decided not to ask.
standing outside, it is an old practice at this point to ignore the stares. when they go out, business or otherwise, megumi submits himself to gojou's hand and tries not to look too closely at why. if it has anything to do with the rare and strangely gentle contact, if it has anything to do with the look of approval he always receives after, if there are these worn down stones in the river of himself that still want to feel like they serve a purpose; these are their own kinds of gravity and they pool in constant insistence on the subconscious of fushiguro megumi like a black hole.
his heart is conversely an anchor; his morals both dynamic and yet rigid all at once; his actions: decided. debt. proof. worth.
sukuna reminds him of a predatory cat somehow and he wonders if that would be offensive to a man so feared people go out of their ways not to be noticed by him (without success; everyone knows that the rumor that sukuna 'sees everything' is not without basis.) once in the car, megumi both permits and slightly ignores the way there is nothing else to focus on. sukuna and gojou are alike in that way too.
the deft sweep of eyeliner accentuates the shape of megumi's eyes, surprisingly large, unexpectedly green, and always a strange balance of perceived calm and too much thought. he was once told if he kept over-thinking things he would go bald, and that not everything in life had an answer; at the time, he agreed. come to it, he still agrees now, but his perspective has shifted. not everything has an answer, yes; but that does not mean he can stop seeking the chance of it. there are only a handful of things — less — that megumi must do: ensure tsumiki is taken care of, do his best for kon and the rare existence in this city of nue — a bird of prey so large only the gojou 'estate' befits him, despite not being in the city and meaning megumi rarely sees it, repay gojou satoru whatever the cost.
this, tonight, this week, this month, however long, falls into the last.
lowering his gaze to his folded hands, megumi says nothing in reply at first, only after a moment saying, quietly, ]
It is temporary.
[ though his words are polite and mild, the point is sharp and clear. a slight tilt of megumi's head causes the lights outside to catch on his earrings, the facets of them so many and meticulous the sky of them almost seems ablaze. it is at polar contrast with megumi's eyes, still downcast and fanned by his lashes in a way that makes them shadowed and a bit strange though no less pretty. once, gojou told him he couldn't stand to look at him because he looked so much like his father, but that was when megumi was six and things change over nine years.
whether or not megumi ever finds out it was gojou who killed fushiguro toji is yet to be seen.
a soft breath brings into his lungs again the old fire sukuna somehow scents of, like a fire in a forest that's just after rain, deep in the mountains older than any human being, tinged with something that reminds megumi of temples and folklore. he concedes this, however silently: sukuna is as impressive in presence as the hearsay would lead one to believe. but that given, he is still human.
sometimes megumi is not certain he entirely understands what that means either though, and perhaps that says something as to his absence of fear. what he 'recognizes' in sukuna are the animal likenesses and less the human politics of a world such as the one he reigns over.
the way megumi bends his head causes even his bespoke suit to gape at the back of his neck ("megumi-chan eat this, you're wasting away on me." - "shut up please.") and it is little things that often speak most loudly of wealth: take for example, the smoothness of the skin there, everywhere on him in truth, the moon quality of him, the neatly groomed part of his hair that somehow seems unruly but styled, softer in-person than photos seem to convey, trimmed neatly at the nape as if to show off that part of him; and in a way, it is, not so much when he wears the suit as kimono but perhaps that is neither here nor there. suffice to say: gojou takes care of what he deems his.
and megumi, because he cannot help certain parts of himself, holds onto that fact. ]
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[ It's clear enough in the way that the atmosphere of the car halts, that he's not all that pleased with that response. It's not a chill that runs through it so much as the air stops its lazy motion altogether; a feeling, a sense— Sukuna makes the spaces that he inhabits suit him, and they bend for him; turning silent or jovial by turns. The boy is not afraid of him in any way— it's a new thing for the yakuza, he's so inured to terror, used to people cowering from him when he passes, and he likes that; that is the sort of reaction he has worked long and hard to instil (but not so long, and not so hard— not really; the growth there was organic, earned media, if you will. You kill enough people, and the crowds sit up and take notice. He's not some baby bosuzoku with a motorcycle who causes the ojijis to cower at the convenience store counter; he has the city by its throat, the politicians on payroll; this is a career to him, a vocation).
This boy isn't afraid, he thinks. Spoilt in the laps of the Gojo-gumi, he must think he's the prize here.
One pair of green eyes, and a pair of blue diamond earrings, and the child thinks its a princeling. Sukuna has plans to change that view quickly.
He wonders what Gojo will think if he sends the boy back flayed and quartered.
A war would be refreshing, it's been too long since the old clans got to test their mettle in an outright gang war. The eighties were the real days, and the crash muzzled them in the nineties. What a pity, but who knows. He glances over at Megumi, eyeing the boy's fine features. An elegant set, an expensive looking thing. He wants him, naturally, but he wants him in the way that he wants things bought with such a conditional contract that the thing changes form in his hands.
He wants the boy to ask to be brought over, away from his handlers.
That's victory, that's loyalty. He wonders if it's best to win it with the usual cruelty. ]
You think I'll return you?
[ Something nasty enters his voice. The first real sound of the evening— a snarl; it curls in his throat like a claw.
He looks over, eyes catching the light of the passing nightlife: red. Bloodied and red. ]
I don't do business with the Gojo-gumi. There's no deal here.
[ A sneer, and he doesn't touch Megumi at all, chin raising with an imperious tilt. ]
You're out of luck, boy. You're mine.
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[ how megumi speaks of himself might be concerning to others, but to megumi himself it is merely fact. it helps in life to know 'what' one is, and if he has to choose a word it would sooner be property than person. if the forest could be contracted by the sea-sky then that would be him and gojou, at a constant proximity of vision, a given. the diamonds in his ears are reminders of it; to whom he belongs. other evidences always fade with time but in megumi's mind they are quite fresh. so sukuna speaks and he hears him, has no doubts that others bend before him with less.
but he is not 'others'.
he meets that gaze mildly with his own, unwavering for now. ]
Rudeness is not my intention. I just think it is important for all of us to be on the same page.
[ only then does he return his focus to the car window, watching lights and shadows as riveting as anything, his hands folded neat and polite in his lap, his back straight and poised in a manner that reeks of how he was 'raised' by gojou not because it is proper but because it is beautiful, and in the modern era — perhaps any era —, beauty is a form of power. not being afraid of sukuna is its own problem and curiosity. he supposes it could be simply explained away by his faith in gojou but somehow it does not feel like that alone.
he wonders what he has to glean in his time with sukuna, what he has to drag back with his own body, to be told he did well; then he loathes himself for wondering.
none of this shows, not exactly. unless sukuna is fluent in seemingly frenetic twitches of megumi's tapered fingers, or a flutter of lashes when he blinks a little too hard for the night hour, maybe some. but even then, not much. a stray versed in strays, in shadows, in quiet places, megumi too is a quiet place, glittering here and there with impressions of both those who are important to him as well as those who deem him important.
even if he does not know it. ]
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[ Sukuna's brows arch, and he sits back in his seat, slouching like the oddly casual creature that he is, and his fingers steeple. Whatever that Gojo's lot are up to with this, he doesn't intend to find out. He'll have his fun with the boy, and if he develops a liking for him (too late for that, he supposes; it's the eyes), then he'll keep him. Whether or not Gojo wants him back is besides the point; he'll have to, in Megumi's words, reacquire him.
It's the twitch in the boy's hands that he notices.
Though they are not alike, not in any way— if anything, Sukuna would be the perfect converse to Megumi's gentle calm. Rooms flicker to life or dim as his mood changes; his impression of Megumi is that that atmosphere must turn to a lull; not one of boredom, but one of calm. Though they are not alike— Sukuna knows a stray when he sees one. Having no name himself, having come from a family without history, without a legacy, he was the violent converse of Megumi's path. He'd take it over this sort of un-resistance any day; Sukuna has only ever known how to be a bloodied sword in a crowd; it seems Megumi knows how to be whatever he must be. The twitch in the boy's hands is the quiet tell; he hates this, the whole thing, all of it— perhaps, Sukuna muses, even Sukuna himself. He wonders then, if it is Megumi who will be the one to slip the final knife between his second and third ribs; upward, and to the right.
He leans forwards; sitting up very suddenly, movement like an animal's; acting on a whim that came to him as quickly as the coil of muscle propelled him.
He speaks to the driver, only ever with that lilt of wryness in his tone: ] Take us to the Shinjuku place, not the house.
[ All good yakuza keep a grand estate just outside of Tokyo. He had assumed that Gojo would assume that he would take the boy out there; like a beast dragging something to its den. Well, not so.
Sitting back, he looks over at Megumi, and reaches out, a hand closing on the boy's hand, stilling that very slight tremor. ]
I'll show you the apartment instead. You must be tired of estates and lawns—
[ A beat, then, a stroke of his thumb against the boy's soft wrist. ]
—Gojo's property.
[ Bad joke. He smiles at it (no matter what, he always seems to find himself terribly funny). He takes up that hand in his own, but not to hold, to look at; as one would do with property, his words only ringing truer. ]
Well. Something you have in common with his house, I trust. You enjoy that?
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tsumiki once drew constellations on the soft pale flesh of his forearm. she made them up because she said they were his. gojou once made a line with his fingertip from the corner of megumi's eye down to the hollow of his throat and told him he shouldn't trust him. where the appraisal of red eyes and sharp nails falls amongst these memories has yet to be seen. there is no reason for megumi to believe sukuna is interested in him any other way than as a tool in regards to the ongoing not-quite hostility between gangs, clans, and whatever else goes on when he blinks.
he blinks now too, slow, unbothered to the inattentive eye. ]
Does it matter?
[ it ends up being more of a genuine question than he intended, which means he regrets those words; but he does not take them back, instead turning his head away again. to ask what is wanted of him feels pointless; he will find out inevitably or else why is he here to begin with? if he unfocuses his vision, things become soft shadows and lights and the faint presence of smoke or fire he knows is from sukuna, as if he harbors that kind of primordial heat like a mythical being. it is the kind of dark summer that draws shadows in as natural as a breath.
the only other presence as overwhelming as this that megumi has ever experienced was indeed gojou satoru, gojou with his sky eyes and gravityless sensibility of things, satoru who placed his earrings and told him to never take them out, benefactor and...what else? a constant in megumi's life that is neither dog nor bird nor the quiet sense of an empty place that might have been an apartment or an alley or a dark night where everything changed with that terrible silent lack of permission. yet gojou satoru makes sense; it has been nine years.
and despite his sometimes-efforts, megumi is the constellation tsumiki saw him for all those years: trying far out past his actual lifespan.
the vulnerability of caring.
none of it explains the odd draw he feels to the person beside him that is simultaneous to his rejection of him.
it is this awareness that has him leaning his forehead to the window, and when he exhales the window fogs softly like even megumi's breath would rather not be intrusive. this particular angle of his head causes the lights outside to throw the diamonds' refractions out in tiny lances of blue, as if in peculiar warning the way some animals use their colors to entice or discourage, audience depending. ]
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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 good— well. It would be a very small, very specific lot that would be pleased to hear that. Particularly given his reputation.
But still— 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. ]
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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. ]
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[ 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, naturally— 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 story—
[ 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 inferior— 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 club— you know the one, the women all have the same surgery. Anyway, [ He— 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. ] —a 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.
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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. ]
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[ 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 one— he likes the idea of taking Gojo Satoru's toys, but he also doesn't like it when they don't play along. Or— 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 this— 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.