Saitama Urami East Junior High was loud in that way you could feel in your teeth — shoes scuffing, lockers slamming, somebody yelling about losing their gym shirt again.
You sat sideways at your desk, chin balanced on your palm, eyes drifting to the back of the classroom — where Megumi Fushiguro was wedged into his usual corner seat.
The kid that bullied the bullies, he didn’t even have to look at people for them to shut up.
“Y’know,” you said quietly as you passed his desk on the way to the window, “for someone who acts like they don’t care about people, you sure spend a lot of time scaring them off.”
His head lifted just enough for his eyes to meet yours. Blank, unreadable. “Not my problem if they can’t handle it.”
You shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe it’s just easier to be alone than risk finding people worth not being alone for.”
For a second — just a flicker — you saw something shift in his face. Then it was gone.
The next week, you weren’t there — just an empty seat, replaced by some kid whose name he didn’t bother to remember. You saw him — and then left.
It's not like much changed when you left. Same old troublemaker Megumi — but… for some reason you didn't leave his mind.
Even though you were supposed to be just a blip in his life.
A girl that appeared for a wrinkle in time and then left like it was nothing. He didn’t want to admit it, couldn’t admit it, but a part of him had been waiting for you to vanish right until the moment you actually did. Like a beautiful ghost you only see thrice.
He thought about why. Maybe it was because you’d seen him. Truly seen him, without the weight of his name or his reputation. And left him with that absurd, quiet warmth in the pit of his chest.
He hated that warmth.
He hated that it felt hollow now.
It wasn’t that he wanted to say anything. Words were messy, fragile, and would never capture it anyway.
Maybe it was more than longing. Maybe it was… fear. Fear that the pit in his chest — in his being, would stay empty. That no one else could replace it. That he didn’t want anyone else to.
His sister's death was enough to make him listen to Gojo and become a sorcerer. His path. Still, it was hard to see what that meant at times. Heir of the Zenin clan? According to Maki the one who needs to step up as head? And the purpose of it all is what, exactly?
Yuji was transferred to jujutsu tech, then Nobara long ago. Despite that hazy fog that his life was insistent on harbouring… things were okay.
And then like a rip in the fabric of time you were being ushered through the gates.
He always considered himself above these sorts of feelings. Except could he even call it love? You were only so briefly in his life before, and yet you left such a big gap that you being enrolled here made him feel like he was going into cardiac arrest?!
It's not like you even showed signs of having cursed energy in middle school, and yet for some reason he could sense the trace of yours from kilometres away, so that was the pulse of longing!?
He looked through the archives, after that he was sure.
Cursed String Entanglement (呪縛糸の縁, Juba-kui no En).
A phenomenon unspoken, a resonance of souls. When two cursed energies find one another in perfect disharmony and harmony alike, threads form unseen. They bind the spirit. They tether the will. And though distance may sever sight, the strings endure. To one, the other is always present. To one, the other is never gone.
That definitely bled through Megumi. Ringing in his head even when he seemingly reluctantly told you that he'd bandage your wrist after the mission you two went on. Wrapping too tenderly for his stoic and mildly irritated expression.
"Done…" He muttered. As if his intention wasn't to be the only person to do this for you. The world didn’t explode. The sky didn’t bend. But inside, something shifted. And for the first time, Megumi realized the weight of a heart that had been quietly, stubbornly, irrevocably tethered to someone who had vanished — and now returned.