The Kid I Used to Know

Malewife Itadori Yuji

Serving lunch had never seemed so intimidating before to Yuji. He wasn't worried about the teenage version of his sensei, Gojo had taken to Yuji's offer of food the night before exactly how his sensei had the first time Yuji had offered to cook for them while living in his basement. To put it simply, he was thrilled.

Everyone knew Gojo-sensei couldn't cook in the future, in fact several warnings had been issued to the first years by their upperclassman, Nanami, and even Principal Yaga to keep Gojo from trying to cook. Warnings ranged in seriousness from the promise of food poisoning to mass destruction.

Either way, this meant Yuji didn't have to worry about serving Gojo lunch. No, the one Yuji was worried about was his best friend.

To say Megumi had seemed upset would have been an understatement. Yuji had never seen Megumi so emotional, and he's seen his friend in quite a few highly stressful and emotional situations. He'd always been so calm and collected that seeing him storm out of a room and slam a door was just as startling as the information that had caused him to do so. But, if anyone had a good reason to be a bit upset right now, Yuji figured Megumi did.

Finding out you traveled to the past was stressful and confusing enough. Add in the worry that Yuji knew Megumi must be feeling for their friends in the future, and it was enough to warrant a good breakdown. But time travel and worrying about their friends they were separated from wasn't the extent of their problems. Yuji might not be a psychiatrist, but he knew that both of them had been through several different highly traumatic events in the past few months, and the incident at Shibuya had happened barely over a week ago for them. Revealing that not only had Gojo-sensei killed his dad and neglected to mention it for a decade to Megumi, Toji's son and the kid he'd taken guardianship of, was already pushing Megumi's capacity for dealing with his emotions.

Throwing in the fact that his already dead father had somehow shown up at the events in Shibuya and not just participated somehow, but also appeared in front of Megumi and saved his son from a dangerous special grade curse, only to then immediately try to fight him, stopping when he realized halfway through the fight that he was facing his own son and deciding to kill himself instead. It was a lot.

The teenage version of his guardian informing Megumi that his father's last words had been about him had probably just been the final mail in the coffin.

So Yuji was now a little hesitant to knock on the door to the room his friend still hasn't emerged from. Frankly, Yuji figured this was so far out of his depth that he didn't have any idea how to approach it, or someone that was trying to deal with it.

He paused in front of the door, hand hovering and poised to knock.

"Come on, Yuji," he mumbled to himself, "It's just lunch. He needs food too."

With a long exhale, the pink haired boy finally knocked. There was a shuffling of footsteps from inside the room, growing closer until his friend pulled the door open, looking remarkably normal for someone who must be going through some sort of emotional breakdown.

"You don't have to knock," Megumi told him, voice only a little rough, "We're sharing this room."

Blushing, Yuji looked down and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, "I wasn't sure how you were doing and I wanted to respect it if you needed some space."

Megumi stared at him, eyes unreadable.

"You're an idiot," he finally said before reaching forward and tugging Yuji close.

Yuji was rather startled to be grabbed, but then he realized what his friend wanted and hurried to wrap his arms around him, hugging him close.

Megumi wasn't exactly hugging him back, but his hands were clenched tightly in his hoodie, pulling Yuji's chest flush against his own, and his head dropped to rest against Yuji's shoulder, face turned slightly inward towards him, so Yuji could feel his shaky breath against the skin of his neck.