Play Hell With ✔ // MEGUMI X SUKUNA

[ 7 ] Don't Take This The Wrong Way

After having spent the better part of the week tending to Itadori's needs, Megumi's sudden lack of direction made the contrast so much starker. He was back to hitting snooze, only now he knew why.

Fuck, he thought, teeth grinding at the memory of Sukuna for the hundredth time that sleepless night. Even exhausted, Megumi couldn't doze for more than thirty minutes at a time without shaking himself awake.

It was clear to him now that Sukuna hadn't wanted Megumi to exact his dominion over him. He could barely Megumi from using commands, sure, but a glare was so much more than eyes alone. He hadn't wanted that either.

He just wanted the cure, and Megumi submitted it to him. He'd taken his own bandages to Sukuna's wounds and left his own to bleed out.

And they were still gushing red.

"Yikes," Nobara said a week later as he joined her at the gym. "You're lucky Itadori's stuck training with Gojo right now. Your glare is out of control."

"Is not," Megumi said, glaring. Without moving a muscle, he ground out, "So what if it is."

"You know, not every emotional need has to be tended to and coddled by your partner."

"We aren't ' partners '," he said, and as he said it, he thought, God, I really do sound pissy today. He crossed his arms. "And I don't need to be coddled."

He just needed to punch something. Preferably Sukuna.

It was a reaction he had yet to unpack, and one he knew would get him into trouble. The one punch he did deliver wasn't satisfying and just served to hurt his hand. His knuckles still ached a little when he flexed his fingers a little too far. He'd hidden the yellowing bruise from Ieiri, but he caught Nobara looking at it now and then.

He ached at the unease in her face whenever she did.

"Have you... given any thought to Sukuna's punishment?" she asked.

"No," he admitted. When she groaned to the sky, he said, "It's not that simple. He'd never let me anyway, so what's it matter? It's not going to happen."

Nobara scratched at her hair, irritated. At length, she decided to make them both useful by sticking Megumi on the machine and spotting for him.

By the end of his rep, she'd come to a conclusion. "I still think he's going to try again."

Megumi huffed and began his next rep with a dismissive, "Not a chance."

"Think about it. He was there when we talked about the validation factor."

"Yeah, and I don't think he cares about having his emotional wounds soothed beyond... what I've already done."

"Probably not, but he likes teasing Itadori," she reminded him. "And you've injured his ego before. He'd show up just to humiliate you."

"You're not—helping at all." He vowed to lock his bedroom door from now on. He should have been doing that since the day Nobara barged in.

He paused, the bar extended above him.

Pretty sure a door lock wouldn't stop Sukuna, he decided, and, satisfied by this distinction, continued the rep.

"I've given it some more thought, though. Because if he goes to you expecting you to be all soft on him and soothe his wounds again—"

Megumi resisted the cutting urge to fling the barbell.

"—he'll get what he came for and go unpunished. The validation needs to be his reward."