Divine Born ━━ Jujutsu Kaisen

𝖛𝖎𝖎. Palace of Bones

07.

palace of bones

TW: DEPICTIONS OF BLOOD AND GORE, SUICIDAL THOUGHTS

The day has no sign of warning for the despair Fushiguro Megumi feels as he sits on the stairs of a shōen in Jujutsu Tech. Raindrops trickle down from the roof and the sun shines gloriously overhead. The smell of the damp earth reaches his nose and he sighs, midnight eyes boring the sun as if that can be an excuse for his stingy eyes. 

Kugisaki Nobara sits a few feet away, her elbow propelled on her knee, her hand cradling her chin and she lets out a long, exhausted sigh. Her hair shimmers like copper in the sun, a sharp contrast to Megumi's onyx hair. Dark hair and dark eyes with a cursed technique that invites the dark- for so long Megumi believed his heart was dark too. 

But it isn't, it never had been. He realised it when Itadori said how he saved his life the day he was meant for doom. 

Death paints everything in a different shade of remorse, and Megumi feels that deeply today. Yesterday he saw someone he wanted to save die, a hole in his chest instead of a heart. Seconds later, his closest friend collapses next to the dead boy. Megumi didn't realise she was dead until he ran panic-stricken to feel her pulse; there wasn't any.

Guilt is a gnawing anguish that cleaves your heart in two, stitches it and tears it again. An agony so nefarious there are claws on your neck, digging deeper and deeper until your throat is punctured and you cannot scream. Megumi could swear there are curses swivelling around him, mocking him for his wretched state. But he's a shaman, so he knows it's all in his head when he can't see curses. 

"Live a long life?" Nobara speaks softly, eyeing the ground. "That doesn't mean much when you go and die yourself."

A beat, and then: "Is this your first time having a partner... erm, partners die?"

"First time for someone my age."

Nobara sighs again, her face dull. "You seem to be taking it well, considering that."

"Same to you,"

"Well, yeah," She looks away so Megumi can only see her hair. "I've only known them for about two weeks."

"I've known Akane for almost a year," Megumi quickly says. "We've been together almost every day."

"I know, I've heard it all from Gojo-sensei," Nobara shrugs, "He called you guys partners-in-crime, you know?"

Megumi scoffs at that, a distant smile appearing on his face. "And anyway," Nobara continues, "I'm not some simple woman who breaks down over a guy she barely knows."

"And a girl," Megumi reminds with narrowed eyes. 

There's no response from her and Megumi believes that was the end of the conversation until his eyes catch Nobara's trembling lips that hold in her quiet sobs. He looks away feeling his eyes sting yet again with the memory of the four of them in the car not even twenty-four hours ago. Those were short moments of bliss between just normal fifteen-year-olds, a memory that took the spot as Megumi's favourite. 

But he always knew moments like those would be short-lived when they're just hanging by a thread, living with a deadline they don't know. They say live like there's no tomorrow, but when you're a jujutsu sorcerer you live like there is no tonight. Itadori already lived on a deadline that was unfairly robbed of him, and Akane died in a way no one expected her to- a heart attack.