Your Life As A Tokyo Jujutsu High Background Student

Chapter 14 - Look what you did

You spent the evening helping Shoko document falsified reports and analyze Yuji's test results. Meanwhile, Gojo had spirited Yuji away somewhere underground, off all records for the time being. At least, Yuji still had his phone.

It was past midnight when you finally returned to the dorm common room, emotionally and physically drained from the events of the day.

As you stepped through the doorway, you found Megumi and Nobara huddled tensely together on the couch. Even from across the room, grief rolled off them in palpable waves. They were both still covered in bandages, though Shoko had healed the worst injuries. They didn't notice you coming in.

In Nobara's lap rested the two crocheted cat plushies Yuji had so proudly crafted, their cheerful button eyes now striking a heartbreaking discordance against the backdrop of raw grief.

"He told us to live a long life," Megumi said quietly, recounting Yuji's final words. His cursed energy felt muted, like the heavy greyness of the sky before a storm, thunder rumbling distantly.

"What use is he dead?" Nobara bit back bitterly. Still, pain roiled beneath her prickly facade. Raw, aching, at odds with her flippant tone.

She turned to study Megumi more closely, perhaps hoping to see her own hurt mirrored in his expression. "Is this the first time a friend of yours has died?"

Megumi tensed, his gaze fixed on some distant, haunted point that only he could see. "A classmate." He corrected, though the distinction held little weight. Death cared not for such arbitrary labels.

"You seem fine, though." Nobara pressed on, a tint of accusation in her voice.

Megumi's jaw tightened, his temper flaring briefly to match her own rawness. "Look who's talking."

"Of course, I've only known him for two weeks." She tossed back with a bravado that rang increasingly hollow. "I'm not some silly girl who cries over a guy like that."

But even as the callous words left her mouth, Nobara's lower lip trembled. She bowed her head, letting her long bangs fall over her eyes. The sight twisted that knife of guilt deeper into your gut.

Beside her, Megumi shifted uncomfortably, the weight of Nobara's bared anguish clearly affecting him as well. Then, tentatively, he reached out, laying an arm across the back of the couch. A silent offering of comfort.

After a taut pause, Nobara leaned subtly into his side, turning her face to hide against his shoulder. In a moment, the tears came freely, soaking into his shirt as her shoulders quaked with the effort to muffle the sound of her own crying. Gently, as if handling something spun from the most delicate glass, Megumi's arm encircled her fully, squeezing her closer in quiet understanding.

You lingered uncertainly in the doorway, feeling like an intruder encroaching on a private grief not of your own to share, not fully. Yes, you had loved Yuji and mourned his loss, too. But for Nobara and Megumi, the pain cut so much deeper. It resonated between the two of them on a wavelength of their own - one that had been fractured irreparably by Yuji's absence.

They were his classmates, his partners in every sense. The three of them had been inseparable despite all the bickering and barbs. It was them who had come with Yuji on that catastrophic mission. Who had come back without him.

So, you waited in respectful silence until Nobara's muffled sobs slowly faded into the occasional hiccups. At last, when she had quieted, you cleared your throat softly.

They straightened up with a start, Nobara hastily wiping the evidence of tears from her cheeks while Megumi withdrew his arm quickly as if burned.

"God, you need to stop sneaking around like that, Spices!" Nobara hissed, some color rising to replace the earlier pallor as her defenses slammed back into place.