we can't be together forever

಄ ⋆ BACKGROUND

to bring to light why i wrote this, while reading an otherwise enjoyable fanfiction, i encountered a line in which Heian-era sukuna was addressed by "ryomen" as though it were his given name, and this had been a repeated trend i've seen in Jujutsu Kaisen sukuna fanfiction. this tiny detail—which objectively should not have occupied my thoughts for as long as it did—sent me down an unfortunate rabbit hole regarding naming conventions in Japanese media, translation practices, and the tendency for English-speaking fandom to reconstruct unfamiliar linguistic systems into something more recognizable. names are rarely "just names," even within simplistic language systems. across different cultures, they carry distinct systems, conventions, and social functions that determine not only what a person is called, but why they are called that in the first place. English-speaking fan communities frequently interpret foreign naming systems through familiar Western frameworks.

಄ ⋆ SIGNIFICANCE

i believe it is well known that fanfiction often rewards emotional accuracy over linguistic accuracy (not saying disparagingly). however, repeated reinterpretations of foreign naming systems can gradually become accepted as "common knowledge" within fandom. examining why this occurs reveals less about individual writers and more about how language shapes the way audiences understand unfamiliar cultures.

಄ ⋆ CHAPTER 1. WHAT DOES A NAME DO?

to start, i must quote unnecessarily, "i think therefore i am." this does not mean anything, i just really wanted to use it because it's funny. before discussing why fandom repeatedly misinterprets foreign names, we first have to answer a surprisingly difficult question. what exactly is a name? a name, linguistically, is a term used for identification by an external observer and it can identify a class, a category of things, a single thing (people, places, objects) either uniquely, or within a given context. the entity identified by a name is called its referent. a naming convention is a set of agreed, stipulated, or generally accepted standards, norms, social norms, or criteria for naming things. it is important to note that names have rules. at first glance, a name looks like a label. a chair is a "chair," a table is called a "table," it's a very simple concept. but people are not objects, human names do not just classify, they distinguish. when i say "dog," i've identified a category; when i say "hachiko," i've identified one specific individual. so therefore, names are referential rather than descriptive. their primary purpose is to let which person is being talked about, not what kind of person they are. that's why names can be completely arbitrary, because it's simply a pointer. names also don't just identify people. they also encode relationships, telling you by who calls you what something about your relationship hence, the difference of someone calling you Jonathan, John, Johnny, Dad, Mr. Sherlock, Big John. They are all referring to the same person but every choice communicates something different; familiarity, hierarchy, affection, respect, distance, and intimacy. and i'm sure a bunch of other things. English-speakers often unconsciously assume that [First Name, denoting who they are] [Middle Name, denoting a specifier] [Last Name, denoting from where they came] is the default and universal human format. it isn't obviously, different cultures answer completely different questions. some emphasize family, ancestry, then some emphasize birthplace or achievements. some religion, some ranks. that's why some cultures have patronymics, some don't have surnames, some have courtesy names, some names change throughout their life.

಄ ⋆ CHAPTER 2. NAMES HAVE JOBS, NOT ALL JOBS ARE NAMES

there are several different categories in which names fall in (sources i'm using are very broad, but i'll link them below), that are often unused, unheard, or underutilized in the English language. having established that names are social tools rather than arbitrary labels, we now encounter another problem: English frequently treats every identifier attached to a person as though it were simply "their name." linguistically, however, many of these identifiers perform entirely different functions. They may indicate family lineage, social status, profession, achievement, respect, or reputation rather than personal identity itself. the most important question isn't "what is this called?" when talking about names, but instead "what job is this word doing?" so consider the sentence, "Professor Smith spoke to John." both "Professor" and "John" identify the same individual in different contexts, but they do not perform the same linguistic function.one indicates institutional status, while the other functions as a personal identifier. so? words attached to people aren't interchangeable.

⋆ personal identifiers a given name is a name that identifies the individual within their family or community, it's typically a name assigned to an individual at birth or later in life. in English, this is often the first name. it primarily serves toto distinguish them from other members of the same family. examples are John, Satoru (悟), Yor, Leon. a family name (surname) is a name that identifies a person's family lineage and is shared among relatives. depending on the culture, it may appear before or after the given name (while stylistic choices are of course welcomed, standard practices adopt the original culture's naming order). examples are Gojo (五条), Smith, Liu (劉). a middle name is an additional personal name placed between the given and family name. its purpose varies widely between cultures and may commemorate relatives, saints, or simply provide another identifier. examples include John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Leon Scott Kennedy. a patronymic is a name derived from one's father (or sometimes a male ancestor). it indicates parentage rather than functioning as a hereditary surname. the female version, a matronymic, is derived from one's mother rather than father. it is less common globally but exists in several naming traditions. examples: Ivan Ivanonich ("son of Ivan"). a clan name identifies membership in a larger kinship group rather than an immediate family. multiple unrelated households may share the same clan. examples are Gojo (術師家) and the Uchiha (うちは一族).

⋆ social identifiers a title is a name that denotes rank, occupation, office, or status rather than identity. titles answer the question of "what are you?" rather than "who are you?" examples include: King, Doctor, Professor, Lord, Captain. an honorific is a word or title or grammatical form that conveys respect, familiarity, or social hierarchy between speakers. unlike titles, honorifics describe the relationship between people rather than the identity of the individual. examples include: in Japanese, -san (used to convey respect used between any age), -sama (used for individuals with a higher rank than oneself, -kun (used to refer to people of junior status or men in general), in English, Mr., Mrs., Sir, in Indonesian kak, mas, mbak. a house name denotes the membership in a noble or dynastic house. example: House Stark, House Windsor. a courtesy name is an additional name adopted upon reaching adulthood or entering society. It is often used by peers instead of the person's birth name. this is historically common in Chinese naming traditions. example is Confucius' (Kongzi) courtesy name Zhongni (仲尼). a temple name is a name bestowed after death upon monarchs in several East Asian traditions and is primarily used in historical or religious contexts. a posthumous name is a name granted after death and often reflects the person's achievements or character. unlike a birth name, it was never used by the individual during life. a regnal name is a name adopted when someone ascends to a throne or other high office. example: Pope Francis, Queen Elizabeth II. a religious name/dharma name is a name adopted upon entering a religious order or undergoing initiation. Ii often symbolizes spiritual rebirth or new identity.

⋆ descriptive identifiers an epithet is a descriptive word or phrase attached to a person's name that highlights a characteristic, reputation, or distinguishing feature. unlike a given name, an epithet describes rather than identifies. examples: Alexander the Great, Ivan the Terrible, Richard the Lionheart, Ryōmen ("two-faced") Sukuna. a sobriquet is an informal descriptive nickname earned through reputation, personality, or achievement. unlike a legal name, it develops through public use. a byname is an additional identifier attached to distinguish someone from others with the same personal name. it often describes appearance, occupation, birthplace, or family. many historical epithets function as bynames.

⋆ chosen identifiers a nickname is an informal alternative used by friends, family, or acquaintances. nicknames often shorten, modify, or replace a person's given name. examples: Jonathan → Jon, Katherine → Kate. meanwhile an alias is an assumed name used instead of one's legal identity, often for privacy, disguise, or professional reasons. an art name is a name adopted by artists, scholars, or writers as part of their creative identity. this is a also called a pseudonym or moniker. examples are Su Shi also known as Dongpo Jushi, Takashi Murakami, KAWS. a pen name (nom de plume) is a pseudonym adopted by an author for publication. a stage name is a professional identity used by performers instead of their legal name. a username identifies an individual within a digital environment. unlike legal names, usernames are chosen, platform-specific, and need not correspond to real-world identity.

notice that every category above identifies a person in some capacity, yet none performs exactly the same job. English often collapses these distinctions under the broad concept of a "name," whereas many other naming systems preserve functional differences between personal names, titles, honorifics, and descriptive epithets. while all of these may appear beside a person's identity, they are not interchangeable. some identify the individual, some identify their family, some describe their reputation, and others communicate social relationships. referring to all of them simply as "names" obscures the distinct roles they perform within their respective cultures. if these distinctions are so common across cultures, why do English-speaking readers so frequently flatten them into a single naming system?

಄ ⋆ CHAPTER 3. WHY ENGLISH SPEAKERS MISREAD FOREIGN NAMES

having established that names perform different social functions across cultures, we arrive at another question: if these distinctions exist, why are they so frequently overlooked in English-speaking fandom? the answer is surprisingly mundane. it is not usually a failure of research (though it's the second most common reason), nor a lack of intelligence. rather, it is a consequence of how humans process unfamiliar information. the first reason is that our brains simply do this because of pattern recognition or schema activation, something i spend much time on in thinking. we as humans are extraordinarily good at categorization. we don't read every unfamiliar thing from scratch—we compare it to something we already know. linguists call these mental shortcuts schemas but for this, i simply call it 'already knowing enough' (larping). when English speakers encounter "Ryomen Sukuna," our brains don't consciously ask what naming convention is being used. they see two capitalized words and immediately retrieve the closest familiar template. a lot of what contributes to the reason of why people mistake foreign names so badly, especially names with their own alphabet, and especially with vastly different scripts, is due to once transliterated into the Latin alphabet, these names become visually familiar to English-speaking audiences. they appear to follow the same structure as English names—two capitalized words separated by a space—despite often operating according to entirely different cultural conventions. this visual familiarity encourages readers to unconsciously apply English naming expectations where they may not belong. humans also do chunking. you don't read Tanjiro as T-a-n-j-i-r-o, but Tan-Ji-Ro. you don't read my username as kayuekou but it gets mentally segmented as kay-ue-kou. or if you come from a more East Asian linguistic background, ka-yue-kou. and this isn't ...nearly all your fault. after being immersed in English naming conventions, ie. Jane Doe, Peter Parker John B. Smith, our brains automatically shove Ryomen Sukuna, Kuroki Tomoko, Kamado Tanjiro into the same system. Ryomen Sukuna is chunked into Ryomen (first name) - Sukuna (last name).

಄ ⋆ CHAPTER 4. EVERYTHING GETS ENGLISH'D

so now, having established why English-speaking readers naturally reinterpret unfamiliar naming systems, it becomes apparent that this phenomenon extends far beyond Japanese media, my original grievance. whenever a naming system differs significantly from English conventions, readers often simplify, reorganize, or reinterpret it into something more immediately recognizable. in practice, what does this look like?

first, mistaking family names as first names because of the Eastern name order (family name first, given name second), obviously this is most commonly seen in East Asian names. my examples will primarily derive from Japanese, mostly due to its almost uniquely similar structure to English when transliterated. this is often seen in Japanese fan media, which i found most prominent in fanfiction made pre-2021, such as mistaking Gojo for Satoru's given name. specifically in Japanese, starting from the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the Western name order was primarily used among the Japanese nobility when identifying themselves to non-Asians with their romanized names. as a result, in popular Western publications, the order became increasingly used for Japanese names the following decades (Shinzo Abe, Osamu Dazai, Satoru Gojo). however! in 2020, the Government of Japan reverted the Westernized name order back to the Eastern name order in official documents, and has recommended that the same format be used amongst general Japanese public; they also requested Western publications to change this. this is a big reason why Japanese becomes quite confusing when you dip your foot in and understand what the Eastern naming order looks like, because sometimes you don't know if they're using the Western or Eastern order. unlike the Chinese and the Koreans who have never used Western name order (Chinese leader Xi Jinping not being referred to as Jinping Xi, Moon Jae-in is not Jae-in Moon).

second, names getting split strangely. i recently saw in a fanfiction (that i've put on hold simply because of this) that the author named the fanon interpretation of the Gojo twins as Sato and Toru. this is most likely because they assume those are natural halves of "Satoru." Except Japanese morphology doesn't work that way. likewise, my name has been mistakenly used quite a lot, my nickname from my moniker kayuekou sometimes become kay because "Kay" already exists in English. but this is especially frustrating once you understand that the kanji system, derived from hanzi, uses a logographical system. meaning, the Japanese writing for a name, almost always has a set meaning. "五条悟" or Gojo Satoru is split into "Gojo" or "五条" meaning 五 five, 条 an article or clauses, and 悟 meaningly enlightenment or to understand. the second you strip away Satoru and become Sato, that has become a completely. new name. in some dictionaries, maybe Sato as 悟 could happen, and i've checked myself on jisho that there is a given name called Sato with that exact kanji, but now it's a matter of logic and accuracy. Sato is almost alway used as a surname; Sato as 葛巻, Sato as 郡, Sato as 慧. there are rules to what a kanji can or cannot do in a name, but i will not deep dive into that in this essay.

third, in Russian, and a classic example, Ivan Ivanovich Petrov is often frequently read by English-speakers as Ivan, Middle name Ivanoich, Last name Petrov when the "middle name" is actually just telling you whose son he is. fourth, a fascinating one because it almost flips the problem, are Thai names. Thai people commonly have long legal names (due to surnames needing to be legally unique, therefore combining many words and subsequently creating incredibly long surnames) and short nicknames, sometimes ones that don't have any relation to their legal name. many foreigners sometimes assume the nickname isn't their "real" name, when culturally, it's often the primary everyday identifier.

although each example arises from a different language, the underlying mechanism remains remarkably consistent. readers encounter an unfamiliar naming system, identify superficial similarities to English, and unconsciously reorganize it according to English expectations. the details differ; the cognitive process does not. a worthwhile minor topic to touch is things that English speaking writers accidentally normalize. such as the tendency of first-name basis immediately, honorific inconsistencies, modern Western flirting in Eastern historical settings, school culture assumptions, legal names vs epithets. i would touch the topic but i'm no fiddler.

಄ ⋆ CHAPTER 5. NOT EVERYTHING IS A GIVEN (NAME)

by this point, we have established three things. firstly, names are not merely arbitrary labels, but social tools that identify individuals within a cultural system. secondly, not every identifier attached to a person performs the same function. lastly, English-speaking readers naturally interpret unfamiliar naming systems through frameworks they already recognize. we now arrive at one of the most common consequences of this process: assuming that every identifier attached to a person is a given name. not every word attached to a person is attempting to answer the same question. like we discussed in the previous chapters, a given name answers, "who are you?" a family name answers, "which family do you belong to?" a patronymic answers, "whose child are you?" a title answers, "what is your rank, occupation, or position?" an honorific answers, "how should I address you?" an epithet answers, "what are you known for?" these may all appear beside one another when referring to a single person, yet they are not interchangeable. they perform different linguistic and social functions despite identifying the same referent. epithets are probably the clearest example of this distinction. an epithet is not another personal name, but a descriptive identifier attached to an individual because of a notable characteristic, achievement, reputation, or physical trait. history is full of them. Alexander the Great, Richard the Lionheart, Ivan the Terrible, Erik the Red, and William the Conqueror are all remembered through epithets. English speakers immediately recognize that "the Great" is not Alexander's surname, nor is "Lionheart" Richard's given name. these descriptors tell us something about the individual rather than functioning as the individual's personal identity. the interesting part is that this intuition often disappears when the epithet originates from another language. once romanized into the Latin alphabet, foreign epithets lose many of the visual and cultural cues that distinguish them from ordinary names. rather than seeing a descriptive title, English-speaking readers often see another capitalized word occupying the same position as a conventional first name. without consciously realizing it, the epithet is reassigned a new job. it is no longer interpreted as a description, but as a personal identifier. this distinction matters because misunderstanding an identifier is not simply a matter of pronunciation or terminology. it changes the role that identifier plays within the naming system itself. an epithet interpreted as a given name no longer functions as a description; it becomes an identity. a title mistaken for a surname no longer indicates social position; it becomes ancestry. in other words, the word has not changed—but the job we assign to it has. so anyway. this brings us to another important question. if these distinctions are meaningful, why do official translations, subtitles, and fan translations so rarely communicate them? more importantly, are translators responsible for preserving these naming systems, or are readers simply encountering the unavoidable limitations of translation itself?

಄ ⋆ CHAPTER 6. TRANSLATION FUELS THESE MISTAKES

so now that we've established that identifiers perform different linguistic functions and that English-speaking readers naturally interpret unfamiliar naming systems through familiar frameworks, another question inevitably follows: if these distinctions are important, why do translations so rarely preserve them? the answer is not that translators are careless. rather, translation itself is an exercise in compromise. contrary to popular belief, translation is not simply the process of replacing one word with another. every translator must constantly decide what should be preserved. should priority be given to literal meaning, readability, cultural context, historical accuracy, emotional impact, or natural dialogue? more often than not, preserving one inevitably sacrifices another. names are particularly difficult because they rarely carry meaning in isolation. instead, they exist within larger cultural systems that are often invisible to those who already understand them. a Japanese reader generally does not require a footnote explaining the function of an honorific, the order of family and given names, or whether an identifier is an epithet rather than a personal name. these conventions are already understood. an English-speaking audience, however, approaches the same text without that shared cultural framework. romanization further complicates this process. when Japanese is written in its native scripts, it is immediately recognizable as a different writing system. readers instinctively understand that they are encountering another language. once those same names are transliterated into the Latin alphabet, however, they become visually familiar. two capitalized words separated by a space resemble countless English names, despite following entirely different cultural conventions. the alphabet remains familiar even when the language does not. this creates what i consider one of romanization's greatest paradoxes: it increases accessibility while simultaneously creating an illusion of familiarity. readers correctly recognize the letters, but unconsciously assume they also recognize the system behind them. translation, therefore, often preserves the words while inevitably losing parts of the framework that gives those words meaning. again, this is not unique to Japanese. consider honorifics such as -san, -kun, or -sama. many English translations omit them entirely because there is rarely a natural English equivalent that carries identical social nuance. likewise, patronymics in Russian are frequently interpreted as middle names, while Chinese family names are often mistaken for given names simply because the translated text cannot pause to explain an entirely different naming convention every time a character is introduced. doing so would be impractical. imagine a subtitle interrupting every conversation with a linguistic lecture explaining why a particular identifier is functioning as an epithet rather than a personal name. accurate? perhaps. readable? absolutely not. translation, after all, is intended to communicate a story—not to teach an entire course in comparative linguistics. this is where fandom enters the equation. readers naturally fill in the missing pieces using the only framework they possess: their own. one fanfiction assigns an English role to an unfamiliar identifier. another writer adopts the same convention. a hundred readers encounter it repeatedly. eventually, what began as an unconscious interpretation slowly transforms into accepted fanon. the reinterpretation is no longer questioned because, through repetition, it begins to feel canonical. translation does not create these misunderstandings on its own. it merely provides the conditions under which they become possible. the actual reinterpretation occurs in the minds of readers, where unfamiliar linguistic systems are quietly reorganized into something that feels comfortably familiar.

಄ ⋆ CHAPTER 7. CASE STUDY

which leads to a minor footnote, and the inciting example on why i made this post. one of my favorite little linguistic quirks in JJK is that "Ryomen Sukuna" isn't really a given name in the way a lot of English-speaking fans read it. the historical figure that inspired Jujutsu Kaisen's Sukuna is traditionally known as Ryōmen Sukuna. the term Ryōmen (両面) literally means "two-faced" or "two-sided," referring to the figure's unusual appearance. rather than functioning as an ordinary personal name, it is widely understood as a descriptive epithet attached to Sukuna. as discussed in chapter 2, epithets perform a fundamentally different function from given names. they describe rather than identify. however, once romanized into the Latin alphabet, "Ryōmen Sukuna" visually resembles a conventional English first name–surname pairing. the epithet is therefore reassigned a familiar role: first name. this interpretation is further reinforced through repetition. once a sufficient number of fanworks address Sukuna as "Ryomen," subsequent writers encounter the convention repeatedly and naturally assume it reflects canon. over time, the reinterpretation becomes self-perpetuating, not because readers consciously reject the original naming system, but because the English framework has already become normalized within the community. modern AUs present a somewhat different situation. since these settings intentionally remove characters from their historical and cultural contexts, writers are free to assign entirely new naming conventions if they wish. someone may choose to reinterpret "Ryomen" as a legal first name simply because it functions conveniently within the world of their story (but still, when you take into account kanji, and you should, it becomes messy). fanfiction is, after all, transformative by nature. admittedly, none of this prevents me from visibly twitching every time Heian-era Uraume solemnly addresses Sukuna as "Ryomen" with the energy of someone calling Alexander the Great "Great." that, however, is a personal problem rather than a linguistic one. not everyone is a nitpicker. ultimately, the question is not whether fanfiction is "allowed" to call Sukuna "Ryomen." fanfiction has never depended upon strict historical or linguistic accuracy. rather, this example demonstrates how easily unfamiliar naming systems become reorganized according to the expectations of another language. what appears to be a single naming choice is, in reality, the product of translation, cognition, and community convention acting together.

಄ ⋆ CHAPTER 8: WHAT CAN YOU DO?

if this essay has accomplished anything, i hope it has not convinced you that your fanfiction is "wrong." rather, i hope it has convinced you that naming conventions are often far more culturally complex than they first appear. the purpose of this essay has never been to argue that every writer should become a historian, a linguist, or a professional translator before opening Google Docs. fanfiction is transformative by design. writers are free to alter names, settings, relationships, and entire worlds if doing so serves the story they wish to tell. the distinction lies in intentionality. there is a meaningful difference between deliberately changing a naming convention because it better suits your story and unconsciously changing it because you assumed it worked like English. the former is a creative decision. the latter is simply a assumption. fortunately, assumptions are surprisingly easy to challenge. when writing characters from another culture—particularly historical settings—it is often worth asking a few simple questions before assigning an unfamiliar identifier a familiar role. is this actually the person's given name? could this instead be a title, epithet, clan name, patronymic, courtesy name, or honorific? am I following a convention because the source material suggests it, or because other fanfiction does? if i removed my English expectations, would i still interpret this name the same way? the answer, of course, may still be "I'm going to write it this way anyway." and that is perfectly acceptable. the goal is not perfect authenticity. absolute historical accuracy has never been the defining characteristic of fanfiction, nor should it be. creative writing thrives on reinterpretation. what matters is understanding what you are reinterpreting. once you recognize that names are cultural systems rather than isolated words, small details begin to reveal themselves everywhere. family names stop looking like first names. patronymics stop looking like middle names. epithets stop looking like legal names. romanized words stop feeling automatically familiar simply because they share the same alphabet. most importantly, you become aware of your own assumptions. language is remarkably good at making itself invisible. we rarely notice the frameworks through which we interpret the world until we encounter one that functions differently. by then, our brains have often already attempted to reorganize the unfamiliar into something comfortably recognizable. that tendency is not a personal failing. it is simply how humans make sense of the world. the challenge—and, perhaps, the fun—is learning to recognize when our own language is quietly filling in gaps that another culture never intended to leave. and if nothing else, perhaps the next time you encounter an unfamiliar name in a piece of media, you'll pause for just a moment before asking the question that inspired this entire essay: "is that actually their name... or have i simply given it an English job?" oh and start using dictionaries.

಄ ⋆ CONCLUSION / TL;DR

this essay began because one (1) line in one (1) fanfiction annoyed me far more than any reasonable person should probably admit. human beings are exceptionally good at recognizing patterns, therefore English speaking consumers and writers interprets foreign naming systems through a framework they're already familiar with. the result is not usually malice, laziness, or ignorance—it is simply the remarkably human tendency to organize unfamiliar things into familiar categories. this essay therefore is not an argument for linguistic perfection, nor is it a declaration that fanfiction must adhere to strict historical authenticity. rather, it is an invitation to become more conscious of the assumptions we bring into the media we consume and create. understanding that names have different jobs, that translation cannot preserve every cultural nuance, and that fandom often reinforces its own conventions allows us to appreciate foreign naming systems on their own terms. and if, after reading all of this, you still decide to call Heian-era Sukuna "Ryomen" anyway... well, i cannot stop you. i can, however, quietly sigh, open another tab, and begin drafting the sequel to this essay.

಄ ⋆ BIBLIOGRAPHY (IT"S JUST WIKIPEDIA)

English honorifics (Wikipedia) given names (Wikipedia) honorifics (Wikipedia) Japanese honorifics (Wikipedia) names (Wikipedia) personal names (Wikipedia) surnames (Wikipedia)

◟ ㅤ© kayuekou, 2026 𖥻 do not copy, reconstruct, or upload on other platforms nor feed my works into generative AI.

note ꩜ hi edit. it’s 1am i forgot to link my sources. i’ll add it to the bibliography in like a couple hours after i sleep. sorry everyone. oh and also, deleted the second paragraph of my background because apparently it got duplicated

A camera is an instrument used to capture and store images and videos, either digitally via an electronic image sensor, or chemically via a light-sensitive material such as photographic film.

For best results, avoid exposing the film before the shutter is ready. This was shot on a 35 mm SLR Camera. HOW TO OPERATE:

I. LOADING THE FILM : A camera cannot record anything until it has something capable of holding light.

Loading the film determines whether a photograph can exist at all. Every image depends on this step, though none of it is visible yet. Film is light-sensitive by design. Exposure before the appropriate moment permanently damages the image.

Fushiguro Megumi already knows your name before the two of you officially meet because Gojo keeps bringing you up like you're some sort of punchline. It's not because you're especially strong—though you are—but because 'you can actually joke around instead of hurting his feelings.' It gets especially more annoying because he keeps bringing you up to Megumi specifically because you're 'the girl who makes being a shikigami living hell.'

To him, you're just the second year who thinks Gojo (who's objectively unfunny) is funny, and apparently takes the most dangerous intelligence missions because nobody else is able to.

Then, Megumi gets stuck with you. Not with Kugisaki, not with Itadori, his actual classmates. Because Gojo can't seem to stop tampering with his life, maybe because he knows Megumi through whatever hardened aloof shell he has, truly loved the guy who took him under his wing at such a young age. Suddenly he's pulled into the entrance of the dorms and introduced to you, who's equally as aggravated by his stunt as Megumi is.

Still, Megumi dismisses everything as one of Gojo's exaggerations until the first joint mission. The moment your camera flashes and Divine Dog lets out a startled yelp before dissolving back into shadow with singed edges, he doesn't even look at the curse you exorcised. He's already kneeling beside the place where his shikigami disappeared, jaw set tightly enough to hurt. He doesn't yell at you. Somehow that's worse.

The afterimage won't go away; there's a light, jagged edge on the surface in which your camera pointed and shuttered on. There's a tremble to your fingers as you let the camera fall, hanging low on your neck.

A patch of fur from White covered a small patch on the ground, nearly melted into the concrete. Megumi's head cranes towards you, and in a frighteningly level voice, he asks, "Can your technique do that every time?"

When you answer with your voice so tinted with guilt after realizing what happened, "...Only if the lens catches them," he simply stands up, turns to Gojo, and says, "Request denied. Find me another partner."

Megumi becomes impossibly difficult to work with afterwards. Not because he actively sabotages missions—Megumi would never compromise civilians over personal grievances—but because every fight becomes an exercise in avoiding you. He'll deliberately reposition himself across rooftops so your field of view never overlaps with his shadows. He starts recalling Divine Dogs far earlier than tactically necessary. Rabbit Escape becomes a last resort. Nue practically disappears from his arsenal altogether. You begin noticing that his fighting style has changed entirely, becoming more physical, more exhausting, because every time his shadows touch your lens there's that horrible smell of burning cursed energy.

There's no shadows swarming the area anymore, no elaborate combinations that you were always amazed of. There were no overwhelming summons, which you were kind of glad for because Megumi didn't have to exhaust himself for conjuring up straining things. Everything becomes close quarters and everything becomes efficient. When Yuji notices, only saying "you don't summon Nue anymore," he gives no reason as a response. You're standing thirty feet away.

Either way, you apologize every single mission. To him, to his shikigami; he never summons them around you anymore, so you ask him to tell them for her. He nods every single time. Nothing fixes anything.

It doesn't take long for you to confide in Gojo Satoru over your worsening image in the lens of Megumi. It also proves to be a mistake.

The red velvet cake sat atop the small, round cedar table is barely touched, only a single spoonful visibly taken from the slice. The cafe you're in is warm and exuberantly luxurious, something that Gojo picked after you muttered, I'll pay, Sensei, only for him to risk a heart attack from you by taking you here. He's paying. He would never make his students pay.

You poke at the cake once, then twice, and you still have entirely no real appetite since whatever happened a week ago. When your gaze comes up to your teacher's sunglasses-clad self, you sigh. "What do I do, Gojo-sensei?"

"No idea," he says with a dismissive shrug. Your expression immediately sours and your grip on your fork tightens. Gojo smiles at that. "You'll figure it out. Megumi probably knows you never intended for any harm."

"But I," searching for words for whatever cacophony inside your head, you click your tongue, "—don't know."

Gojo snickers, picking up the singular cream puff on his plate with his two fingers, shoving it in his mouth vulgarly. He gets up from his chair, stretching his arms, and you glare at him. "Right," he hums, already walking to the cashier with his wallet open, "I have to get going. Tata, [Name]-chan!"

Your hand moves towards the half-empty cup of your strawberry yoghurt drink and you grip it hard enough that you feel the drink rising to the lid with the pressure.

Failure to load the film correctly will prevent image formation regardless of lens quality, focus accuracy, or exposure settings.

II. FOCUS : The focusing mechanism determines which subject is rendered sharply and which remains indistinct.

The lens decides what deserves clarity and what will remain blurred. A lens cannot keep every subject equally clear. Rotate the focusing ring until the intended subject appears sharp within the viewfinder. Subjects positioned outside the selected focal plane will appear progressively less distinct.

Fushiguro Megumi is not someone who doesn't notice, not because he wants to be, but because he can't. He's been around too many things and too many watchful eyes to not realize that being on guard is just the norm.

Fushiguro Megumi finds your personality deeply irritating because it doesn't match the damage your technique causes. He expects someone arrogant. Detached. Clinical, maybe. Someone who doesn't sound the way you do, tone high when joking with his teacher who he oh so despises, and someone who's nose is held so high up to the sky, you'd summon Buddha himself with it. Instead you're the sort of person who kneels in front of injured shikigami with your camera already forgotten around your neck, apologizing so sincerely it almost sounds painful.

The inciting incident happens on the same mission string as the first. Investigating whatever happened to an old, wealthy townhouse in the outskirts of Tokyo, who apparently now had crazy owners. The mission was declared a success, even if you and Megumi were stuck for five hours in the creaky old estate; now you're back to investigating the town.

You aren't curt with Megumi. Not even after the four reassignment forms he filed to the higher-ups and complaining to Gojo about how fundamentally incompatible your techniques are. Megumi is still adamant on this. You can't expose flesh to radiation, it'll burn. The same way you can't expose beings constructed with cursed energy to a technique that burns cursed energy.

The opposite:you're warm, figuratively and literally, and also basically the only thing that emits warmth inside the claustrophobic, yet entirely too big hallways of the hospital you're investigating. There's amber to your fingertips and honeyed softness in your voice that Megumi notices and hates himself for noticing. You don't treat him any differently from before the incident, not really, just more careful.

Divine Dog Black conjures into the vicinity and you turn around just before Megumi lowers his hands from his hand sign. There's a twitch in your fingers and by the next second, the exact second a camera needs to activate its shutter, you take a step forward.

Megumi's eyes follow your movements, watching you, unmoving with only a single step back as you crouch down besides the dark-coated wolf. "I'm sorry," you murmur. You scratch beneath the dog's chin, nails gently scraping at a pressure where the dog leans into your touch. "I'm really sorry."

"It wasn't your fault," Megumi says. And yet, he still feels something unpleasant as he looks at you. Not at you, just an unreasonable feeling in general. Something curdling in the middle of his ribs, spreading throughout his spine. Megumi knows it himself it's irrational for him to still have any sort of condemnation for you, and yet, he still convinces himself that the dogs are still hurt by you. White still doesn't wanna come out when you're with him.

"I know," you agree, pressing your forehead to the dog's own, "I still hate it."

Megumi doesn't say anything because what can he say, and neither does Divine Dog. The dog just closes its eyes, smiling while panting. Its tongue sticks out.

The second incident comes in the form of him really realizing how much you apologize. To him, to the dogs, to Nue, to Max Elephant. Not one mission you and Megumi have been on ends with you not apologizing for your perceived insolence.

The words don't even come grand and heavy, they're muttered like hushed secrets from the curved bow of your lips, which Megumi wanted to kill himself for noticing. Nue is here after Megumi summoned him in the dark corners of an abandoned warehouse. You didn't even raise the camera, and yet you're still approaching the winged creature with the carefulness and gentleness of that of a nurturing mother. Your camera is yet again dangling from your neck, unused and absolutely unpaid with attention. Nue's feather not even burnt, because now you've silently repositioned yourself as to not be in line with Megumi's shadow, or any place where his shikigami could jump out, and yet you're still apologizing to the owl-like thing.

it astonishes Megumi, because you aren't scared. It astonishes him that the expression on your face only features guilt and affection for a creature that shouldn't even be able to understand you like that, nor should you understand. You pay no mind to the giant bird creature that only looks half like a bird because of its wings. You pay no mind with your hands reaching out cautiously to pet him, caressing his feathers, even as Nue is a bird as big as you are, perched precariously on the edge of the metallic table in the study room of the house you're examining.

"Sorry Nue," you murmur under your breath to the bird, caressing its feathers. No mind to Megumi, no mind to anything except to him. Your flash didn't even go off, your shutter didn't go off. There's not a single shred of fear lacing your face even as a bird the size of yourself simply stares you down, perched on top of a desk. "Did I hurt you? I'm really sorry."

The third, is that you don't get mad at anything, you readjust. Like everything is some bad angle that can be fixed just by nudging yourself a little millimeter over. And you don't even think it's a big deal, when clearly it is. He doesn't even understand where your lax demeanor even begins from, and where the anxious, ever-apologizing demeanor starts, because you aren't Gojo. You aren't a theatric, and you certain aren't Itadori with the most earnest smile anyone will ever see in their entire life.

Midnight comes with a deep blue sky, blackened almost, and the chill from the wind hitting your skin. There' s a slight tremble to your fingers from the exhaustion. The streetlamps emit a hearthlike glow that hits your left cheek at an angle that completely contrast the FamilyMart's own fluorescent lights flickering at your right. None of these things emit heat however. You should remind yourself to thank Megumi for his great suggestion in coming to a convenience store after the mission because you looked worn out.

"Kozukata," Megumi calls out, walking towards you with a plastic bag of whatever snacks you had asked him to get you and his. An unopened can of coffee is in his left hand.

You look up from your camera bag and your face softens into a smile. "Hm?"

"…Your lens cap," he points.

"Oh," you glance down, realize it's dangling by the strap instead of attached, and simply click it back into place. "Thanks."

That's it. Megumi realizes what he's done three seconds too late and the name has already come out of his mouth, and he sits far too distanced because he still doesn't know whether to let your light shine to him. You both just eat the heated onigiri in silence and eventually, walk side by side in silence.

He can't take it anymore. "…I didn't mean to."

You blink, readjusting your camera strap, the discomfort of it digging into your shoulder weighing you down. You're pretty sure you're a little bit hunched by now. "Mean to what?"

"…Call you Kozukata," muttering, Megumi tries so hard to avert his gaze. Right, because even if one of his guardians were Gojo Satoru, notoriously disrespectful, Megumi had manners.

"Oh," you shrug. It bothers Megumi for two nights. "S'alright."

The fourth incident of him noticing you is that he slowly realizes your camera isn't actually pointed at battles nearly as often as it's pointed at people. And a horrifying realization that accompanies this is that he knows each film you have.

You photograph abandoned shrines overtaken by ivy. Vending machines glowing alone in empty train stations, illuminating the platform in kitschy flickering lights. Half-melted popsicles left on park benches by little children that you'd later say are gross and unhygienic, and entirely too disrespectful to the Earth. Yuji laughing so hard he doubles over. Nobara asleep during train rides with her mouth slightly open. Even Gojo, somehow, has candid pictures where he isn't posing. Megumi notices because he doesn't have any.

Whenever he glances over your shoulder while you're reviewing photos, he's conspicuously absent. "...You don't photograph me," he says one afternoon without really meaning to.

You shiver. Tokyo is cold at night, always. The pantyhose, while military grade, apparently, under your standard-issued Jujutsu Tech uniform doesn't help much in combating the cold. Megumi's eyes drift to your knee, smooth with the sheer black nylon. He hates this.

You blink at him before answering honestly. "You always leave before I can."

The focusing mechanism adjusts the optical distance between the lens and recording medium. Failure to achieve proper focus may result in loss of image definition.

III. APERTURE : The aperture regulates how much light is permitted to enter the optical system.

Aperture settings regulate the diameter of the lens opening and determine the quantity of light reaching the recording medium during exposure. Aperture values are expressed as f-numbers. Each full stop adjustment doubles or halves the amount of transmitted light entering the optical system.

There comes a point where Fushiguro Megumi realizes that actively avoiding you requires more effort than simply existing in the same space as you.

Not because he forgives you. Not entirely. Divine Dog still returns to him occasionally with singed patches of shadow around its legs whenever your timing slips by half a second, and Nue still sheds the occasional feather that disintegrates before it even reaches the ground. Your cursed technique remains, fundamentally, the worst possible thing to pair with his own. Gojo's matchmaking—professionally speaking, anyway—continues to be one of the greatest failures of modern jujutsu administration.

But you adapt.

Megumi notices that before he ever consciously decides to.

You stop standing directly behind him during missions. Then you stop standing beside him. Eventually, without either of you ever discussing it, you begin positioning yourself forty-five degrees to his left whenever he summons Divine Dog. It keeps your lens naturally angled away from the shadows at his feet. When Nue takes flight, you lower your camera until it's absolutely necessary. You switch to a narrower lens on assignments involving shikigami-heavy combat. Megumi catches you doing it once while pretending to check the straps on his sword.

Tolerating you and liking you is not the same. But somehow, his dogs have accepted they like you faster than he did. Megumi realizes the dogs forgave you before he did a month before your cat's birthday. Your cat's birthday doesn't mean anything, because the most he'd do is congratulate you with his deadpan and you'd both move on with your day. But the dogs annoy him. They're usually right about people.

The first time Divine Dog actually approaches you on its own, pressing its snout into your palm despite everything, Megumi genuinely frowns at the animal. Comparable to a child seeing another child get the last piece of candy from a house during Halloween.

It's White this time that comes to you, completely separating himself from Megumi and leaving him to die. You don't notice him at first. You're kneeling beside your camera bag, quietly replacing the cracked UV filter from yesterday's mission, lips pursed in concentration.

Megumi does.

"...White."

The dog ignores him, snout up in the air like he's smelled something friend-shaped that he liked a little too much. White sniffs once, twice, then pads toward you with complete confidence. The wolf nudges your side and startled, you finally look up.

"...Oh," your entire face softens.

Megumi watches in growing disbelief as you slowly reach into the side pocket of your satchel instead of immediately trying to pet him. It's something he noticed a week into you apologizing to his dogs. You've started carrying dog treats, maybe to curry favor from his canine, but now he's sure has just become a habit. Those treats are the expensive kind and he knows that even your sugary drinks aren't that pricy.

How can Megumi keep hating you when you've been carrying dog treats?

"...Can I?" White has already answered by sitting down, some simper already on the dog's lips that entirely betray Megumi's constant shielding of him from you. You pull out a small paper pouch, neatly tied with a pink ribbon. Megumi's brows knit together.

"They're safe," you say quickly, glancing toward him instead of the dog. The idea that you'd poison a dog is far too out of reach, even for Megumi. He just doesn't know why his dogs want you.

Megumi doesn't say anything, but his eye twitches in disbelief. White gently takes the treat from your fingers and lap at your hand. A startled squeak sound stumbles from your mouth, but you immediately relax when the dog leans his entire head into your palm.

Megumi exhales through his nose. "Traitor."

"...Seriously?" he mutters beneath his breath, "after one apology?" Divine Dog merely closes its eyes while you scratch behind its ears. Several apologies, Megumi. He spends the rest of the mission irrationally annoyed with his own shikigami.

Not on a mission, but a team bonding exercise that Gojo set up, which somehow didn't include Kugisaki and Itadori (who were eventually found, to be in a booth somewhere drinking cheap American-imitation milkshakes), nor anyone from your grade, Megumi finds out that he completely regrets saying anything about your camera and why you don't take photos of him because you start asking.

Quietly, politely. "Can I take one?"

Somehow, you've ended up in Shibuya Parco, with a shopping bag in hand because you decided you deathly needed new stationery you don't need, the afternoon sun hitting him from behind. He's sweaty, exhausted, hair sticking up in every direction imaginable. "Now?" he asks flatly.

You tilt your head. "Yeah."

The rough edges of his voice have appeared and a rasp takes form in his throat. You want to offer him water. It also isn't really because of exhaustion. "...I look terrible."

"You always think that," you deadpan. He doesn't know how to respond because you didn't compliment him exactly. You simply stated it like it was an observable law of physics. Somehow, that embarrasses him more than outright praise ever could.

It's embarrassing the first time you ask to photograph him intentionally, and it's still embarrassing for every time you ask. He thinks you're doing it on purpose because every single photograph somehow captures him looking miserable. Hair a mess, uniform dirty, blood on his cheek, or just plain ugly. It's also embarrassing when you take photos of him candidly; so maybe, it's just embarrassing in general.

Eventually he realizes they are the only photos anyone has ever taken of him. Nobody has photographs of him laughing, because it's rare, and the only person who somehow thinks of taking a picture of him like that is you. Nobody has photographs of him eating, Itadori eats funnier. Nobody has photographs of him sleeping on the train, nobody rides to his stop. Nobody has photographs of him existing. You just have a camera constantly slung around your neck like a geek.

The aperture mechanism controls both exposure and depth of field. Incorrect aperture selection may produce underexposed images or unintended background sharpness.

IV. SHUTTER : The shutter controls the duration of exposure. Once released, the recording process cannot be interrupted.

The shutter regulates the duration for which light reaches the recording medium. Exposure time should be selected according to subject movement and available light.

The first time you get critically injured, is technically, because of Fushiguro Megumi.

Your loafers whine against the creaky floorboards and you hear the leakage coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. The damp, utterly uninhabitable home you're in reminds you more of a comically over the top horror movie. You wouldn't mind watching a horror movie after this mission, something stupid to help you unwind. But who the hell would you ask when Maki's not interested in hate watching and you barely talk to anybody else. Kugisaki's bad at horror. Megumi is off the table.

Four steps is all you need for a curse to appear and disappear

One, you step forward until your weight terrorizes the floor. Heat curls under the humid wood of the house and your brows furrow at the sudden change. Your eyes flicker to Megumi and he's already looking at you cautiously.

Two, your hands brace around the camera around your neck, gripping tightly on the device. From behind, you hear whispers from unseen things, dim apparitions clouding your vision. Megumi's hands are already up and ready to summon one of his shikigami. You mutter something incoherent; the curses that hide first are the worst.

Three, you step closer to Megumi, back to him. A pit of dark, shadowy energy forms from the ground in front of you, materializing into a semi-translucent man, eyes curled like it was smiling so happily, yet frowning so deeply. It groans at you, ghastly muttering chants. Megumi summons his dogs.

Four, you place your finger on the shutter and the curse growls at you hostilely. You run to the other side of the room and dodge the projectile-like attack it lunged at you. It seemed entirely too preoccupied on you and the finger on the shutter of your camera. The next second, it's lunging itself at you and you raise your camera up, the viewfinder lighting up as its essence is perfectly focused in frame.

You don't click though.

Numbing pain is all you feel the second after your hesitation. Luckily, the Divine Dogs tackled the curse, enough for it to divert enough to not reach your lethal points. Your shoulder feels heavy, blood drips from a gash far too big for minimal blood loss. Tugging, biting, wailing. Eventually the curse cries out in pain when Megumi hits it particularly hard.

And Megumi reprimands you the second the exorcises the curse. "What the hell were you thinking?" hs voice cracks through the ruined hallway harder than the curse had.

The Divine Dogs are still tearing through the remains of the spirit just meters away. The wet sound of exorcism echoes once before everything finally falls silent. You don't answer. Your hand is pressed against your shoulder instead, blood slipping steadily between your fingers. It stains the leather wrapping of your camera before dripping onto warped floorboards one drop at a time.

Megumi is already in front of you. "What were you thinking?" he repeats, louder this time.

His hands stop just short of grabbing you, fingers twitching. Your injury sits too close to your shoulder. Too much pressure would only make it worse. "You had it. You had a clear shot."

"...I know," your voice is shaky and your head feels just fuzzy enough for you to panic, but entirely too conscious to still be able to decipher what is happening, what you're doing, and where Megumi is. Still, you aren't good with blood.

"So why didn't you take it?"

The house creaks around you. Silence engulfs the uncomfortable distance between you two and you search for a response. You lower your eyes to the camera still hanging from your neck. "...White was still on it."

Megumi frowns. "...What?"

"The frame," your thumb unconsciously rubs over the shutter button. "He was still pinning it," you realize your fingers have gone numb as well. You swallow and you really don't know why the words won't come out. "If I'd fired, I would've hit him too."

Megumi stares so intensely you feel as if he's burning holes inside your brain. You awkwardly laugh, a pathetic sound that doesn't hold nearly enough comedy for the situation you're in. "I figured a shoulder would heal... burning your shikigami again doesn't."

The sentence lands with all the weight of concrete and all the idiocy of both of you.Megumi can't even find something to argue with. Because from your perspective, it makes perfect sense. You'd made a choice.

And ever since your shoulder injury, Fushiguro Megumi has found it impossible to stop noticing you. He tells himself the reason he's watching you is practical.

Your shoulder has been wrapped for twelve days.

The first three, he only checks because Shoko had warned you against overextending it, and your definition of overextending appears to differ wildly from everyone else's. You still carry your camera around your neck. You still insist on lifting evidence boxes whenever missions require documentation. During one assignment in Yokohama, he watches you reach for a rusted metal cabinet with your injured arm before stopping halfway, blinking once, then quietly switching hands as though you'd only just remembered.

You never complain, that's the most irritating part. Megumi almost wishes you would because then he'd have something reasonable to react to and stop the itching feeling up in his neurons.

Instead, because of this absence, he starts noticing stupid things he has no business noticing. The way you subconsciously roll your shoulder every twenty minutes, trying to loosen the stiffness without making a show of it. The way your fingers hesitate over the shutter button for a fraction of a second whenever Divine Dog is anywhere near your frame. The way you've somehow taught yourself to walk around him instead of expecting him to move around you. It should have made working together easier but somehow it only makes him more aware whenever you're there.

It starts becoming irritating. Not you. The awareness.

He notices you arriving before he actually sees you because your camera strap makes a quiet clicking sound against the metal buckle every fourth step. He notices you carry too many rolls of film in your jacket pockets because your silhouette isn't symmetrical anymore. He notices you always drink the fruit-flavored drinks from convenience stores first and save bottled water for the walk back to the dorms.

None of this information is useful.

And the worst part is that Gojo Satoru notices this change in his awareness level, and notices it first. And Gojo knowing only serves to mock Megumi in ways too conniving for him to handle. Kugisaki and Itadori follow suit. Megumi doesn't know if Gojo started gossiping and spreading baseless rumors about him or something else.

It becomes significantly worse after he realizes you've stopped apologizing to him, which started on the exact first mission you went on after your shoulder injury. The day they took you to Shoko, you apologized to Megumi again and only god knows what happened during that. So not because you've stopped feeling guilty (for what?) but because you've decided he probably doesn't want to hear it anymore.

The apologies redirect themselves, now only to his shikigami. To Divine Dog. To Nue. To Max Elephant after it brushes your shoulder and nearly knocks your camera over. Never to Megumi. He doesn't know why the absence bothers him; it shouldn't, if anything, it's what he'd wanted. Instead there's a strange emptiness where the soft, embarrassed sorry used to be after every mission.

He catches himself waiting for it once on some mission in a faux bustling illusion of a shopping mall. "...Mission's over," you say instead, then you smile politely. Then you leave.

For reasons completely beyond his comprehension, that feels worse.

Megumi finds himself remembering your cat's birthday Nuppe, the day of her birthday. You've shown him photos of her exactly once, when Kugisaki asked about her and you panned your phone to your underclassmen one by one showing you the Angoran cat with a permanently resting bitch face. And somehow, during a rain that starts halfway through the end of a surveillance assignment—meaning, going home—he says in his typical flat voice; happy birthday, I bought her treats.

The rain isn't that heavy. But it's enough to make Tokyo shine and for the dampness surrounding the roads to look like makeshift lacquer. You're standing underneath the awning of a closed pharmacy, trying to wipe rainwater off your lens with a microfiber cloth that has very obviously become too wet to accomplish anything.

You sigh, "gods."

Megumi looks over because you've spoken. That's all. Just because you spoke. Your hair is darker from the rain, flattening to your scalp. Water gathers at the ends before dripping onto your collar. You blow a loose strand away from your face without thinking. Then you laugh to yourself.

"...Guess that's today's lighting ruined."

Megumi stares. Not because you've done anything particularly interesting. Because—you're pretty. The realization arrives with all the elegance of being hit in the face with a brick, because it has none of the kind of exaggerated adjective Gojo would throw around carelessly.

"Shit," he immediately looks away. He has absolutely no business thinking that. Because what are you if not just the second year that makes being a shikigami a living hell?

Do not apply excessive force to the shutter release button. A single complete press is sufficient to initiate the exposure sequence.

V. DEVELOPMENT : Exposure alone does not produce a visible image. Development reveals what has already been recorded.

Exposed photographic film does not produce a visible image until processed using the appropriate chemical development procedure.

Megumi starts lingering after missions with you. Which at some point, became rare, because you've been given your regular missions, paired up with whoever was in your grade. Gojo notices this of course, unbeknownst to Megumi. Eventually he starts being sent on more missions with you; that makes him feel both extremely embarrassed and extremely pleased.

And he doesn't linger to talk. He only stands there while you clean your lens, nothing to discuss. You're packing your camera, checking memory cards. He'll wait. Not because he wants to, he tells himself desperately, because leaving first feels wrong and he's gotten into the habit of walking you to the train station now. Well, walking together, which he also tells himself, because you board the same train and your three stops apart.

It's agonizing when he realizes he's slowly starting to become aware of physical details against his own will. You're shorter than he thought. Your sleeves are always slightly too long. Your fingers have tiny calluses from gripping the camera. You smell different depending on whether it's before or after missions. He hates this.

Megumi is fine with knowing things about you, unless it's unnecessary. At first it's tactical. Which shoulder your camera hangs from. Which eye you instinctively close while looking through the viewfinder. Whether you're reaching for a zoom lens or a prime lens. Then, somewhere along the way, those observations become... less useful. He notices your perfume changes depending on the weather. Notices your nail polish is always chipped on your dominant hand because that's the hand gripping the camera body all day. Notices you chew absentmindedly on the inside of your cheek while waiting for elevators. Notices your hair smells different after rain. Every realization is immediately followed by another thought: Why the hell do I know that?

Megumi absolutely refuses to admit he's becoming physically attracted to you because it feels fundamentally unfair. How is he supposed to be attracted to someone who accidentally burns the very extensions of his soul? Every mission becomes psychological warfare. Every mission all he thinks about is the smell of your perfume, how sweet the strawberry is, and the vanilla that lingers after the first whiff. You're crouched beside him reviewing blurry photographs while he's trying very hard not to acknowledge how close your shoulder is to his.

You roll your sleeves up during summer because it's too hot, exposing your forearms, and suddenly he can't remember what Gojo was explaining five seconds ago. He starts looking literally anywhere else. The all too interesting ceiling, the large tree shading your face that makes the soft light that does hit your face do wonders to it, pavement. curses. Anything except you. Unfortunately, every reflective window reminds him you're standing beside him anyway.

He discovers you bite your lower lip when you're concentrating, not until something severe, not until blood draws and metallic flavors hit your tongue. Just enough for your teeth to leave tiny pale indentations before the color slowly returns.

You do it while changing film. While reading mission reports. While trying to untangle camera straps. He notices it once; then twice, then every single time.

"Megumi," right, you've called him Megumi, no honorific, no last name, for months now since you've met. He let you. Nothing changed, and yet somehow his whole interpretation warped a hundred and eighty degrees. "You've been staring at me for like thirty seconds."

"Huh?" is all he can muster.

"Something on my face?" you ask, quirking an eyebrow as your hand swats to your face, hovering just above your cheek. You wait for a response carefully, watching Megumi's face unchanging despite his overheating interior.

"Yes," he nods. He didn't take himself to be a liar, and that bad at that. You immediately wipe away invisible dust that he made up. After ten seconds of lying to you, he hisses, "...No."

"Oh."

He wants to throw himself into Tokyo Bay.

Everything is over for Megumi when he realizes with dawning, wretched clarity what the fuck his observations about you mean. And it chokes him more when he experiences the slow, humiliating death of his own composure. It starts small. He fixes his hair before meeting you. Then he starts changing hoodies because he remembers you once said dark blue looked nicer than black. He catches himself wondering if you've noticed. He almost asks once. The words get halfway up his throat before he swallows them back down so violently he nearly chokes. This is ridiculous. He's ridiculous. He doesn't care what you think. He repeats that to himself every morning while subconsciously choosing whichever jacket you've complimented before.

And he starts knowing that you have at least four shades of lip tint you alternate with. He averts his eyes whenever they even think about looking at you, like they have a mind of their own. The first shade happens after a scuffle with a curse.

Megumi notices your lip tint by accident. Not because he's looking at your lips. Because he's looking for injuries. You come back to the open world wiping dried blood from your jaw with the sleeve of your uniform. It's instinctive now. Before either of you speak, his eyes automatically scan your face first, then your wrists, then whatever part of you looks like it hurts the most. The cut on your cheek is shallow. Your shoulder has already healed months ago. Nothing serious.

"You're bleeding," Megumi says, voice level. He tries so hard not to let his concern—the overwhelming kind—seep through his cadence.

Your brows scrunch up and you look down, hand coming up to your face. You pause momentarily, fingers touching the corner of your mouth before erupting in quiet laughter. You look at Megumi with a glint in your eyes. "Not blood," you pull out a tiny tube from your pocket and hold it up. "Lip tint."

Megumi blinks. The color is pinkish, plum-like. He files this away unsuspected by his own self. "...You wear makeup?"

The question comes out flatter than he intended and your eyes narrow. You look mildly offended; Megumi hisses inside his mind. "Girls usually do."

"...Right."

The second shade, he sees when you are making indignant sounds somewhere between a protest and a laugh as Kugisaki grips your chin with absolutely no regard for personal space. Megumi doesn't bother looking up from the mission report spread across the common room table. He's already learned that whenever Nobara says hold still, somebody's about to become collateral damage.

"Hold still," Kugisaki complains.

"I am holding still!"

Kugisaki smears the lip tint, a coral color that Kugisaki picked out for you that you personally think is way too coral. It suits her more. There's a slight cooling sensation from the tint and you flinch slightly as the cold reaches your lips. "You're talking."

Finishing, Kugisaki retreats, brows furrowing as her eyes shift back and forth from your eyes to your lips. You ask, "Is it crooked?" she says no, "too bright?" she says no. "It feels bright."

Kugisaki glares at your insistent questioning, then turns to Megumi, filing paperwork nobody in his team would ever wanna do. "Megumi, does this look right?"

"No idea."

"Look," Kugisaki kicks his foot under the table. grunting, he does reluctantly. It was the worst mistake of his life.

Finally lifting his head, he notices. Your lips are pink. Not dramatically, but pinker, and definitely more orange. Like you've been eating strawberries, or wearing something. He tries so hard to maintain his composure. "...It looks the same."

Kugisaki groans loud enough to concern nearby wildlife. "Men are hopeless."

Now the thing is, you own an embarrassing number of lip products. Not because you're particularly vain, but since every photograph renders color differently. One's too orange on film, one disappears completely, one's fine indoors but awful outside. You explain it absentmindedly while reorganizing your camera bag and Megumi wasn't even part of the conversation. He just happened to be sitting nearby.

"...Film changes it?" is what he asks. You sound surprised that he did but you nod and explain anyway about differing color temperatures while you continue sorting lenses like this is obvious. Megumi pretends to return to reading.

Megumi also grows quietly possessive before he's even willing to admit he likes you. Yuji calls you cute exactly once after you cut your hair. It's harmless. Entirely harmless. You're showing everyone because Nobara insisted the new bangs framed your face better. Yuji grins and says, "Looks good." That's it. That's literally all he says. Megumi spends the next twenty minutes unusually curt with Yuji for reasons he himself cannot articulate.

Later that night, while trying to fall asleep, his brain cruelly decides to replay that interaction on loop. Then it starts inventing entirely fictional conversations between you and Yuji. By two in the morning he's lying awake staring at the ceiling, furious with himself over scenarios that never happened.

He's restless for the next two weeks and becomes irrationally irritated whenever Itadori talks to you for too long. Not because he's jealous. Obviously. Itadori's just loud... annoying. Standing too close. Laughing too much. Existing incorrectly.

"...Can you stop monopolizing my partner."

"Your partner?"

"...Mission partner."

Megumi's internal monologue becomes progressively more pathetic. Your hair smells nice today and the hinoki wood suits you a lot. Stop. Your hands are really small, thinking of how'd they be compared to his. Stop. The skirt looks—Jesus Christ.

It eventually goes to a point where he doesn't even wanna talk to you. Well, he forces himself to trick himself into forcing himself to not wanna talk to you. Layers upon layers of lies that conceal the fact that he doesn't know if he can want you.

Megumi doesn't realize the exact moment he stops seeing your cursed technique as the thing that destroys his shadows and starts seeing it as the thing that lets you understand him. Every photograph you take strips away appearances. Cursed energy. Performances. Masks. It captures what people refuse to look at.

One evening you hand him a printed photograph you'd taken weeks earlier without telling him. It's just him sitting beneath a tree after a mission, Divine Dog White asleep with its head in his lap. His expression is softer than he's ever seen it. Peaceful, almost.

"...Delete it," he mutters automatically.

You smile a little and shake your head. It's almost a smirk, something devilish that Megumi thinks you've learnt entirely from Gojo Satoru. "No."

He frowns."...Why?"

Moving to his flank, you give him another smile and tuck the photograph back into his hands. For the first time in his life, Megumi can't think of a single thing to say because of your response. "Because I don't think you've ever seen yourself the way your dogs do."

So handle exposed film carefully before development. Excessive heat, moisture, or accidental light exposure may permanently degrade recorded information.

VI. FIXING : Without fixing, the image continues changing until it destroys itself.

After development, film must be immersed in fixing solution to remove remaining light-sensitive compounds and stabilize the recorded image.

When Megumi first started taking the train home with you, with neither of you planning it, he didn't expect for it to be the highlight of his day, the constant thing he looks forward to when they're granted leave from the dormitory.

He spends entire train rides pretending to scroll through his phone, aimlessly scrolling through internet forums or just some Wikipedia article he could care less about. He's actually watching your reflection in the window. Not creepy. Just—checking whether you're asleep. Whether your stop is next. Whether you remembered to zip your bag. He catches himself doing it. Looks away immediately.

Megumi's eyes drift down momentarily down to your thighs, squished together gently in the seat. He cusses himself out for noticing once again, because he's not stopped noticing things about you, if anything, he notices more.

Now he knows the five different ways you laugh. Divided into fifteen more ways because Megumi spends his time looking at you whilst you're on missions far too long. nothing changes about this, he's noticed things, everything that adds to his suffering.

Tokyo passes outside in streaks of reflected neon against rain-darkened windows but Megumi hasn't looked out once since boarding. He's become painfully aware that somewhere over the past several months, sitting beside you has become so habitual that the absence of it would probably feel stranger than the presence. Your shoulder brushes his every time the carriage sways around a bend—not enough to linger, only enough to remind him that you're there—and every accidental touch feels catastrophically deliberate despite the fact that neither of you moves away.

Megumi stares at absolutely nothing in front of him; he's become good at pretending not to look at you. Mostly because he knows that if he lets his gaze drift even slightly to the left, he'll notice something again. The way your lashes lower whenever you read. The tiny crease that appears between your brows while deciding which photographs deserve to stay. The way your thumb always hesitates over the delete button for half a second longer than necessary because, for reasons he'll never understand, you feel guilty deleting blurry pictures of abandoned buildings.

You yawn without covering your mouth, then seem to remember halfway through and awkwardly hide the rest behind your sleeve. Your head tips backwards against the train window with a soft thud, eyes fluttering shut only for a second before reopening again. Sleep is clearly trying to win and Megumi notices because of course he does. He notices that your grip on your camera bag loosens each time your eyes close, then tightens again whenever the train announces another station. He notices you've missed the announcement entirely this time. He notices the strap digging into your shoulder exactly where it always does after longer missions, leaving that faint indentation that disappears by morning. He notices because his brain has apparently decided that documenting you is now a full-time occupation.

The words leave his mouth before he has the chance to inspect them. "You can sleep."

You blink slowly, still fighting whatever exhaustion has settled over you, before giving him a sheepish smile that feels entirely too warm for someone who should just be another classmate. Is he? "...I'll miss my stop."

"I'll wake you."

"...Promise?"

The question is quiet, that same tone you use when you're talking to his dogs in that way so utterly filled with affeciton. So absurdly trusting that something in Megumi's chest tightens without permission. "...Yeah."

You're both still in the train when Megumi realizes that he should've said to Todo Aoi that his type was you. Not someone with unshakable character, because that could be anyone. That could be Itadori and his loud ass self. That could be Kugisaki. That could be anyone.

Because what he wants is some girl who's a year older than him who looks to pretty to be alive, the first person to have ever made him want so suffocatingly. Because he remembers your hair and how it catches light under the sun, the constant, almost exhaustive gentleness you show to anything and everything—to him, when he so adamantly avoided you because you hurt his dogs—and the snacks you bring for his shikigami, not just the Divine Dogs now, constantly, which Megumi suspects has probably drained far too much of your wallet now. He wants you. Nothing else, nothing more. And he wants you in the middle of his life, perfectly centered like the axis of a pendulum.

And it's hopeful because somewhere between the hurt, electrifying feeling that hummed through his body when you smile at him, and his stomach coiling with something addictive, you started acting differently around him too.

Your backpack jingles because there's always some ridiculous charm hanging from it. One charm never changes; some cat thing that looks too cute for a bag that's seen too much. On his birthday, you gift him the same charm in black.

"Megumi," you murmur, holding the charm up to him, "happy birthday."

That's all it takes. That's everything it takes for Fushiguro Megumi to stop his own heart to look at the cave and asking whether the feelings he has for you aren't worth it, or if what his brain has quietly been saying should be taken seriously or not. So Megumi accidentally lets the truth slip in the most infuriating way possible. Only two hours later, when you're adjusting the strap of your camera before a mission when he says, without looking up from his phone, "...You look pretty today."

Silence. Absolute silence. He freezes exactly half a second after speaking. You stare at him. He stares very intensely at absolutely nothing.

"...What?" you ask eventually, eyes looking up at him through your eyelashes.

Proper fixation permanently terminates the film's sensitivity to light, allowing the negative to be handled safely under normal illumination.

VII. PRINTING : The developed negative is transferred into a permanent positive image. Proper archival storage protects an image against deterioration while preserving it for future viewing.

A photographic negative cannot be interpreted directly without appropriate printing. Enlargement onto photographic paper reveals the recorded image in its intended tonal values.

Eventually Megumi discovers something infinitely more dangerous than your cursed technique: you actually see him. And that's probably the reason you've carved your way into his heart so deeply. You see him. Not the Zen'in heir. Not Gojo's student. Not the prodigy. Just Megumi. You ask if he's sleeping enough because the circles under his eyes have gotten darker. You quietly hand him bottled water before he remembers he's thirsty. You notice he's favoring his ribs after missions without him ever saying they're injured. None of these observations are dramatic. None of them are accompanied by speeches. You simply pay attention. Megumi realizes, with mounting horror, that nobody has really done that before. And he wants you to continue doing this.

There comes a point where Megumi can no longer pretend coincidence is simply coincidence.

Individually, none of it means anything. You wait for him after missions because you happen to finish packing your camera at the same time. You happen to buy two cans of coffee because convenience stores only sell them in refrigerated rows anyway. You happen to sit beside him on trains because there are only so many empty seats. Every explanation is perfectly reasonable on its own. Megumi accepts every single one without argument because he's always preferred simpler answers. Life is easier when things have practical explanations. The problem begins when practical explanations start occurring every single day.

It starts with the train.

Not because the two of you share the same line—that part has always been true—but because you begin missing trains you ordinarily would've caught. You're standing beside him on the platform one evening, camera tucked safely beneath your coat against the rain, when the doors slide open in front of you. You glance at the carriage. Then at him. Then, with complete nonchalance, you let the train leave without boarding it. The next one arrives seven minutes later. You spend those seven minutes discussing whether convenience store pudding has become noticeably worse in recent years. Megumi doesn't think about it until it happens again. Then a third time. Then enough times that he quietly checks the timetable himself just to confirm you really are choosing to wait.

Megumi never asks why; somehow he knows the answer already. And the entire school knows before either of you do.

Not because either of you are particularly obvious. Quite the opposite, actually. You and Megumi never touch beyond whatever is strictly necessary during missions. You don't flirt. You don't exchange lingering glances across classrooms like some cheap romance manga. Half the conversations you have consist of practical things like checking train schedules, reminding each other to eat after overnight assignments, or asking whether either of you remembered extra film. On paper, the relationship is painfully ordinary.

People have functioning eyes.

Itadori notices first because Megumi starts waiting outside classrooms he has absolutely no reason to be standing outside. Kugisaki notices because you've somehow become the only person capable of convincing Megumi to actually buy himself lunch instead of another miserable convenience-store rice ball. Maki notices because the two of you unconsciously drift toward one another during briefings until there's barely enough room between your shoulders for another person to stand. Panda starts making bets. Inumaki simply looks between the two of you once before muttering, "Salmon."

Gojo is, naturally, unbearable. Because he was the one who put you together in the first place, alll those months ago.

"So," he says one afternoon while Megumi is filling out mission paperwork, "how's your wife?"

Megumi is alrady aggravated by so. "...What."

"[Name]-chan."

Megumi doesn't even look up. He always found it strange that he refers to you by your first name and not your last. but he guessed it was because Gojo liked picking up random kids to nurture them. "...She's not my wife."

"Girlfriend?" Gojo asks, a vehement no following. He hums. "Fiancée?"

The pen snaps. Gojo bursts into laughter loud enough that several first-years poke their heads into the hallway to see what happened. Megumi silently reaches for another pen while considering whether murdering one's teacher constitutes self-defense.

And the confession happens after a mission so painfully ordinary neither of you will remember what the curse even looked like ten years from now.

Just rain.

The kind that starts as mist before deciding it has somewhere important to be, soaking through uniforms within minutes. The station entrance is crowded with people waiting for it to pass, umbrellas colliding every few seconds as strangers apologize to one another without looking up. You stand beneath the awning beside Megumi, carefully drying your camera with a cloth that has long since become too damp to actually absorb anything. Something about this feels entirely too familiar but everything that comes after feels novel.

"...It's ruined," you sigh quietly.

"It'll dry."

You shake your head and Megumi doesn't even try to argue. You know better. "The film won't."

Silence settles comfortably between the two of you. Not awkward. It hasn't been awkward for months now. And the air, while you're sure you aren't crazy, feels sweet, like amazake, or something else that reminds you of warmth.

You glance sideways. "You're staring again."

Megumi blinks, shuffling slightly. "Sorry."

"You've apologized to me more this week than I apologized to you in six months," you state. You counted. You would never admit this to Megumi but you've started counting how many times he's apologized. For simply brushing your arm. For talking first before you.

"...I have?"

"Mhm."

He hadn't realized. The rain grows louder against the station roof and the foggy mist beyond your vision continues. You smile to yourself while carefully removing the memory card from your camera. "...It's cute."

Megumi stiffens. "...What's cute?"

"You," the words leave your mouth with complete sincerity. Megumi forgets how to breathe momentarily. An actual contraction in his lungs he's sure isn't good. You point absentmindedly toward the space between his brows. "You have a wrinkle—when you're embarrassed."

He immediately smooths his expression and you smirk playfully, snorting. "...It's gone now."

"It probably isn't," you flatly say, though the teasing edge of your expression doesn't minimize itself one bit. It's become one of his favorite expressions. Maybe he's just a masochist. Or he thinks everything you do should be framed like a photo album.

Megumi complains. "...Stop looking at me."

"I am," you frown at him, squinting at him and kicking the back of his leg softly, not enough for him to tumble, not enough for him to buckle.

Megumi falters, head turning just a fraction to his left, where you are. "Don't."

You raise an eyebrow at him, hand gripping on the camera bag so hard, your nails dig into the fabric. Your heart flutters, and you're entirely too sure what the feeling is because Gojo keeps teasing you about it. And he's mostly right. You continue looking anyway.

Megumi exhales through his nose. Another silence unfolds surrounding your space, only the open sounds of rain drizzling atop the roof. This one lasts longer. Megumi doesn't mind silence, and yet, he couldn't stop himself from breaking it.

"...I think I'm in love with you."

The sentence arrives in the exact same tone he'd use to announce tomorrow's weather. Flat and matter-of-fact like he'd simply become too exhausted to keep carrying it.

The realization strikes him approximately one second after the words leave his mouth. His eyes widen exactly half an inch but neither of you move, not because you don't know what to do, but because you've both imagined this moment so many different ways that reality somehow feels smaller than expectation.

Rain continues hammering against the pavement beyond the station roof. People hurry past carrying transparent umbrellas. Somewhere farther down the street, a crossing signal chirps into the evening.

"Megumi," you say his name in that tone again, whatever tone you use for dogs. At this point, he's compared it to how you talk to White too many times, but he's far too in love with it to hate it.

"...Forget I—"

"I can't," you quickly interrupt then you falter the same way as him. the hold on your camera bag tightens and you murmur: "I think I love you too."

He closes his eyes just for a second. Like someone who's spent months bracing for impact only to discover the ground beneath him is unexpectedly soft. "You do?" he asks, genuinely surprised.

"I thought I was being obvious," you deadpan. Well it was obvious, to anyone but the two of you apparently. Megumi trails off with an unsure no. "I've literally been carrying dog treats for your dogs."

His voice disappears. You step closer before he has anything else to say. Close enough now that your soaked sleeves brush together every time either of you breathes. Close enough that your warmth seeps into him and his warmth seeps into you.

"Can I kiss you?" you ask, peering up at him through lashes wet from the rain.

It's almost funny how immediately he answers.

"...Please."

Your fingers reach first, not for his face, but for the collar of his uniform, straightening it out of pure nervous habit even though the rain has already ruined it. Megumi watches every tiny movement with the concentration of someone trying to memorize something before it disappears forever.

Then you lean up and he meets you halfway. The kiss is embarrassingly gentle, barely there. Nothing like either of you secretly imagined during sleepless nights and train rides home. Then again, you've never kissed a man before, and Kugisaki told you that Megumi's never had a girlfriend before (which relieved you way too much).

It's just warm despite the rain. Short enough that neither of you is completely certain it happened until you separate again. Megumi doesn't move very far. Neither do you. You feel fulfilled, but somehow incomplete. What a selfish being.

"...Can I do that again?" he asks so quietly you're almost convinced the rain invented the sentence for him.

You laugh. Not loudly. Just enough that he thinks he'll spend the rest of his life trying to hear that exact sound again.

"Yeah," you whisper. As many times as you want."

Megumi has one catastrophic realization. Everything he values—His techniques. His shikigami. His composure. His plans. His emotional restraint. You've managed to disrupt every single one. And somehow, he doesn't actually want things to go back to the way they were.

The final print cannot contain information absent from the original negative. Printing reveals only what has already been recorded.

Store negatives in a cool, dry location away from direct sunlight. Proper storage ensures the image remains stable for future viewing.

notes ꩜ hi i've been in a slump lately AND on vacation so all my actual fics are in the gutter im sorry for only giving you slop :[ i made this literally TODAY so if you see any errors lmk. anyway, i have a taglist, i have an ao3, i have a camera ripped off from fatal frame. comments and reblogs appreciated. byebye 𖹭

taglist ꩜ @teaspecifically ， @v4mpyyb4tzz ， @nightmarenyxx ， @spectranix | typical taglist form