When I try someone else, iโll still miss you.
Synopsis: In a universe untouched by the bloodshed of jujutsu society, you and Megumi navigate college life as "just roommates." But within the confines of a shared dorm, unspoken feelings begin to unravel, forcing both of you to confront a truth neither is ready to name.
Silence settled in the space between you and Megumi as both of you made a deliberate effort to ignore the other's existence. It would have been easier if you weren't living under the same roof.
Unfortunately, you were.
Your friends had laughed when you told them what happened, which only made everything worse. To them, the situation was hilarious. To you, it was a nightmare. Avoiding someone was difficult enough on its own. Avoiding someone who shared your apartment, attended your classes, had gym membership with you, and occupied nearly every corner of your daily life was practically impossible.
To make the situation worse, you both still had two years left to finish your degree. Youโd have to put up with this condition for two more years if you both didnโt want to let your pride down and talk it out like the mature adults you were.
Just a few weeks ago, everything had felt normal. Megumi would wait outside your classroom after lectures, pretending he wasn't waiting while scrolling through his phone. He'd cook dinner for the two of you because, according to him, it made more sense than preparing separate meals. Some nights, you'd end up tangled together on the couch while watching movies neither of you was paying attention to. Other times, you'd fall asleep against his shoulder and wake up covered with a blanket you didn't remember grabbing.
Normal things that you both had convinced yourselves were just โroommate things.โ Things that gradually stopped feeling platonic long before either of you acknowledged it. At the time, neither of you questioned it. It was easy to dismiss every lingering touch and every stolen glance as something ordinary.
That explanation had worked for months. Until it didn't. The beginning of the end was embarrassingly simple.
Yuji had thrown a party. Megumi wasn't interested in parties, but Yuji was his best friend, which meant attendance was non-negotiable. Before leaving, he'd tried convincing you to come along.
You couldn't. You had full plates within your grasp.
So Megumi went alone. Somewhere during the night, a girl approached him. Not just any girl, THE girl. She was a sweetheart. An angel that you swear had halos glowing on top of her head. She was beautifulโฆkind. The sort of person people developed crushes on without ever speaking to her. She asked him out. Megumi rejected her.
Then, the moment the party ended, he came straight home and told you. And somehow, that conversation ruined everything. Because instead of simply accepting his answer, you kept asking questions.
"Why didn't you say yes?"
Megumi sat beside you on the couch, one arm draped lazily around your waist. His expression had immediately flattened.
"I didn't want to."
"That's not an answer."
"It literally is."
You frowned.
"She's gorgeous."
"Okay?"
"Everyone likes her."
"Okay?โ
"She's basically the campus sweetheart."
Megumi looked increasingly annoyed with every sentence.
"Okay."
You turned toward him.
"What possible reason could you have to reject her?"
For a moment, he simply stared at you.
Then he glanced down at the way you were practically curled into his side, your head resting against his shoulder, your hand absentmindedly tracing circles against his arm.
His expression became something caught between disbelief and frustration.
"Do I even need a reason?"
You blinked.
"What?"
"Youโre literally wrapped in my arms right now."
"Right..."
"Mhm."
Neither of you spoke for a few seconds. The television continued playing in the background, forgotten.
Your heartbeat felt strangely loud. Megumi had gone quiet too.
The silence that made thoughts impossible to ignore.
You swallowed.
"Y'know..." you began.
"Yeah?"
"I've been thinking."
His gaze shifted toward you.
"About what?"
You hesitated. Then decided there was no point backing out.
"What are we?"
Megumi froze.
The question lingered in the room. You forced yourself to continue.
"I mean..." Your voice came out softer than intended. "We tell everyone we're roommates."
His eyes never left yours.
"But deep down..." You laughed nervously. "We both know roommates don't do the things we do."
For the first time in months, neither of you had a convenient excuse.
You watched Megumi's expression go completely blank. The kind of look he got whenever something caught him off guard and he needed a second longer than usual to process it.
For a moment, neither of you spoke. The television continued playing quietly in the background. Somewhere outside, you could hear students passing by the dormitories.
"What are we?โ you repeated.
Megumi's throat bobbed.
"I don't know."
You laughed awkwardly.
"That's reassuring."
"I'm serious."
"I know."
The conversation should have ended there.
It probably would have if either of you were better at handling feelings. Instead, you kept talking because silence felt suffocating.
"You've never wanted to date anyone."
Megumi's brows furrowed.
"That's not true."
"Then why haven't you?"
He looked away.
"I just haven't."
"You rejected her because of me."
His head immediately snapped toward you.
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to."
The answer felt obvious. The more you thought about it, the less sense anything made.
Megumi spent nearly every waking hour with you. He knew your habits better than anyone, he remembered things you forgot. Hell, he'd even give up sleep if you needed help studying. Half the time, he reached for you without thinking. Yet somehow neither of you had ever put a name to whatever this was.
"So what happens now?" you asked.
Megumi was quiet.
"I don't know."
For the first time, neither of you could hide behind the comfortable lie that you were just roommates. The question had been asked. And neither of you knew what to do with the answer.
You stared at the floor while he stared at the wall. The longer the silence dragged on, the more unbearable it became.
Eventually, you laughed.
"This is stupid."
"Yeah."
"We should probably sleep."
"Probably."
Neither of you moved. A few moments later, you stood first.
"Goodnight."
Megumi nodded.
"Night."
And that was it.
The next morning, neither of you mentioned the conversation. You left for class before he woke up. Megumi stayed out working out later than usual. That evening, he cooked dinner. You ate in silence.
The day after that was even worse. Every action suddenly felt loaded with meaning.
If Megumi sat beside you, it felt intentional. If he didn't, it felt intentional too. When your hands brushed, both of you immediately pulled away. When someone asked if you two were dating, neither of you answered quickly enough. The uncertainty became suffocating.
Neither of you had rejected the possibility, neither of you had accepted it either.
You were trapped somewhere in between. Friends didn't act the way you acted, but admitting you were something more felt terrifying. Because if you put a name to it and things went wrong, you wouldn't just lose a relationship. You'd lose your best friend, your roommate, the person who had quietly become part of every ordinary day.
So, without ever discussing it, both of you chose the same cowardly solution, avoidance.
You stopped lingering in shared spaces while Megumi started spending more time outside the dorms.
Your usual long conversations become short and awkward. Neither of you wanted to cross a line that had suddenly become visible.
Which was how you ended up here now. Sitting in the same room. Pretending the other didn't exist while every person around you watched the disaster unfold and laughed. Because the truth was painfully obvious to everyone except the two people living through it.
You and Megumi weren't ignoring each other because you disliked one another.
You were ignoring each other because the answer to your question had become far too real.
And neither of you were ready to say it out loud.
Megumi tried to bury the conversation beneath routine.
He stayed in gym until his muscles burned, stayed out longer than usual, and accepted invitations he normally would have declined. Yuji dragged him to gatherings, classmates pulled him into group dinners, and for once he stopped making excuses.
He even went out with the campus sweetheart he had rejected that night.
It should have settled things. If his feelings were confusion, distance would clarify them. If they were habit, time away from you would break it. If he was reading too much into months of shared meals, shared couches, shared mornings, and shared silences, then seeing someone else should make that obvious.
Instead, you followed him everywhere.
Every crowded room made him look toward the entrance before he could stop himself. Every party carried the brief, irrational hope that you might have changed your mind and decided to come after all. He told himself it was ridiculous. He lived with you. He could walk back to the dorm at any moment and see you there. But seeing you unexpectedly would have been easier than walking into the apartment and confronting the careful silence waiting inside it.
His date only made that truth impossible to ignore. She was kind. Pretty enough that people turned their heads when she walked past. By any reasonable measure, the evening was going well. However, Megumi spent most of it comparing her to you.
He noticed when her laugh wasn't like yours. When she didn't tilt her head the way you did while listening. He kept catching himself searching for familiar habits that weren't there.
By the time he realized what he was doing, the date had become unbearable. He wasn't getting to know her, he was measuring the absence of you.
That was the worst part. Because no matter how many hours he spent away from the dorm, no matter how many distractions he stacked on top of each other, every attempt ended in the same place: your face appearing in the quiet moments between thoughts.
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