used to be mkewheelr

“i don’t think you’re a bad person, megumi,” you answer softly, setting your spoon down. 

“but i…i keep doing bad stuff,” he argues dejectedly. “and— and i was mean to tsumiki—”

“hey. no one’s born wanting to do bad things,” you tell him. “and when they do…it’s usually more complicated than we think. there are bad situations where sometimes we have to do bad things. even if we don’t want to. even if we’re not proud of them.” 

“but how do you know that i’m not?” he asks again, and your heart aches. 

“because i know you,” you smile. “i’ve known you for eight years, megumi. yeah, i think you could afford to try using your words instead of your fists once in a while, and be a little nicer to your sister…but i know everything you do comes from a good place.”

megumi doesn’t reply, staring out the window with that pensive frown of his. all you can do is wonder if you and satoru have done right by him. if you’re doing right by him now. (such is the life of a parent, you suppose.)

all you can do is hope. 

“hey,” you grin, holding your hand out to him. “promise me something?”

_____

you stumble backwards, narrowly avoiding being gutted by a sword. gasping, your fingers fumble with the hem of your shirt, the material sliced right above the small, almost imperceptible bump of your stomach. 

your megumi would never hurt you. your megumi, your sweet, gentle boy who still muttered the song about bunny ears as he tied his shoes. who always offered his sister the last bite of cake, even though you knew he wanted it for himself. who cried the first time his shikigami were injured in battle. 

but this isn’t megumi.

you barely dodge the blade again, ducking and sending your demon dogs out to slow him down as you sprint down the alley. your heart shatters at the sound of a high-pitched whine, but you can’t stop, you can’t look back—

“going somewhere?”

you skid to a stop in front of him, staggering back as quickly as you can. 

megumi— no, sukuna stands in front of you now, holding a sword you’d taught his vessel how to make, how to use. 

“please,” you beg, thinking of tsumiki’s body a few blocks away. thinking of gojo in the prison realm. you can’t lose anyone else today. “please let him go.”

“i don’t think so,” he grins, sick and twisted as he slowly makes his way towards you. “if only he’d unlocked his full potential sooner. if only you had.” 

“he’s just a child.” you say, voice trembling. you look around. there’s no use in running. he’s gotten much too strong.

but you’re not ready to die either.

he wasn’t patient, lunging first and taking the offense. it’s a struggle to meet him at every swing, deflecting blows that send tremors down the sword’s point of impact and reverberate through your arms. 

playing defence is the smart move. you’d wait for an opening or a drop in his own defence. then your goal would be to disarm him and attempt to grant yourself an advantage. 

(in theory, at least.)

when your swords lock once more, he forces them to the side, kicking you square in the chest. the impact knocks you onto your back. before you can get up, he’s on top of you, driving his sword into your shoulder.

the pain is so blinding, so white-hot and tortuous that you almost immediately pass out when he pulls it free and tosses it out of your reach. 

sukuna is in your face now, lips peeled back into a smirk as he laughs, the top of his finger slowly dragging down your face.

“putting you down now would be letting this brat off too easy. doing it slowly, however—”

“get off her.”

your heart skips a beat. that voice. 

there’s a flash of recognition in megumi’s eyes. just a for a second. 

“satoru?” 

“is that any way to treat the person who washed your underwear for almost ten years?” he tsks, hands in his pockets as he steps into the alley, quite literally kicking the king of curses off of you.

he sweeps you off the floor as gently as possible, your stomach flipping at the familiar sensation of being teleported.

you’re not in the alley anymore, you’re up on the roof of a building. as soon as satoru sets you on your feet, you look up, studying his face. the eyes you love so much stare back at you. 

the emotions you’d kept bottled up since he’d been gone pour out at once. proof of your heartache, anger, pain, and loneliness spilling over your lash line.

suddenly there’s too much space between you and you tentatively take a step forward. 

“it’s you,” you breathe. “it’s really you.” 

he says your name softly, and arms you’d longed for envelop you. you feel safe, if only for a moment.

“you need to get to ieiri,” he whispers, a hand cupping your cheek gently. “go. i’ll stop him.”

you both close your eyes, as if the words hurt.

_____

“promise me you’ll always be good.” 

megumi sighs, but places his hand in yours, squeezing it tightly.

it had been two months since the last time eren had seen you at a party, two months since he did the stupidest thing in the world. 

his hand tightened around the red plastic cup in it as that night played over in his mind, the blonde meant nothing to him and yet he didn’t mind slipping her into his bedroom. if he had one wish in the world, it would’ve been to erase that night. 

the music vibrated all around him and the flashing lights were starting to give him a headache, the amount of beer in his system definitely didn’t help either. i need some air, he thought to himself as he made his way towards the door that would lead him out to the balcony. there was no one out there, thankfully. he pulled out his phone, his finger hovering over your text messages. 

eren: when you getting here ?

you: i’m not coming tonight. have fun. 

two months ago. there had been many parties since then and you hadn’t come to a single one. mikasa said you just needed some space, but hadn’t eren already given you enough? you occupied every thought in his brain, he wanted to occupy your mind too. he apoligized profusely when you saw him leave the bedroom with the blonde girl on his arm, but the damage was already done. 

“you had told y/n only nights before that you liked her, eren, of course what you did hurt her,” mikasa had tried to explain to him the next morning as eren pouted into his cereal. 

“i told her i was sorry!” eren yelled, his frustration had been building all night and it needed an outlet for escape. 

“that’s doesn’t cut it, eren. you really hurt her,” mikasa’s tone never wavered, she remained stern, walking away as eren continued to try and explain the situation. 

and now, two months later he’s left alone at his own party. 

i miss you, his fingers type out and quickly erase. 

maybe one day he would get the courage to send it, maybe one day you could heal this rift between you, maybe one day you would come back to him and you would need him again, but for now, here he was alone. 

“eren!” connie opened the door and stumbled onto the balcony, “we need you, man! beer pong!” he yelled, which didn’t help the headache eren was sporting. 

“all right man, let’s do it,” eren turned off his phone and pocketed it, hoping that maybe even more beer would help him get his mind off of you. 

“eren!” he jolted awake at the sound of mikasa’s voice. his head was pounding and the sunlight filling the room only irritated his eyes further. 

“what?” he said groggily, it took him a few seconds to realize that he was in the living room, i must have passed out on the couch he thought to himself and struggled to sit up. 

“can you help clean up, please?” he then noticed the trash bag in mikasa’s hand and the look she was giving him was enough to make him kick himself into gear, getting up and grabbing some of the empty beer bottles by the couch, beer bottles that were definitely his doing. once his mind had woken up enough to focus on others, he noticed that mikasa was dressed up. 

“where are you going?” eren asked her. 

“meeting y/n for lunch,” she didn’t even spare a glance at the brunette, she just kept putting the bottles in the trash bag. eren’s heart jolted at the ention of your name. 

“mikasa will you please try to talk to her,” eren began to plead, desperation soaking into every word. 

“eren, please stop asking me that,” mikasa finally stopped cleaning and glared at him. “i’m tired of cleaning up your messes.” 

“this is the last time, i promise,” he resisted the urge to grab her by her shoulders and shake her in an effort of understanding. 

“eren. stop.” 

he just groaned in response, abandoning his job to sit back on the couch and sulk. 

“i’m not the one told a girl he liked her and then immediately stabbed her in the back.” and with that, mikasa left the room. 

realizing that mikasa was a dead end, eren decided it was time to put his own mind to work. maybe he could get you flowers, maybe a card. a handwritten card, he added. that was sure to win you over. the longer he thought about it, the more sure he was that he would need to put real effort into winning you over, which for eren was very different from what he was used to. 

he started with a list of questions mikasa could ask: what’s your favorite flower? do you like chocolates? jean, connie, and armin were baffled by the amount of effort eren was putting into this, they had never seen eren put this much effort into anything. but to eren, a girl that made him feel the way you did was worth the effort.

for eren’s whole life he had been known as the boy with the short temper, always ready to explode. another thing that was certain was that mikasa would probably be right behind to clean up the messes that eren had made. 

he knew that his friends loved him, especially armin and mikasa, but he also knew that while they loved him they also looked at him as a nuisance sometimes. but you never looked at him that way. 

you hung onto his every word, laughing at his jokes and strangely enough he found himself giving that same attention and focus right back to you. he was also somehow calmer around you, the anger subsiding when he felt you beside him. he wanted you to be by his side as long as he could keep you there. 

there was a party tonight, but eren isn’t going. jean almost dropped his cup when eren walked out the door with roses in his hand, leaving the drinks and the girls behind. he rehearsed what he was going to say the entire time he walked to your apartment, the many apologies ready to fall from his lips. 

when he got there he was practically shaking, terrified that somehow he was going to mess this up. he knocked and waited, and finally you showed up. you stood in front of him, as gorgeous as ever, in an oversized t-shirt. eren’s heart dropped when he realized you weren’t wearing any pants. had you just gotten out of bed? “eren?” your eyes were wide, shock etched into your features. 

“i just wanted to-” 

“eren, now is not a good time,” you cut him off, looking over your shoulder at the sound of a door opening. 

“y/n, something wrong?” eren thought he could feel his heart ripping apart when reiner walked out of your bedroom without a shirt (which eren presumed was how you got the one you were wearing). 

“no, i’ll be back in a second,” you said to the blonde man as he walked into the kitchen, opening the fridge, obviously waiting for eren to leave. “eren, can we do this later?” 

“yeah,” he was speechless, blinking back the stinging feeling in his eyes. “bye, y/n.” he didn’t even give you time to respond, he was down the hall in a second. 

he couldn’t decide if he wanted to scream or throw something at the wall. he couldn’t blame you for this, he was the one who utterly fucked up in the first place so you went somewhere else. he had finally decided to give someone his heart and then he fucked it up.