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“Tsumiki said you were gonna call me, Megumin.”
Traitor, Megumi thinks, resolutely not looking where Satoru has just walked into the house.
Tsumiki is having a sleepover at her friend’s house, what does she care what Megumi is doing? He’s old enough to be alone when he wants to be. It’d be nice to be alone right now. He can’t tame the stupid shadow rabbits and his head and tummy hurt and everything kinda sucks right now. He doesn’t want anyone to see him like this.
Especially not Satoru.
Satoru said he was coming back. He says so every time he leaves, but when does anyone say what they mean? Toji said he’d come home, too. Until he didn’t. Tsumiki’s mom just left one day. There’s no reason Satoru will be different, none at all.
Megumi wants him to be different. He wants it really, really badly, but that’s still just his personal feelings. It’s just a wish. And it’s not like Megumi is used to getting what he wants; if this time is no different, he’ll continue to live on just the same. The worst thing would be if Megumi gets too comfortable. He doesn’t want to depend on Satoru too much. He’s scared that he’s going to do so anyway, and then Satoru is going to disappear like just about everyone else and—
Look, Megumi would rather not have to go through all of that. Satoru is just his benefactor. For now, at least. Satoru won’t appreciate any extra significance being added to their relationship without his consent, and Megumi will not overstep his bounds.
He can’t even tame the stupid rabbits, and those shikigami can only barely fight! Satoru definitely doesn’t want someone this incompetent to start clinging to him. That’s pathetic. Being pathetic means getting mocked, not affection. Megumi’s tired of that.
He takes too long to answer, so Satoru prompts, “You didn’t call me though.”
Megumi refuses to look at him, no matter how close Satoru comes. He doesn’t want to hear any comments about his appearance right now. “I didn’t.”
“You didn’t,” he needlessly repeats, “but here I am.” Satoru laughs, squatting down before him and forcing eye contact. “Y’know, you’re a bit too young to get embarrassed about these kinds of things.”
“I’m not embarrassed,” he snaps, applying a new cold compress to his forehead. “I can do it by myself.”
“Too young to be this secretive, then,” he hums, palming Megumi’s carefully foraged medical supplies. “And the point is that you don’t have to do anything alone, that’s what I’m here for.”
He tries to snatch away the bottle of fever reducers before Satoru can get to it. “I said I can do it!”
“Kid, relax. Rely on me some more,” he pleads, smiling. “It’s okay.”
It’s annoying, how Satoru pretends that he’s giving Megumi any say in this at all. He’s the one with all the power, but he sits here like he’s waiting for permission. Megumi makes him wait just to see if he can. But his body is aching and he’s pretty miserable, so the silence doesn’t last forever. “Fine.”
“Just so you know,” Satoru leads, taking a tissue to wipe under his puffy eyes and his runny nose, “that was an invitation to tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing’s wrong.” The liquid medicine isn’t as bitter as Megumi remembers it being when Satoru pours him his next dose. He’s overdue for it; he had been putting it off because of the way the aftertaste kills what little appetite he has left. “I’m just sick.”
Satoru has a takeout bag in his hand. Megumi should have noticed it even with the way he’s been avoiding looking directly at the teen, but he’s all but lost his sense of smell for the time being.
Slowly feeding him a serving of some soup, Satoru pushes, “You have a bit of a fever, but it’s obvious that there’s something else going on.”
Megumi takes the spoon and stuffs his mouth, burning his tongue. “There’s not.”
“Megumi.” Satoru steals the spoon back, staring him down patiently.
“Satoru,” Megumi returns once he’s been made certain that Satoru will not relinquish the spoon.
“Ha. Kid, seriously.” He sets aside the food. “What’s up?”
“Why do you care?” Megumi bites out. “Aren’t you leaving anyways?”
Satoru overplays his humor as he teasingly promises, “I just got here! I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’m not gonna be strong enough,” Megumi snaps. It’s best to end things cleanly. Pull off the bandaid quickly and move on. “I can’t keep up. You don’t have to wait. Just leave.”
There’s a fracture in the facade. Satoru frowns, “Megumi, what—”
“Just leave me behind!” He shoves Satoru off balance, forcing more space between them with the shock of his aggression more so than the strength of it. His already sickly voice is raspy, his shout more pathetic than angry. Megumi hates this. He hates it. “Do it now before—before. Just get it out of the way.”
“No.” He holds Megumi in his arms, not letting him wiggle out no matter how avidly he struggles or how much snot he smears across his shirt. “Megumi. I’m not leaving you. I don’t want to. And I’m sorry I said that. It was too much pressure, right?”
Satoru smiles, and surprisingly, it’s not the fake, overly bright one he usually uses. This one is small and soft and real. It looks kinda sad. Megumi looks away. He doesn’t want to cry, doesn’t want anything to shake his resolve. He needs to say goodbye.
“I need to be strong. I want to protect my sister,” he begins.
“I know,” Satoru nods.
Megumi doesn’t have the energy to fight. “But I won’t be strong enough to not be left behind again.”
“You’re already strong,” Satoru affirms, petting his sweaty hair. “You’ll only get stronger, and I’m gonna be here with you every time you need me. Anyone who leaves you behind is a stupid asshole, and you can tell them I said that.”
“Satoru.” It’s a dream. A fantasy. Megumi doesn’t want to wake from it. He cries. He can’t help it. Satoru holds him through it, rubbing his back. “Please don’t leave us.”
“Okay, Megumi,” he shushes. “Okay.”
Satoru’s quiet comfort paired with how exhausting it is to cry is enough to lull him to sleep, but Megumi keeps blinking himself awake. He wants to be sure.
Satoru talks—ostensibly, he’s talking to Megumi, but his thoughts are disjoint. He doesn’t sing, but the constant thrum of his voice is meant to be a kind of lullaby. He’s done it before; Megumi remembers Satoru reading physics textbooks aloud to make Megumi sleep even when he didn’t want to. He will not say their textbook quality time has had any influence on the books he reads on his own, no matter how much Tsumiki teases that Megumi’s newfound interest in nonfiction books is Satoru’s doing.
“Hey, Gumi. You asleep yet?” Megumi can’t quite muster the energy to hum in acknowledgement. Satoru chuckles, low and warm. “Rest, kid. I’m here.”
His voice feels far away, sounding increasingly serious the more sure he is that Megumi has fallen properly asleep. Megumi thinks he still has a few more minutes before that’s true; he’s trained himself to listen for other people’s secrets—always trying to know before the bad things happen—and he knows from previous experience that these delirious, half-asleep moments are the ones where most people practice their words. Satoru will, too.
Megumi concentrates while doing his best to keep Satoru from catching on to his fading alertness. He’s so uncharacteristically vulnerable right now that the young boy knows it will work.
“I really am sorry you heard me say that—I’ll figure out how to explain it better when I’m sure you’ll remember,” he mutters. His brow is probably furrowed, a look to match the lowered register of his voice. “Those words were for me, not you. I had just been abandoned, you know? My best friend left me behind, and nothing I said could make him listen to me. He didn’t even look back.”
Satoru goes quiet. His voice sounds like he’s going far away. Megumi can’t stand it. “It was my fault,” he shrugs, a slight movement in his shoulders. A blasé front for an audience he doesn’t even think will remember his performance. “I wasn’t there for him when he needed me, so he taught himself not to need me. I’m still learning how to do that. He didn’t blame me outright—he didn’t have to. If I was stronger, he wouldn’t have felt like he had to leave me behind. Maybe if I was strong enough, he never would have left in the first place.”
Megumi instinctively clutches Satoru’s shirt tighter in his fist. The slight motion likely passes as a hand spasm—he doesn’t have the strength for more. The drowsy side effects of his medicine plus the general toll this fever takes on his body keep Megumi’s eyes closed. This is useful as far as his own performance goes, but he would open his eyes, if he could. He would hold onto Satoru tighter, too. The dark behind his eyelids and the despair in Satoru’s bright tone combine to make Megumi feel like he has lost his footing and is now falling. Like Alice into Wonderland, but scarier, because nothing and no one will be there to catch him at the end of his uncontrolled descent.
Maybe his breathing speeds up, or perhaps Satoru knew it wasn’t a simple hand spasm, but something gives him pause. “Ah, what am I saying? I’d hate for these words to follow you into your dreams. Should I tell you about the body’s responses to illness?”
Megumi feels himself being adjusted in Satoru’s hold. The change in topic calms Satoru down; Megumi feels more secure now. “Right now, your body is betting that it can handle a higher temperature than whatever sickness has invaded you. It’s trying to boil that other guy to death in order to keep you safe. Dream about that, it’s a fight you’re definitely gonna win, kid.”
Listing facts and describing the natural world eases the tremor in his voice; even as he starts using more technical language and the subtleties are lost to the child, it soothes Megumi, too.
He’s out like a light.
Megumi is eight when he starts to write. He’s no good with his words, so he writes. Tsumiki says that Megumi gets embarrassed so he gets mean. She says that he’s too upfront. Megumi says he’s just honest, but he realizes he can be a bit brutal about it. He knows it’s an issue.
So he writes, trying to get into the practice of it. Of saying what he means. He writes dozens of letters, words he’ll probably never say out loud, stuffing them into envelopes that will probably never see the light of day.
He writes to his father often. Less so now that Satoru is around, but there are still a lot of letters with his name in the corner—Megumi knows his name well, if not his face. He didn’t stick around long enough for Megumi to know, so Satoru told him.
Sometimes, he pretends Toji is a better person than he probably is; sometimes, he imagines him as something worse. Megumi doesn’t know which is better.
He’s written a letter to Toji that guesses he left Megumi because he wasn’t interested in Zen’in affairs. One that accuses him of knowing that Megumi’s technique would manifest and he’d become their problem, not his. Megumi didn’t strangle a snake or whatever as a toddler, so perhaps Toji knew his son didn’t bear a Heavenly Restriction. Given how relatively pure his Zen’in blood is, Megumi would therefore have some technique; given Toji’s strength, it would likely be a good one, too. His old man sold him off to the clan, so maybe that’s why. Maybe Toji wanted to use Megumi more than he could love him.
But there’s also a chance that Toji loved him in his own way. Megumi wrote another letter that wonders if Toji named him after his late mother; Toji loved her and lost her, so maybe it wasn’t out of disregard or contempt for his son that he gave him a girl’s name, but only he wanted to hold on to her final blessing. Or maybe he did it because if Megumi had actually been born a girl, it would be one more reason the Zen’in would want nothing to do with him. Toji would have felt so defeated when Megumi’s technique manifested, if that was the case.
Megumi covers himself in shadows and sits in the knowledge that, either way, this is probably why his father left him. At the same time, it might be the only reason Satoru stays. For now, at least.
In the little ways, Satoru tries to convince him that’s not true. He doesn’t stay for the Ten Shadows. There may be truth buried somewhere in all those theories he’s penned into his unseen letters, but he doesn’t have the full story. Megumi doesn’t pry about where the line is, and Satoru does not offer information unprompted. So far, this is working for them.
The writing helps. Megumi trusts, or at least he’s trying to, that there are two people in his life who want to be here. Two people who want to stay.
Therefore, when he writes, it’s usually letters of gratitude. Usually, they’re for Satoru. Tsumiki has several envelopes addressed to her as well, but his sister… he loves her, obviously, but she’s also the bane of his existence. Tsumiki is a stupid, know it all, goody two shoes who picks on him for winning fights against actual bullies but also was the only reason he was able to eat fairly regularly even before Satoru showed up. He loves her, and he knows she loves him. Megumi has never been scared that she’ll leave him. Maybe he takes her for granted—that’s usually what letters to her are about, a reminder to himself to cherish her—but he trusts her and he’s confident that he can continue to do so.
Satoru is another case.
Megumi loved Tsumiki unwittingly; he loved her before he knew people could leave him. He had no choice in loving his sister, no chance to reason his way out of it nor to second guess himself. Satoru, on the other hand, appeared out of thin air after Megumi had already been made forcibly aware of the reality that some people wear their muddy boots inside, uncaring of whatever inconvenient footprints they leave behind. Satoru arrived on their doorstep, earnest and kind, but Megumi already knew that even kind people can disappear without a thought about what is lost. Some people spend every day seeking escape routes from all the problems in their lives; you can’t know if you’re the loved one they carry on their back or the bullet they’re trying to dodge until it’s too late.
Satoru had to be held at a distance until Megumi could be confident enough to invite him in. He still isn’t entirely sure, but he doesn’t know that he ever will be. What Megumi does know is that he’s grateful for every moment Satoru stays, even if it’s still difficult to say so.
That’s what his letters are for. All the thanks Megumi can’t give Satoru to his face—because the guy is really annoying—get penned down, stored for the moment Megumi is ready to let Satoru know just how much he relies on him, hoping Satoru never pulls the rug out from under him.
Megumi is making great progress. Satoru has stuck around for years now; the child has admitted that he trusts his guardian in every way but verbal, and Satoru takes every chance to reify that trust. The moments where it almost feels like he’s going to disappear one day are so few and far between that it’s as if that was never a concern at all.
Megumi is twelve when things change.
He’s twelve when he sees Getou Suguru for the first time.
“Why don’t you invite him in?” Megumi sits at the table, eating a popsicle in the dark. He doesn’t look over his shoulder. He doesn’t have to in order to know that Satoru is sneaking out again.
Satoru is not surprised that Megumi is there, only that this time he chose to say something. His voice is chipper, nonchalant. “I never kicked him out.”
Saying that Satoru is sneaking out probably isn’t the right way to frame the situation. It’s not like it’s a secret where he’s going, it’s just that he only goes at night and he doesn’t come back until after dawn.
Megumi doesn’t have the words to explain how bad of an idea this is. “Satoru.”
Satoru already knows that, however. Ieiri-san and Nanami-san both warned him. Tsumiki tries not to interfere. He’s heard it all before. This is the first time he’s tried to justify it to Megumi; it’s the first time Megumi has directly asked him about it. He comes closer and Megumi meets his eyes.
“This is just,” he sighs. He starts again after a moment, collecting his thoughts. Megumi might have expected more, had his voice not been so soft. “This is how it has to be, Megumi.”
Has to be. Megumi wants to scoff, but it’s not derision that he feels. He closes his eyes and wishes things were easier. “Why?”
“We have our own issues getting in the way. Suguru is leading an important life, you know? And I’m kinda a big deal.” He laughs, dragging nails down the chalkboard of his own heart, “We’re a bit like oil and water these days.”
They stand in place and try to pull the other closer, neither able to take any more steps toward the other without sacrificing the rest of who they are. Megumi hates it; Satoru is bleeding out and doing nothing to stop it. That Getou guy is probably miserable like this too, but Megumi doesn’t live with and depend on him. He won’t forgive that guy if he keeps hurting Satoru.
Satoru saved Megumi’s life. The young teen just wishes he could return the favor. But if this is what Satoru wants, if this anxious thing is better than having nothing at all with Getou, then he will do his best to stay out of it.
“You love him,” he says. It almost tastes like a curse on his tongue. “Does he love you?”
Megumi regrets asking as soon as it leaves his mouth. Of course Getou loves him back—the guy is a wanted criminal on the run for his life, leading a cult by day and raising his own hodgepodge family. He makes the same anxious time for Satoru that Satoru makes for him, clings to this thing that’s killing the both of them with the same desperation.
From his bedroom window, Megumi had watched them as they argued across the street a few months ago. They were pleading with each other, soft spoken and a foot apart, smiling with their mouths and crying with their eyes. It was clearly visible from a distance, Megumi didn’t need to hear the words. Satoru kept his hands still and he didn’t look back when he walked into the house. Getou watched him even after he was gone.
Megumi looks away, holding his breath. His fingers are sticky from the syrup of his forgotten and melting popsicle. It’s unappetizing.
Satoru smiles, ruffling his hair. “Sorry, kid. I’ll be back.”
That night, Megumi writes his first and only letter to Getou Suguru.
He just wants to know if Getou knows that he loves Satoru. If he knows that he’s not doing it right. Maybe he doesn’t know how. Getou keeps hurting him—and probably hurting himself at the same time, assuming his love for Satoru is true.
Megumi knows a lot of liars, and Satoru isn’t one. When Satoru tells him that he’s coming home, he believes him. When he says he has to go, Megumi and Tsumiki know to expect at least one call a day until he returns. Megumi knows he can trust him at his word.
Getou Suguru is different. He’s a liar. Satoru probably knows that, but Getou doesn’t normally lie to him. Now that he does, Satoru doesn’t know what to do about it. Megumi does. He knows a lot of liars, as much as anyone can, so he knows what to do. Megumi knows what to do, but he also knows that Satoru can’t do it. His precious Suguru means too much to him; Satoru can’t keep him at a distance, can’t cut him off, can’t help but trust him. It’s intrinsic, the way he loves him.
Megumi is terrified that it’s going to kill him.
He’s nearly fourteen and by no means innocently naive. Megumi knows there’s more to the story. There are adult things he’s not privy to, and, truthfully, it’s none of his business. It might be his place, though, because the only time he starts to doubt Satoru again is when he’s with Getou. After seeing Getou, Satoru is different. Smaller, quieter, sadder. Megumi hardly recognizes him then.
From his point of view, Satoru’s entanglement with Getou is a lose-lose on all fronts. Damned if he has him (he can’t keep him), damned if he doesn’t (he can’t let him go). Something has to give.
If Getou loves Satoru, then he should act like it. Satoru is part of Megumi’s most precious inner circle. Megumi loves him and so has a vested interest in keeping him safe and healthy. Megumi loves Satoru, and so Getou worries him. Trusting Satoru is already scary.
Getou Suguru makes Megumi afraid.
On the twenty-fourth day of December, two days after Megumi turns fifteen, Satoru doesn’t come home.
He doesn’t return until after the New Year, nothing but a sporadic handful of texts to let Megumi know he’s still alive. Megumi waits as patiently as he can for Satoru’s revival. His efforts are rewarded on the sixth of January.
Satoru is asleep now, exhausted from all the effort he wasted trying not to cry in front of his ward. Megumi carried him to his room once he passed out at the table, a half dozen takeout bags of his favorite desserts spread out before him, picked at but uneaten. His shirt is damp with a mix of Satoru’s hard-wrought grief and his own frustration, the souvenirs from Satoru’s travels unremarked upon. Megumi knows Satoru will be putting on his brave face once more, given a few hours of rest; he hopes Satoru still allows himself the time to grieve.
Megumi doesn’t know what to feel. He wants to burn that letter he wrote.
Yeah. He’s going to burn it. It’s done nothing but collect dust in his closet, buried under envelopes with different names, for the last fifteen months. Megumi won’t miss it.
It takes a while to find the damn thing, and when he does, Megumi feels compelled to look over the words one last time. The draft in its entirety is nearly three full pages with all the sentences he crossed out and rewrote. Some emotion he hesitates to name shakes him at his core, resulting in a brief uncontrollable tremor which spasms through his hands.
He can’t get the lighter to catch; Megumi throws it aside in irritation. Perhaps that’s for the best. Megumi presses the heels of his palms to his eyes. Control. He needs to get himself under control. It’s just the two of them now, Megumi and Satoru alone. Tsumiki is comatose with poor prospects and Getou is—
Getou is a fucking idiot. God. Satoru killed him. He killed him. No one else could, but to ask that of him—maybe it’s romantic. Given the corrupted version of love they scraped together over this past decade, the strongest duo could certainly wring out something softhearted and pure in their final act, something sentimental in all this tragedy. They’re used to doing that much, at least.
It’s important, Megumi repeats to himself because Satoru already said so, that there was no other face either one of them wanted to see. Satoru wouldn’t be able to bear hearing of Getou’s death secondhand; Getou wouldn’t dare to let some other bastard see him so vulnerable. They only had each other to take on that particular misery, to swallow it up and kiss the wound better. Megumi is certain that the pair of them snatched up as much closure in the moment as either one of them could hold in their hands; he can only hope it was enough.
He breathes slowly, in and out, trying to calm his mind. Maybe the fact that they had the chance in and of itself is something to be grateful for.
But Megumi doesn’t want to say thanks, and he guesses that gratitude is hardly the first thing on Satoru’s mind right now. This sucks. It isn’t fair. Megumi never had a chance to know Getou, not really, not in any meaningful way. One of the biggest parts of who Satoru is, and he’s little more than a shadowy blur of love and regret so painfully intertwined that they’re impossible to distinguish. Satoru had to live estranged from his love, hiding it and hurting over it for ten years, and then this?
Getou Suguru, you bastard. This isn’t what I meant.
He can’t burn the letter—the useless lighter lost beneath his bed and his own useless emotions unwilling to let go of the single piece of evidence that Getou Suguru was real to him, too. It’s pathetic. He can’t sleep, so Megumi goes back downstairs.
Satoru is pulling on shoes in the genkan. The whisplash the scene gives him has Megumi half convinced that he must have hit his own head at some point. He’s in disbelief.
Frowning, it takes a moment before he finds his voice. “Are you going somewhere?”
Satoru doesn’t look at him when he smiles over his shoulder in Megumi’s direction. His eyes are on the wall next to his head, his voice bright and unbothered. “I have a mission. Something in Nara? File’s here.”
Megumi glances at it. A black blindfold sits atop a folder too thin to have earned the title—they’re making Satoru do all the grunt work and then some, but that’s nothing new. It’s insensitive and cruel, but again, nothing new. Megumi makes a snap decision, joining Satoru in the genkan to pull on his shoes, too.
Satoru stops him as he’s grabbing his jacket off the hook. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Coming with you.” It would hardly be the first time. He’s gone on several missions with Satoru before, learning directly under the man as if part of some off the books internship.
Satoru shakes his head. “I haven’t researched any of this yet, I don’t know how safe—”
Megumi crosses his arms. “Let me come or don’t go at all.”
“Megumi.” When he stubbornly refuses to budge, Satoru sighs. He kicks off his shoes and deflates, sitting once more on the floor of the entryway. “Okay, kid. You win. The mission can probably wait. Wanna tell me what’s up? I thought you had outgrown things like throwing tantrums by now.”
“… Satoru.” Megumi should be commended for keeping his face neutral after that comment. “Take the week off and get some rest.”
“I just took two weeks off,” he reminds him. Megumi doesn’t entertain the thought; his brief spiral is not at all what the teen means when asks him to rest, and Satoru knows it well. “And I’m not tired.”
“Stop smiling at me,” Megumi sighs. He leaves Satoru where he’s at to pour himself some coffee in the kitchen. His guardian is convinced that he can outpace his own grief. That’s the very thing he didn’t let Megumi do after Tsumiki was cursed; it’s the one thing Megumi cannot allow. “I’m the last person you have to pretend for. Please, just… slow down for a second.”
Satoru sprawls across the floor, looking at him upside down. “Are we gonna have a chat, Megumin? You sure you’re ready for that?”
“Don’t be an ass, Satoru.”
But he’s right. This is difficult and Megumi doesn’t even know where to start. All those years of practicing his words, writing all those letters, and he can’t say it did any good.
Megumi takes an energizing gulp of his black coffee and goes back to his roots—blunt honesty. They have to confront this. “Getou Suguru is dead.”
“He is,” Satoru lets his lips stretch in an approximation of his usual smile, closing his eyes. “I killed him.”
“You did,” he confirms. “He wanted it to be you.”
“And I wanted him.” He shrugs, helpless and resigned. “We can’t all always get what we want, I know that. He had no regrets. That’s enough for me.”
Megumi doesn’t know what to say. He has no sympathies to offer that will make the hurt disappear. His condolences won’t bring Satoru’s lover back. Everything just hurts and that’s the way it is, at least for now. Healing is slow and ugly and red. There’s nothing Megumi can do about that.
Only one thing comes to mind that he must impress upon Satoru. “It isn’t your fault.”
Satoru considers him. After a long moment, he takes a deep breath. When he releases it, the smile on his face is small, but it isn’t tainted with plastic for once. “I’m gonna be alright, kid. It’ll take some time, probably quite a bit of it, if I’m honest. But I promise that I’ll be alright.”
Megumi should tell Satoru to rely on him, on Ieiri-san and the others at the college whom he trusts. The words stick in his throat, but Satoru looks at him like he heard them regardless. Megumi’s clumsy attempts have to be good enough. He has no tricks up his sleeves, no magic words to get Satoru to do something he doesn’t want to do.
“Process this however you like, that’s your right. I won’t bug you about it any more than this.” He entreats, “Just don’t disappear.”
Satoru laughs, “Wouldn’t dream of it! Who else is gonna cut the crusts off your sandwiches, Megumin?”
He studies him for a moment before he huffs out an almost-laugh himself. This is an acceptable starting place. “Get off the floor. I haven’t cleaned it in weeks, who knows what’s in the entryway.”
“Yet another reason why I definitely can’t leave. Our home would fall into complete disrepair without me around,” he sniffs, quickly getting up. Satoru makes a show of looking over his clothes and shaking out his hair as Megumi rolls his eyes. “Living in filth is a major vector of disease, you know.”
“Sure, Satoru.” There’s still time, Megumi assures himself. Time to grieve and heal and get stronger and be dependable. “Anyways, I bought you enough ice cream to feast for days, and there’s a dozen awful movies in your watchlist. Let’s get started.”
He gasps, squishing his cheeks. “Aww, Megumin! You do love me.”
Megumi squints, batting away the offensive appendages. “You already know that I do.”
“Wait, wait.” Satoru hunches over, one hand over his heart and the other calling for a timeout. “You’re being way too upfront and honest right now. You haven’t even glared at me. It’s freaking me out. Go back to being a surly, quiet kid. Are you really my son? Aliens haven’t swapped you out while I was away?”
His eye twitching and lip curling, he warns, “I’m going to punch you.”
“Oh, whew. There he is,” he ruffles his hair, laughing. “That’s much better. Don’t you grow up on me so fast—these are the moments we’re meant to savor. You never know when it’s all gonna end.”