Chapter Text
Megumi Fushiguro had learned early that nothing in his life would simply be handed to him. Not warmth, not security, and certainly not opportunity.
Every step forward had always required a kind of quiet brutality; shoulders squared, head down, persistence honed to a knife-edge.
So, when people asked him how he’d managed to land an interview at one of Tokyo’s most competitive law firms after only his first year of law school, he found it vaguely insulting. As if someone like him could only have arrived there through strings pulled and doors opened on his behalf.
As if he were somebody’s favored son.
And yes, technically, he did have connections. They just didn’t belong to a family he wanted anything to do with.
They didn’t belong to Toji Fushiguro either. The mere idea that his father could have gotten him anywhere was laughable.
Toji had given him nothing but his name, and even that was debatable.
It still caught Megumi off guard sometimes, how clearly he remembered his mother, despite having had so little time with her.
Tsumiki remembered more, she always had a better memory for soft things. Megumi remembered fragments.
The warmth of a hand smoothing his hair. The quiet hum she made while measuring rice. The sound of rain against the window the night she told them both she’d be gone soon.
He remembered her funeral more clearly than anything. He remembered the way the Zenins didn’t show up. Not one of them.
But his father had. Not with grief, Megumi didn’t think Toji knew how to grieve, but with that restless, sharp-edged aura he carried everywhere, like a man already halfway out the door.
Megumi had been eight, and it was the first time he realized the man was not just unreliable. He was unstable.
Tsumiki had cried for weeks, but Megumi hadn’t. He’d felt something else entirely. Something like awareness.
As though some internal cord had snapped, and he was now old enough to witness the truth without flinching.
Toji didn’t improve after that, didn’t soften, didn’t compensate.
Instead, he started a consulting company under Megumi’s mother’s name.
He’d taken it himself when he married her, become Toji Fushiguro. Cutting ties with the Zenins in name only.
It was a quiet act of defiance, or maybe cowardice, Megumi was never sure. The Zenins had considered Megumi’s mother beneath Toji, an inconvenience they’d tolerated rather than accepted.
Using her name felt like spitting in their direction, founding a firm under it in direct competition with them, a deliberate challenge masquerading as a business decision.
It had gone well for a few years, and then he ran the company straight into the ground.
Megumi remembered overhearing fragments when he was older: embezzlement, securities fraud, falsified audits. A list of white-collar crimes long enough that even the Zenins couldn’t pretend not to see it.
When Toji was arrested, Megumi was eleven and Tsumiki fourteen. They’d been left in a nearly collapsing apartment with bills they couldn’t pay and no adult willing to claim them.
The Zenins hadn’t helped them, they hadn’t even sent condolences.
It wasn’t until years later, after Megumi earned a full-ride scholarship to the University of Tokyo’s law program, after he’d clawed his way into a position even the Zenins’ own children routinely failed to achieve, that they suddenly seemed to remember he existed at all.
He still remembered the tone of the email they’d sent. Polite. Formal. Cold.
Congratulating him on his acceptance, praising his achievements, and then, almost as an afterthought, offering him a position at the Zenin consulting firm should he wish to reclaim his rightful place within the family.
Rightful place.
As if they hadn’t watched him and Tsumiki starve. As if they hadn’t stepped over their existence like trash left on the curb. As if they hadn’t chosen silence over responsibility.
Megumi hadn’t responded. Not out of principled refusal, though he was deeply principled, but because he felt nothing for them.
Nothing but the vague, persistent disgust of someone observing something rotting from a safe distance.
He certainly didn’t love Toji, but he loved the Zenin's even less.
So when his legal writing professor, Geto Suguru, pulled him aside after class one day and asked if he’d be interested in an internship recommendation, Megumi didn’t question the offer.
He didn’t ask who the connection was, or what firm it was for, he didn’t even weigh how prestigious it might look on his resume.
He said yes because Geto was the type of person who inspired yeses.
Geto was grounded, soft-spoken, intelligent in a way that felt lived-in rather than performed. He taught with deliberate precision, the kind that suggested he valued clarity far more than ego.
Megumi admired him, respected him. Trusted him.
He had no idea at the time that Geto’s “connection” was actually Geto’s husband, or that he was at one of Tokyo’s most formidable law firms, famous for litigating against corporations large enough to swallow entire countries.
That was something Megumi learned later, after the interview had already been scheduled. He hadn’t chosen the firm. It had chosen him.
And the knowledge that he’d gotten there not through lineage, not through pity, not through anyone attempting to pull him back into a family he never wanted; but through someone who genuinely believed he deserved the chance, stirred something he didn’t have a name for.
An unfamiliar thing.
Pride, maybe.
Still, Megumi had no illusions about himself.
He wasn’t special.
Not in school, not in the way people meant it.
He wasn’t the type who soared; he wasn’t charismatic enough to charm professors, wasn’t brilliant enough to walk into an exam half-prepared and walk out with a perfect score.
He worked. That was it.
He pushed himself through twelve-hour days in the library, memorizing case law until the words blurred, he took meticulous notes, he read supplemental materials no one else bothered with.
And still, still, he placed somewhere in the upper-middle of the class. Never the top. Never the one people envied.
He was decent, solid, and respectable.
He was not Yuuta Okkotsu.
Yuuta was a natural phenomenon wrapped in a human body. Someone who didn’t need to grind because the world simply arranged itself to favor him.
He was the type of person headhunted by elite firms in the United States before even finishing his second year, the kind of student professors whispered about as a future partner or, God forbid, a judge.
Yuuta barely tried, and success courted him anyway.
Megumi tried constantly, and success tolerated him at best.
He wasn’t bitter about it; bitterness required energy he didn’t have. It was just an observable fact of the universe.
Some people were born under lucky stars. Some were born under collapsing buildings.
At least he wasn’t Panda.
Panda was earnest, well-intentioned, and stupid. Not stupid in a hopeless way, but stupid in that heartbreaking, stubborn way where someone tries twice as hard for half the results.
Panda spent more hours in the library than Megumi some weeks and somehow still ended up on academic probation last year.
Watching Panda struggle was like watching someone repeatedly walk into the same glass door, not because they weren’t looking, but because the door kept moving.
Megumi didn’t have talent like Yuuta, but he wasn’t cursed like Panda either.
He existed somewhere in the middle. In a purgatory built on effort and devoid of gifts.
So when Geto had recommended him, Megumi suspected it wasn’t because he was the best student in the room, rather it was because Geto recognized something else in him.
Endurance.
Or stubbornness.
Or hunger.
When he’d gotten the offer, he’d read it to Tsumiki over the phone that night.
She’d burst into tears; overjoyed tears, relieved tears, the kind that made Megumi’s chest ache with a warmth he still didn’t know how to carry. She’d hugged him so tightly he’d had to pretend it wasn’t uncomfortable.
She told him she was proud.
Megumi didn’t know how to feel about that. Pride felt like a coat he hadn’t grown into yet.
Still, the acceptance meant something more than prestige. It meant independence.
It meant a future where the Zenins’ shadow didn’t matter, where Toji’s crimes didn’t define him, where his mother’s memory wasn’t stained by the destruction his father left behind.
It meant he could build something by his own hands. Something clean and honest that Tsumiki could look at without worry.
He didn’t let himself imagine more than that, hopes were dangerous when you grew up with so little margin for error.
He kept his head down for the rest of the semester.
Took his exams. Survived his classes. Kept pace with the grindstone like always.
But the internship weighed on his mind constantly; an impending future he couldn’t yet shape, only anticipate.
He didn’t know at the time what awaited him in that law firm. Didn’t know the people he’d meet. Didn’t know that the past that would come crashing into him with the force of a train.
All he knew was this: He had earned the chance to be there. No father. No wealthy family. No lifelines.
Just himself. Flawed, ordinary, and stubborn enough to crawl upward anyway.
Gojo Law wasn’t just a firm, it was a landmark.
A monolith of ambition carved straight into the center of Shibuya, a skyscraper so offensively tall that Megumi sometimes wondered if the building itself was an act of ego.
A reminder that this firm didn’t merely exist among Tokyo’s elite; it towered over them, staring down from its glass-and-steel throne as if to say: Yes, we can afford this. Can you?
The structure gleamed even on cloudy days, the windows reflecting warped fragments of the city in shifting mosaics.
The entrance alone felt like a financial threat: rotating glass doors, a lobby of polished marble, and a chandelier that looked like it cost more than his entire tuition.
Megumi wasn’t certain if it was made of crystal or if he simply assumed anything in this building had to be.
The first time he’d walked through those doors he’d felt nothing short of physically ill. Something like vertigo had washed through him as he approached the reception desk, his mind still echoing with doubts he’d tried to crush on the train ride over.
You don’t belong here. You know you don’t. The building knows it, too.
He’d worn the only suit he had. All black: jacket, trousers, shirt, tie. It wasn’t an intentional style choice, he simply couldn’t afford variety.
But there was something about stepping into that world as a single saturated silhouette that felt… safer. Like camouflaging himself in seriousness.
Black hid things. Sweat. Trembling. The way his hands shook.
He didn’t think he was someone who took risks, but wearing an entirely black outfit to an interview at the most prestigious firm in Tokyo might have been one after all.
He realized this, unfortunately, while standing in the elevator, its polished interior reflecting back an image he didn’t quite recognize: sharp lines, severe colors, eyes that looked like they’d already lost sleep over this.
He hated that the elevator had mirrors.
He hated even more how long the ride to the thirty-fourth floor took.
By the time the doors finally slid open, he had already rehearsed his introduction so many times it had become meaningless syllables in his head.
A receptionist escorted him to a waiting room. A sleek glass table with four chairs and a plant that looked real but somehow too healthy to be.
He sat, back straight, hands folded, doing everything in his power to look like he belonged in this environment, like the room wasn’t swallowing him whole. When someone finally called his name, his entire body jolted in a way he hoped wasn’t noticeable.
The interview room was intimidating in its own right. Floor-to-ceiling windows. A view of Shibuya that made him feel like he was hovering above the city rather than participating in it.
And sitting at a long table were three middle-aged attorneys, each with a cup of coffee so fresh steam still curled from the lids.
They looked exhausted.
The sight made something in his chest flutter; unexpected sympathy, maybe, or the uncomfortable recognition of a future version of himself.
It was well past three in the afternoon, they shouldn’t have needed caffeine. Yet all three clutched their cups like life support.
Megumi swallowed, trying not to stare at their bloodshot eyes or the deep creases beneath them. These were people who lived in the trenches of litigation, who fought battles before breakfast and probably bickered with judges in their dreams.
They gestured for him to sit.
He did.
Then the questions began.
Predictable ones, technically. Ones he’d prepared for until the answers flowed on autopilot, smooth and clipped and polished to corporate neutrality.
What are your greatest strengths? What are your weaknesses? Why this firm? Why litigation? Why now?
He’d expected as much. Prepared his answers and memorized them. He’d never been someone who excelled at improvising conversational charm; he preferred structure, frameworks, and scripts. The syllabus version of human interaction.
So he gave them his rehearsed lines. He spoke clearly, concisely. Maybe a bit stiffly, but he didn’t stutter. Didn’t trip over his words. Didn’t blank.
Watching their expressions was impossible, so he simply continued answering as though he were presenting in front of a dead, emotionless wall.
When the interview ended, he wasn’t sure how he’d done.
It felt like they’d taken notes, but on what? His posture? His paper-thin confidence? His enthusiasm for a firm so large it barely needed him?
He rode the elevator down feeling hollow. Like someone who’d just taken an exam in a language he didn’t quite speak.
He expected polite rejection, honestly.
What he didn’t expect was the email he received a week later.
He read the subject line twice: Second Round Interview Invitation
For five full seconds, he genuinely thought someone had sent it to the wrong person.
But the salutation had his name, Fushiguro Megumi, and the body of the email thanked him for participating in the first round. The signature at the bottom was real, the header was real.
It hadn’t been an error. He had passed the test.
He’d sat in silence for a long moment, phone glowing in his hand, before finally letting out a breath that felt like it had been trapped in his lungs since childhood.
The second round was different.
It wasn’t a panel or a conversation. It was, as far as Megumi could tell, an assessment of whether he could survive a pressure cooker long enough to be useful.
Skills check, they called it.
He arrived early, was escorted to a small room with a single desk and a stack of papers.
The instructions were simple: one hour. Read the case file and produce something, anything. Defense argument, prosecution angle, jury selection strategy, theory of prejudice, whatever he believed showed his capability.
"Not real," the coordinator had reminded him. “Just demonstrate how you think.”
But the moment she left and the door clicked shut, Megumi’s palms grew damp. He wiped them discreetly on his slacks before flipping through the file.
Complicated wasn’t the right word.
The case was an academic monstrosity; layers of contradictory statements, inconsistent evidence, unclear timelines, and witness testimony that read like half the people involved had been concussed. It was designed to be hell.
He had one hour to carve sense out of chaos.
His heartbeat ticked with the wall clock.
Defense felt like the stronger angle, so he committed to it. He built a theory and revised it, then he scraped part of it off and built it again. His handwriting grew frantic as the minutes slipped away.
He made diagrams, cross-referenced witness statements, highlighted contradictions. The more he worked, the deeper he fell into a sort of tunnel-visioned quiet that shut everything else out.
By the time the hour mark hit, Megumi’s pulse was racing. He didn’t feel ready.
He felt like he’d barely managed to claw a coherent argument out of the mess, but the door opened, and a man walked in—a single evaluator, holding a clipboard.
He looked like a judge.
Expression unreadable. Posture impeccable. Suit more expensive than Megumi’s rent.
The man sat and nodded. “Begin.”
Megumi began.
He laid out the defense argument. Logical structure first, supporting evidence second, weaknesses he’d identified third. He spoke steadily, forcing himself into clarity even as adrenaline pumped through his veins like a second circulatory system.
The evaluator’s expression shifted only slightly, as though he were impressed and trying not to show it.
He asked questions, sharp and pointed, poking holes in Megumi’s argument with the detached efficiency of someone who’d been doing this longer than Megumi had been alive.
Megumi scrambled mentally to patch those holes, offering revisions, providing alternate theories, and defending his reasoning even as it was being pried apart.
For a moment, just a moment, he thought he might actually be doing well.
Then the evaluator asked something he hadn’t prepared for.
A question outside the bounds of his argument. A hypothetical pivot so unexpected it snapped his mind blank.
Megumi froze.
The silence stretched. One second. Two. Three. Too long, far too long.
He watched the evaluator’s face shift, imperceptibly but undeniably into something deflated. A small downturn of the mouth. A tightening at the eyes.
Disappointment.
He answered, eventually, but the damage was done. The man thanked him, nodded curtly, and left the room.
Megumi sat there afterward with his hands folded in his lap, stomach twisting. He had blown it, he could feel it. Everything had been going well until that single, fatal pause.
And Gojo Law was not the kind of place that tolerated hesitation.
He walked out of the building expecting that to be the end. He didn’t tell Tsumiki, didn’t tell Yuuta, didn’t tell Panda; he didn’t want to explain the failure out loud.
He certainly didn’t expect the next email.
It arrived three days later while he was studying in the library, forehead pressed into the crook of his arm, surrounded by open books he’d stopped absorbing hours earlier.
His phone buzzed and he checked it with the reluctance of someone expecting more spam about credit cards.
The subject line made his pulse lurch: Final Round Interview Invitation
He sat upright so fast he startled the student across from him. His hands trembled slightly as he opened it.
Third round. Top floor. With Satoru Gojo.
Everyone in the legal world knew who Satoru Gojo was, you didn’t have to practice corporate law to know.
His reputation bled into everything: news broadcasts, academic journals, shady bar exam forums, drunken conversations among third-year students about who they’d sell organs to in exchange for a single letter of recommendation from him.
Satoru Gojo wasn’t just famous, he was mythologized.
A man like that didn’t merely exist in the industry; he warped the gravitational pull of it. And he certainly didn’t do anything quietly.
Satoru Gojo, one of the founders and managing partners of Gojo Law, was one of the flashiest corporate lawyers in Japan; a man with a record so absurdly successful that critics alternated between accusing him of divine luck and outright witchcraft.
People whispered about him everywhere.
Whispered about the way he won.
About how he walked into court as if he were stepping onto a stage he already owned. About how he could dismantle entire teams of senior partners using nothing but a raised eyebrow and sarcasm dry enough to qualify as assault.
About how he chose his cases not by profitability but by interest; an indulgence only someone unbelievably wealthy, terrifyingly competent, and undeniably eccentric could afford.
Most of all, they whispered his nickname.
Six Eyes.
No one seemed to know where it originated, but everyone understood the implication: he saw through people. Through clients, through opposing counsel, through judges, through lies, excuses, reputational spin—anything. Everything.
If you were innocent, he’d know. If you weren’t… he’d know that too.
Megumi didn’t believe everything he’d heard, gossip tended to snowball into legend, but even he couldn’t deny the weight of the man’s reputation. Or the fact that Satoru Gojo was, without question, the most influential private attorney in the country.
And Megumi was supposed to interview with him. Alone.
It was almost enough to make him consider faking spontaneous death.
But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. Not now.
He wore the same suit, his only suit. Bought with the savings Tsumiki had scraped together when he got into law school. It fit him strangely now, the shoulders a little tight, the sleeves just shy of where they should be, as if it belonged to a version of him who hadn’t quite finished growing yet.
The elevator whisked him upward so quickly the pressure changed, popping faintly in his ears. The numbers climbed: 36, 37, 38… and then the doors opened with an elegant, soundless slide.
The top floor of the skyscraper felt like an entirely different atmosphere; quieter, emptier, and richer. Not because of visible wealth (though there was plenty), but because the air itself felt… curated. As though someone had paid extra for a special climate controlled exclusively for powerful people.
Megumi stepped out, unsure where to go at first, before spotting the reception desk tucked into a sleek alcove of white marble and pristine organization.
A young woman sat behind it, typing. Her nameplate read Kasumi Miwa. And her hair, electric blue, bright as neon slashes in a midnight sky, was impossible to miss.
Megumi actually froze.
He knew better than to show it, but the shock flickered across his face for one traitorous second. Blue hair. In a corporate law firm. In the office of Satoru Gojo of all people.
That type of personal expression was the sort of thing that could get someone fired on the spot at most firms, even colored nails were frowned upon in some places.
But here she was: cheerful, undeterred, and very much employed.
Satoru Gojo didn’t mind, then.
It told Megumi something about the man. What, exactly, he wasn’t yet sure.
Miwa gave him a polite, warm smile. “Good afternoon, Fushiguro-san. I’ll let you know when he’s ready for you.”
Her tone wasn’t condescending or clipped. She wasn’t putting on airs. She didn’t treat him like an inconvenience or an amateur or a piece of dust that had wandered into the wrong ecosystem, all of which was more than could be said for about half the people he’d interacted with during law school.
Megumi nodded stiffly. “Thank you.”
He stood there awkwardly at first, unsure whether he should sit or remain standing. The waiting area behind him looked expensive enough that he was afraid to touch anything.
Even the chairs seemed too elegant for him, as though they required a higher tax bracket.
Miwa must have sensed his tension because she offered a friendly, conspiratorial little half-smile. “You can sit if you want,” she said. “Gojo-sensei usually runs… on his own time.”
Megumi blinked, unsure how to interpret that.
“I mean,” she clarified, cheeks flushing lightly, “he’s not always late. He just… doesn’t rush.”
Somehow that made perfect sense and no sense at all.
Eventually, blessedly, she gestured him forward. “He’s ready for you now.”
Megumi’s stomach lurched.
She pointed toward the enormous double doors behind her desk, impossibly tall and heavy-looking, carved from wood so dark it nearly reflected his face.
It occurred to him, painfully, that he’d likely sweat straight through his suit jacket by now. He was grateful it was black.
Walk. he told himself. Do not trip. Do not hesitate. Do not do anything humiliating.
He pushed the doors open.
The office was immense. Not just large, vast. A sweeping expanse of polished hardwood, tall windows that swallowed half the wall space, a view of Tokyo that made the entire city look like a miniature model crafted solely for display.
He took three steps inside and bowed as low as he could bend without ripping cloth. “Gojo-sensei. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Thank you so much for this opportunit—”
A sound interrupted him.
A bright burst of laughter.
Megumi froze mid-bow.
It wasn’t mocking. Not exactly. But it was loud. Startling. Unrestrained. He straightened slowly, his hair falling slightly into his eyes as he looked up.
Satoru Gojo was… lounging, there was no other word for it.
The man was reclined in a plush, commanding executive chair like it was a personal throne. His feet were propped up on his desk: an enormous slab of dark wood that looked custom-made for someone who liked to loom.
He wore sunglasses indoors. Indoors.
Douche, Megumi thought before he could stop himself.
Then, hastily, he strangled the thought. Buried it in the back of his mind like contraband.
Gojo’s shoulders were shaking with soft, breathy giggles. Actual giggles. Like someone had just told him the world’s funniest joke.
When he finally caught his breath, he drawled, “Suguru said you’d be an interesting one.”
Suguru.
It took Megumi a few seconds to connect the name to the person. Suguru Geto. His professor. The man who had recommended him.
His husband was— Well. Damn.
The realization hit him with such force that the expression on his face must have shifted from confusion to outright irritation. A flicker of it. A microsecond.
Gojo noticed, of course.
His laughter softened into something more manageable, though his grin remained sharp enough to cut glass. “Please, sit,” he said, making a lazy gesture toward one of the two chairs positioned across from his desk. “I won’t bite.”
Megumi doubted that very much. In fact, Gojo looked like he’d bite for fun.
But he obeyed. He walked stiffly forward and sat down, carefully unbuttoning his blazer’s front button so it didn’t strain awkwardly across his torso. His posture was too straight, his shoulders too tense, every muscle locked in anxious defiance.
Gojo didn’t hurry to begin the interview.
For a long time they simply sat there.
Silence stretched across the room, punctuated only by the faint hum of the ventilation system and the distant noise of city traffic seeping through layers of glass.
Gojo sat comfortably, casually, as if he were waiting for a show to start. Megumi sat like someone waiting for a judge to deliver a death sentence.
When Gojo finally spoke, his tone was deceptively light.
“Why are you here today?”
The question hit harder than it should have.
It wasn’t the standard interview opener. It wasn’t Tell me about yourself or Why do you want this internship? or What sets you apart from other candidates? Those were predictable. Easy to fabricate answers for.
This one wasn’t.
Something about Gojo’s voice, the angle of his head, the way his sunglasses tilted slightly, something made the question heavy. Searching. As if he weren’t asking for the polished, professional answer.
As if he actually wanted the truth.
Megumi felt his heartbeat trip. His throat tightened.
He didn’t know how long he sat there—one second? Ten?—but the silence grew dense. He could feel Gojo watching him through those ridiculous tinted lenses.
The truth came out before he could talk himself out of it.
“Because I don’t want to work for Zenin Consulting.”
The words dropped like stones into the air.
Megumi immediately regretted them. They were too blunt, too vulnerable. Too close to the reality he tried so hard to keep sealed away from people like Gojo.
But the man didn’t look offended.
He looked… delighted.
Then he burst out laughing again. Loud, unabashed, swirling with genuine amusement.
Megumi sat still, unable to tell if he was being mocked or applauded. His cheeks warmed just slightly, enough to notice.
The laughter eventually faded. Gojo brushed a tear from the corner of his eye, inhaled once, then exhaled with the satisfied sigh of someone who had enjoyed that far too much.
He shot Megumi a wolffish grin across the desk, leaning forward slightly. “Good answer, Megumi Fushiguro." A pause. "You happen to be related to Toji Fushiguro, perchance?”
The way he said it was almost… purring. Dangerous, amused, and confident.
Megumi’s spine stiffened.
He didn’t understand why Gojo was asking or how much he already knew, but something about the question made him instinctively defensive.
He schooled his expression into boredom, masking the flicker of irritation. “Never heard of him,” he said flatly.
Gojo’s grin widened, like the Cheshire Cat.
He leaned back again, satisfied, as if Megumi had passed some secret test only he understood.
“You’re hired. First day is June 1st.”
Megumi blinked.
Once. Then again.
“That’s… that’s it?” he asked softly. Hesitantly. Disbelievingly.
Gojo just nodded, casual as a queen flicking a chess piece.
“Now get out,” he added, waving a hand with dismissive elegance. “And buy some better suits while you’re at it, I’ll give you a company stipend. You look like you’re going to a high school dance.”
He tipped his head back, eyes closing behind the sunglasses, posture shifting into something unmistakably languid.
Conversation over.
Dismissal complete.
Megumi understood the cue. He stood, careful not to look too startled or too relieved or too anything. He bowed less deeply this time and walked out with steady steps that felt like they belonged to someone else entirely.
The doors closed behind him with a soft thud.
He felt like he was underwater, his head filled with cotton and static, as he passed Miwa’s desk.
“Have a good day,” he murmured, bowing slightly.
She smiled at him clearly used to watching shell-shocked candidates stagger out of that office. “You too, Fushiguro-san. And… um… good luck.”
He managed a quiet thank you.
He stepped into the elevator.
The descent was long. His reflection stared back at him from the polished interior, pale and wide-eyed, suit slightly wrinkled, hair slightly messy. He looked like someone who had gone skydiving without intending to.
The elevator dinged softly.
The doors slid open.
Tokyo unfurled before him, loud and chaotic and breathtakingly alive.
Despite himself, despite the surreal absurdity of the past twenty minutes, Megumi let out a small, hysterical laugh.
He did it.
Megumi did not buy a new suit because Gojo told him to.
Megumi bought a suit because he didn’t know what else to do with the sheer, vibrating adrenaline in his body after leaving Gojo Law.
He could still feel Satoru Gojo’s laughter rattling around his skull, echoing in places inside him he’d rather stay quiet. The absurdity of it all, being hired by one of the most elite legal minds in Tokyo after what had barely qualified as an interview, felt like something out of a fever dream.
But the email had come. The confirmation was real. The pay was real. The start date was June 1st.
And Megumi Fushiguro needed a suit that didn’t look like it had been dragged off a clearance rack meant for high-schoolers attending their first school dance. Even if it meant bleeding his savings dry.
He didn’t go to any of the prestigious department stores. He wasn’t delusional. Those places were filled with the sort of men who already had a dozen suits tailored perfectly to their dimensions, not… whatever Megumi was.
A scholarship kid from nowhere with a last name people whispered about for all the wrong reasons.
Instead, he found a modest shop tucked off a smaller street; a narrow storefront that boasted quality without extravagance, which was Megumi’s comfort zone.
He already felt out of place walking in, but he forced himself to straighten his back and pretend his wallet didn’t ache with every step.
The navy suit wasn’t the nicest in the store, but it was the nicest Megumi could afford.
The fabric was smooth, clean, and dignified. The kind of thing that let him imagine, for a moment, that he might be able to stand on even footing with the interns who came from money, legacy, and comfort.
The white shirt was crisp, the suit was professional. He still had to pair them with the same scuffed dress shoes he’d worn since the start of undergrad, and he didn’t have money for a nicer tie. But he reasoned that was fine, he wasn’t trying to be flashy.
He was trying to look like he belonged.
Even if that meant eating nothing but 7/11 onigiri and bargain-bin miso cups for a couple of weeks.
When he stepped out of the shop, garment bag over one shoulder, he let the rare swell of quiet pride settle into him. It didn’t happen often, feeling like he’d accomplished something without needing anyone else’s approval.
He held onto the feeling as long as he could.
The night before June 1st, he barely slept. His new suit hung from the back of his door like a promise. His alarm went off at five, unnecessarily early, but Megumi preferred the extra time; his nerves demanded it.
He dressed methodically. Shower. Shave. Deodorant. White shirt buttoned carefully. Navy suit jacket smoothed down with steady hands. Black tie knotted neatly, even if it was slightly worn.
He looked in the mirror and exhaled. He still looked like himself: tired eyes, perpetually disinterested expression. But sharper, more defined. Like a version of himself he could maybe respect.
The train was, as always, packed. His polished but aging shoes clacked against the tile as he stepped off with the crowd of bleary-eyed commuters, and he allowed himself exactly one deep breath before joining the tide moving toward the skyscrapers.
Gojo Law towered over Shibuya like a challenge. Megumi’s stomach still tightened at the sight of its sleek glass reflecting the morning sun, minimalist signage polished to a shine, security staff that looked far more alert than any he’d seen elsewhere.
It smelled like wealth, even inside the doors.
By the time he checked in with the first-floor receptionist, he was fifteen minutes early, exactly how he’d planned it.
The receptionist gave a small, polite smile and pointed him to a waiting area bathed in sunlight from the floor-to-ceiling windows.
That’s where he saw her.
A girl his age, maybe a bit older, with honey-brown hair cut into a razor-sharp bob.
She wore a maroon dress shirt tucked into flared black slacks that framed her figure with maddening precision. Her posture was effortless, one leg draped casually over the other. She held her phone in front of her almost disdainfully.
He caught a glimpse of red on the bottoms of her glossy heels.
Louboutins. Real ones.
He sighed internally, out-spent already.
Still, he approached. Carefully, as though she might bite.
He sat down adjacent to her and cleared his throat.
She looked at him immediately with sharp, assessing eyes, then pocketed her phone and extended a confident hand.
“Nobara Kugisake. Summer intern. 1L Kyoto.”
Her grin was dazzling—bright teeth, sharp canines. She radiated charisma in a way that made Megumi feel like a dull graphite pencil beside a neon highlighter.
He took her hand. “Um, I’m Megumi Fushiguro.”
She tilted her head. “Isn’t Megumi a girl’s name? Not assuming anything,” she added quickly, “you just look very broody and… not like a Megumi.”
He clenched his jaw for a moment.
Stupid Toji.
He forced a shrug and said flatly, “Take it up with my parents, I guess.”
That earned him another grin.
She glanced around before leaning in slightly, lowering her voice. “There’s one more coming. I heard through the grapevine that there are three of us this year.”
Megumi nodded, settling back into the chair, trying to let the early morning calm him. He’d known there would be multiple interns, and he’d prepared himself mentally to deal with competition, with bright personalities, with—
The lobby doors slammed open.
A whirlwind of a man burst through them with the energy of a small natural disaster. Pink hair in disarray, black suit rumpled beyond salvation, white shirt untucked on one side, tie nowhere in sight.
He skidded up to the receptionist, who clearly recognized him and just sighed in resignation before pointing directly at Megumi and Nobara.
The man turned.
And Megumi’s breath vanished. Literally vanished, knocked out of him with the force of a physical blow.
Oh no. No, no, no.
Anything but this.
He felt something slip inside him; control, composure, the thin veneer of calm he’d constructed for this day. All of it, dissolving like sugar dropped into boiling water.
Because walking straight toward him, beaming like the sun itself, was a face Megumi remembered far too well. A body he remembered too vividly. A night he had tried and failed to forget during the chaos of graduation.
The boy from that club. The one he’d gone home with. The one who’d fucked him within an inch of sanity on his last night of undergrad. The one whose laugh was still embarrassingly clear in the hazier parts of his memory.
And worst of all—
Megumi couldn’t even remember his name.
Megumi hardly dared to breathe as the pink-haired man closed the short distance between the lobby entrance and their little cluster.
The air felt suddenly too thick, too hot, as if the building had pressed a pause on time while whoever he was stepped forward.
The man looked directly at Megumi and Nobara with a grin that could have flagged warning lights on an ambulance.
His hair was a mess, his suit rumpled, his shirt still half-tucked in, one side hanging loose, giving a careless, reckless charm to his appearance. For a moment, Megumi wondered if this was a joke, a prank that someone would laugh off in five minutes.
He extended a hand toward both of them, leaning forward as if the entire world hinged on that single motion. “Hey,” he said. His voice was loud but friendly, easy. “I’m—I mean, you guys are the summer interns, right? I’m … Itadori Yuuji. I just got the e-mail saying I’m in this morning. Nice to meet ya.”
Megumi blinked, chest knotting.
Itadori Yuuji.
Nobara already had her hand out and was introducing himself, shaking his hand with the same sharp motion that she had shook his with. After, he sidled over to Megumi and Megumi lamely said, “Megumi Fushiguro.”
They shook hands.
Nobara watched them, looked at him, eyes flicked over to Yuuji again, giving them a small curious smile. She placed subtle distance between them, as if cautious of awkwardness or some unspoken history.
Yuuji’s grin widened. “Cool. Cool.” He relaxed back, arms folding. He had swimmers shoulders, the kind that looked strong even under his sloppily fitted suit.
Somehow it made the loose shirt, the untucked side, the rumpled appearance look styled rather than sloppy, like he didn’t care because he didn’t need to.
Megumi felt the weight of all his rehearsed anxiety pushing against the walls of his head. Don’t stare. He told himself. Don’t—
But he saw the small sliver of skin where Yuuji’s shirt slipped up when he stretched his arms and yawned, rubbing his face. The neckline dipped just enough; collarbones just visible.
For a moment, Megumi registered how the dim early morning light hit that spot, a pale flash of skin against crisp white cloth.
He forced his gaze upward. Looked at Yuuji’s face: at the easy, open smile, at the confident tilt of his head, at how… familiar everything felt.
Yuuji’s eyes flicked to Megumi again. “You look super familiar,” he said, like the thought had just surfaced and decided to stick around. “Did we hang out once somewhere? School maybe? I swear I remember that face.”
Megumi’s heart thudded in his chest. His mind flailed with panic. But outwardly he managed calm, mild confusion.
“I—I don’t think so,” he said, voice even, carefully polite. “Not that I recall.”
He tried not to think about fingers dragging over trembling skin, soft moans, the way Yuuji had held him that night. He tried not to imagine the warmth of his bed, the smell of cheap after-hours, the sticky residue of sweat and regret.
Because now, five steps away in the bright lobby of Gojo Law, with the suits and heels and corporate security cameras, it felt entirely separate.
As if it had never happened at all, like a fever dream he should wake from, or a mistake he could fix by refusing to remember.
Yuuji frowned, brows knitting together in an expression more curious than disappointed. He glanced at Nobara, then back at Megumi. “Huh. Weird. Well, I guess that’s cool,” he said, shrugging as if the misunderstanding were nothing. “Memory’s tricky sometimes, right?”
Nobara chuckled softly, looking between them. “Memory is tricky,” she agreed, then tilted her head at Megumi. “Don’t worry, though, first days are always weird. You get used to it.”
Megumi nodded, swallowing past the lump in his throat. He closed his eyes for a second, took a deep breath, and tried to stabilize the tumult inside.
Focus on the present. On the building, on the fact that he had solidarity among the interns before the real work began.
It was at that precise moment that the double doors at the far end of the lobby crashed open. The jolt made Megumi’s pulse spike again and he turned.
In strode Satoru Gojo.
Gojo carried a travel-cup of coffee in one hand, a slim leather briefcase in the other. He moved with a kind of fluid arrogance, like someone who owned not only the building, but the very air inside it. The noise of the doors seemed to hush as he entered, the hum of conversation dipping by degrees until it went silent.
It was the effect of him. People stopped. Heads turned. Respect, or fear, or some mixture of both, whatever it was, it made the space contract.
Gojo’s eyes (hidden behind sunglasses as always) swept the lobby like a ruler appraising new territory. Then he spotted the group: Nobara, Yuuji, and Megumi, and his shoulders straightened in amusement.
“Interns,” he said loudly. “With me.”
No please. No welcome. Just an order.
Nobara rose first, heels clicking sharply against the marble floor. She gave Megumi a sideways look that was half-smirk, half-expectation. Without waiting, she followed Gojo past the security desk.
Yuuji and Megumi gathered themselves and trailed behind, the space between them compressed into a fragile line of politeness and confusion.
Gojo didn’t say anything until they’d breezed through the lobby and taken the elevator up, enough time for the three of them to realize that their first real day of internship had just begun.
Once the ride ended, Gojo ushered them into a wide hallway of polished wood and glass. He walked with long strides, briefcase swinging slightly as though he were pacing across a stage.
He stopped in front of a heavy glass door, etched with the firm’s logo. He tapped it once and then pushed it open silently. Then he turned, looked at all three interns one by one, and said, “Welcome to floor twenty.”
They stepped through and the door slid shut behind them with a quiet click that sounded final.
The room beyond was a wide-open space, illuminated by cool fluorescent lights and surrounded entirely by glass walls, transparent boundaries on all sides, overlooking the lower floors and the bustling city beyond.
Gojo stood in the center, hands tucked casually in the pockets of his suit pants, coffee still clutched in one fist. He gave them a slow look. “This is where you’ll be working. We call it the ‘fishtank.’ Associates like to watch interns here. They say it’s motivational. Another word would be… endangered species.”
He smirked, but the look didn’t crack into humor. It was more predatory, coldly amused.
Megumi felt a shiver run down his spine at the metaphor.
Glass all around. Transparent walls offering no hiding, no privacy.
For a moment, he imagined being suspended in water, visible from all angles, vulnerable to observation.
Before he could help himself, he looked sideways at Yuuji. Yuuji’s eyes were bright, the same easy grin hovering on his lips, cheeks flushed with what might have been excitement.
He stretched slightly, the movement titillating in a way that made Megumi’s breath shallow.
Nobara stood a little apart, tapping a pen against her thigh, expression neutral but alert, like she was already marking her territory before the first case even landed.
Gojo cleared his throat, glancing over at a bank of desks lining one wall, each equipped with a computer, a phone, and a small nameplate slot.
He waved one hand. “Desks are over there. Pick one. First come, first choice — but choose wisely. Some desks get more traffic. Some get more assignments. Some… less visibility.”
He paused, eyes flicking between them. “You’ll be under surveillance, basically. Everyone checking what you do. Typing speed. Draft quality. Email responses. Time logs. Billable hours. Don’t mess up. More importantly — don’t embarrass me.”
Megumi’s heart hammered. This wasn’t just an internship. It was a public audition. A show. A trial by glass.
Yuuji shrugged lightly, looked amused. “Sounds… intense, but kind of fun,” he said, stepping forward.
He approached a mid-row desk close to the glass wall that overlooked the atrium. He reached out and touched the edge of the desk, as if testing whether it was real. When he sat, he didn’t bother adjusting anything, instead he slumped back casually, legs spread a little, posture sloppy but confident.
Megumi felt envy twist in his gut. Not for the desk, not for the audacity, but for the ease; the way Yuuji wore everything like it was his by default.
Nobara picked a seat closer to the window, near where the hallway curved.
She sat primly, crossed her legs, and tapped on the keyboard like she already owned the place. She flicked a glance at each of them, then looked at Gojo. “What’s first on the agenda, boss?”
Gojo looked at her with that grin again. “Orientation. Tour. Meet the teams. Meet your mentors. And then,” he paused, leaned forward slightly, “we’ll see what you’re made of.”
He turned and strode toward the glass wall, toward a door that opened into an adjoining corridor. “Come on. Watch and learn.”
The three interns rose, following him. Megumi’s shoes felt stiff against the floor, his new suit felt heavier. The weight of expectations pressed on his shoulders like straps that might snap.
As they walked out, the fluorescent lights clicked on overhead, casting elongated shadows on the floor.
They passed glass-walled conference rooms, offices with nameplates bearing senior partners’ names, and cubbyholes where associates hunched over screens with weary focus.
The lobby of the 20th floor hummed alive around the interns; a living organism of ambition, stress, and profit.
Nobara exchanged a quick look with Megumi. Yuuji leaned against a glass partition, arms crossed over his chest, head tilted. He watched it all with a gleeful curiosity, as though he were seeing the world for the first time.
They came to a fuller glass wall that overlooked the atrium.
Down below was the main lobby: tiny people, walking tiny corridors, looking like dust motes skittering about under a bright sun. From this vantage, the lobby doors looked like a toy set’s entrance; the revolving doors like plastic tubes.
Gojo gestured expansively. “Look around. This building — every inch of it — represents something. Wealth, yes. Power, yes. But also choices. The choice to stand out. The choice to survive. The choice to watch or be watched.”
Megumi’s stomach twisted at the cliché. But he felt it too. The strange, electric vertigo of finally being seen.
Yuuji was leaning forward, hand pressed lightly against the glass, forehead resting just above it. He was studying the lobby like he was memorizing a map.
His eyes shone as he turned to Nobara, smirked, and said, “Man, this is sick. We actually get to work here.”
Nobara laughed; sharp, clear, defiant. “Just try not to get chewed up by the sharks,” she said, without turning around.
Megumi swallowed. He imagined the interns as bait fish. Small, blinking, easy to swallow, and disposable.
He didn’t like the metaphor. He didn’t want to be prey.
But he was here now. The fishtank had glass walls and everyone could see him. Every misstep, every hesitation, every wrong word.
He forced himself to stand tall, spine straight, eyes forward.
They exited the viewing area and continued down the corridor. Gojo’s footsteps echoed faintly, deliberate and authoritative.
“Later,” Gojo said after a moment, “you’ll meet with your mentors. They’ll show you the ropes, the code, the silent rules this firm doesn’t print on paper. Pay attention. You'll be working mostly directly with them.”
He stopped at a door labeled Associates Only. He pushed it open and motioned them inside, they passed through a narrow hallway into a large open workspace.
Cubicles ran in parallel rows, overhead lights humming like cicadas in summer heat. Phones rang softly, keyboards clicked, the air smelled of coffee; old, bitter, and endless.
Gojo nodded at the space. “This is where the associates live. Where the real work gets done.”
“Emails, case assignments, preliminary research. You’ll scribble first drafts, memos, summaries. You’ll fetch coffee. You’ll stay late.” His tone didn’t shift. There was no cruelty, no mockery, just statement. Fact.
“But if you do your job… if you don’t embarrass me… maybe someone will notice.”
Megumi felt his chest tighten. The possibility was enough to make him swallow hard.
The tour ended back at the fishtank.
The three interns quietly claimed their desks. Yuuji dropped onto the same one as earlier, by the front glass wall; Nobara also re-claimed hers, by the window curve; Megumi took the middle one, closer to the internal side, where he felt less exposed.
From there, he watched as the building’s life resumed around him: associates marching past in suits, muted conversations humming behind closed doors, the distant sounds of laughter or exhaustion, indistinguishable.
Yuuji stretched again, reaching up, sliding one hand under his blazer to straighten his shirt; just enough to smooth the worn cloth against lean muscle. Megumi’s breath caught.
He forced himself to look away, to glance down at his own desk: clean, sterile, untouched. His hands rested on either side, fingers slightly curling. The surface felt cold under his palms.
Nobara was already tapping keys, phone on desk, a folder open. She shot him a glance and turned back to her screen.
Yuuji leaned back in his chair, one leg kicked over the other knee, gaze wandering around the glass room with lazy interest. He looked like he didn’t care if the world was watching, like inviting eyes were part of the thrill.
Megumi wondered if that was confidence. Or arrogance. Or something darker.
He felt the fishbowl tightening around him. The glass walls shimmering. The air humming louder.
He couldn’t predict what would happen next, and he had no illusions that he’d make it unscathed.
But for the first time, the idea of hiding didn’t appeal. He straightened in his seat, spine rigid and took a breath.
He refused to shrink.
Even if the walls were glass and the watchers were hungry.
He looked once more toward Yuuji. The unruly pink hair, the careless slouch, the mischievous grin.
Megumi realized, with a quiet ache, that Yuuji actually didn’t remember him. He couldn’t tell if that was better or worse than the alternative.
He swallowed and let his hands settle flat on the desktop. Focused on the hum of the building around him, the fluorescent lights overhead, the cold metal of the chair under his thighs. Somewhere in the distance, a phone rang. A door closed. The city’s pulse throbbed beneath the skyscraper’s glass bones.
And as Megumi exhaled slowly, the reality settled around him: this was no longer about wandering through endless library aisles.
This was the beginning of being seen.
And now, with Yuuji on his right and Nobara on his left, Megumi Fushiguro realized one more thing: he had no idea how this would end.
But he would walk forward anyway: eyes forward and back straight.
Just like he always does.
Megumi wasn’t sure what he expected from the rest of the day, but it wasn’t the blistering exhaustion of corporate orientation done Gojo-style.
Namely: completely unstructured, utterly chaotic, and somehow still effective by brute force alone.
After their tour and the unsettling introduction to the fishtank, things blurred together.
A gauntlet of introductions, paperwork, compliance videos, and the uniquely soul-draining pep talks that mid-level attorneys gave when they were trying to sound inspirational instead of defeated.
Their mentors came near the end of the day.
Utahime Iori was Megumi’s. A woman who looked like she hadn’t slept since the second Sino-Japanese war, with sharp eyes and a french braid so tight it could probably deflect a bullet. She extended a hand to him with a weary nod.
“Megumi Fushiguro. Yes. I’ve been warned about you.”
He blinked. “Warned?”
Her sigh was long and heavy. “Satoru hand-picked you. That means I’ll probably end up dealing with whatever ridiculous mess he tosses you into. When I’m not here, assume I’m hiding. When I am here, assume I’ll pretend not to be.”
She leveled a finger at him. “Only bother me if something is genuinely on fire or you’re actually about to commit malpractice.”
It was… shockingly direct. Megumi respected that.
Yuuji had been paired with a mountain of a man named Todo Aoi, who introduced himself by essentially seizing Yuuji by the forearm and shaking him like they were reenacting some ancient warrior greeting.
“Do you consider yourself a man of good taste?” Todo demanded with intense seriousness.
Yuuji, wide-eyed but delighted, nodded. “Uh—yeah?”
“Excellent!” Todo boomed, slapping Yuuji on the back with enough force to stagger him. “We shall become the greatest duo this firm has ever seen!”
Within minutes the two were talking animatedly, exchanging flexes, laughing loudly, and somehow radiating an energy Megumi could only describe as aggressively heterosexual gym bros, despite knowing full well that the universe was never that simple.
Megumi didn’t even try to understand it.
Nobara, meanwhile, had clicked with her mentor, Mei Mei. A woman whose beauty was matched only by her calculated sharpness. She appraised Nobara like a jeweler examining a precious stone.
“You’ll do,” Mei Mei said with a slow, satisfied nod. “Try not to disappoint me. I don’t tolerate mediocrity.”
Nobara lit up like someone had just complimented her entire bloodline. “I won’t.”
The rest of the day passed in stiff backs, cramped hands, sore eyes, and the distinct feeling of being a cog thrown into a colossal machine. By the time the sun dipped behind the skyscrapers, Megumi expected to be dismissed.
Instead, Gojo barged into the fishtank with a travel mug in one hand and sunglasses still somehow on his face even though the sun had already set.
“You three aren’t done yet,” he announced cheerfully. “Bonding time, I’m ordering you dinner.”
Nobara groaned. Yuuji perked up. Megumi’s stomach growled so loudly he was grateful no one commented.
They chose the best view entirely by accident.
They'd ended up in a conference room so high up the city looked unreal, like some glittering data render stretched beneath them. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, Tokyo burned with neon, headlights, reflections on glass, thousands of lights in place of stars.
Nobara called dibs on the head of the table without hesitation, her maroon shirt gleaming under the warm overhead lighting. Megumi took a seat to her left and Yuuji plopped down to her right, shrugging off his blazer and draping it over the back of his chair.
Gojo delivered on his promise and then vanished; leaving behind an expensive spread of sushi so pristine and artfully arranged Megumi wondered if he should frame it instead of eating it.
They made slow, slightly awkward small talk at first, the usual kind that interns used to feel each other out.
Nobara talked openly about her hometown, about the best friend she’d grown up with, about leaving behind everything familiar because she refused to settle for anything less than her dream life.
Yuuji talked about his brother, rambled about hobbies, mentioned a grandfather he lived with for a while as a child, and sprinkled in small anecdotes about growing up that painted him as warm and grounded in a way Megumi had never had.
Megumi offered little, just enough not to seem cold. “I go to the University of Tokyo and live nearby. And, uh… I had two dogs growing up. They were bigger than me for 90% of my life.”
He didn’t elaborate. Neither asked him to.
A moment of quiet fell: comfortable for one person, neutral for another, and suffocating for Megumi, who could feel Yuuji’s attention shift toward him again.
Suddenly, Yuuji stiffened slightly in his seat, eyes narrowing with exaggerated concentration. Then he snapped his fingers and pointed directly at Megumi.
“Aha! I knew it.”
Megumi almost dropped his chopsticks. “What?”
Yuuji grinned, teeth bright, face open. Dangerously open.
“I’ve been trying to figure out why you looked so familiar all day. We hooked up, right? Undergrad?”
Every muscle in Megumi’s body locked. His mouth fell open: not gracefully, not subtly, but fully slack. His chopsticks dangled precariously between his fingers, holding a slice of salmon sashimi hostage in midair.
His face flushed so violently he wondered if he might actually combust.
Across the table, Nobara let out the ugliest snort he’d ever heard in his life and slapped a hand over her mouth like that would somehow conceal it.
Megumi ground out a single word, low and murderous: “…yeah.”
Yuuji beamed.
“Damn! That’d been driving me crazy all day. Good to see you again, bro.”
Bro.
Megumi stared at him, incredulity flattening his expression into pure deadpan.
Bro.
As if Yuuji hadn’t had his hands all over him one drunken night. As if Megumi hadn’t been pressed beneath him with his hot breath on his neck, Yuuji’s voice broken and eager in his ear.
Nobara saved him, expertly pivoting away from Megumi’s impending emotional meltdown by directing a sharp question Yuuji’s way.
Something about his brothers. Yuuji turned to answer, as cheerful and unbothered as ever.
Megumi tuned them out.
The rest of dinner passed uneventfully. Conversation stayed mostly between Nobara and Yuuji, while Megumi offered only occasional input when they glanced his way.
When they finished, they packed up their things, tossed away trash, and rode the elevator together in sleepy silence.
On the train platform, they split off with half-hearted waves.
Megumi trudged back to his apartment; his cramped, aging, slightly musty shoebox of a home.
The lights flickered once when he turned them on, his posters curled slightly at the edges from humidity, his vintage Godzilla print watched him from the wall like a silent judge.
Photos sat on his tiny kitchen counter. Him and Tsumiki. His two giant dogs. Traces of a childhood that didn’t look like the childhood of someone who made it into a top Tokyo law firm.
He collapsed onto his bed, limbs heavy, suit wrinkling beneath him. The AC hummed unevenly, rattling faintly.
And because he was exhausted, because his guard was down, because it was far too quiet—
He let himself remember.
Remember that night with Yuuji.
The club lights spinning, Yuuji’s bright grin cutting through the room like a warm blade. The casual confidence, the easy laughs, the way he listened intently when Megumi spoke, like every word mattered.
He remembered Yuuji’s hands on his hips. The surprising gentleness in his strength. How eager he’d been; how responsive, how enthusiastic, how willing to do anything Megumi asked for. How good it had been. Too good.
Megumi hadn’t let himself think about it since. It had been a one-night stand, nothing more. He’d slipped out just before dawn, never asked for a number, and never expected to see him again.
Until now.
His phone buzzed where it lay beside his head.
Megumi groaned and reached for it.
A new group chat with two unknown numbers.
Unknown #1:
This is our intern lifeline now. Answer or die.
He assumed that could only be Kugisake. Then:
Unknown #2:
🙂🐕☕🐟😼
Megumi stared.
What the hell was that supposed to mean?
He locked his phone without replying, tossed it somewhere near the pillow, and exhaled slowly.
He wasn’t going to save their contacts. He wasn’t going to encourage any… attachment. It was just one summer, it would be over soon enough.
What was the worst that could possibly happen?