Note:
I am hoping to turn this into a collection of some angsty, mostly fluffy oneshots involving a Good-Dad-Gojo. I will try to stick with the published canon (novels and manga), but will allow for some liberties to fit the narrative that these are actual humans who go through very real human experiences, and not anime-style developments and power-ups.
The Talk
From the outside, it certainly looks like Megumi has very little patience for Satoru. Indeed, when he speaks of him with his peers, it is usually with a scowl, a wrinkled nose as if his name alone is pungent, a furrowed brow, or all of them at once, and would divulge very little if anything at all of their relationship. He would often jump into the nearest vacant room or hide within his own shadow to avoid an interaction if he happens to spy him walking along the dormitory corridors. Of course, being the Six Eyes, Megumi suspects that Satoru is aware of his avoidance, but that doesn't stop him and Satoru certainly doesn't hint towards any knowing.
It is true, Megumi does turn his nose up at his mentor, however not entirely for the reasons a lot of people barring one or two believe. First off, Megumi is a teenager, and by the very laws of nature his hormones and the changes happening to his body dictate that any and all adults - or any figure of authority, for that matter - are one to rebel against. Secondly, the older Megumi gets and the more independence he is after, the harder Satoru tends to cling. It was bad enough when it was just him in the large empty campus of Jujutsu High, but when other full time students around his age started to come in, he knew he had to avoid any association with the descriptions "nepo-baby" and "daddy's boy". Papa very quickly became Sensei, especially around an audience.
So when a golden glow illuminates beyond Megumi's shut eyes, rousing him from a sleep that was not deep but definitely restful, he grimaces and groans loudly, looking up knowing full well who it is that is bold enough to invade his room.
"Get out," he mumbles, turning to his side and sliding his knees up tight, his arms t-rexing under the tangled mess of his duvet, eyes once again shut.
"Boy, what the hell is this?" Satoru admonishes, and Megumi hears the loud clinking and clanking of glass.
Curiously, but still annoyed and groggy, he opens his eyes and lifts his head to the sounds. Satoru has the door to his mini-fridge open, filling the dark dorm room with its yellow light. He is pulling out bottles and cans of drinks, arranging and rearranging them in the fridge, making room to home a couple of packed lunch boxes that sit on his study desk. Kissing his teeth in annoyance, he reaches into the fridge once more and pulls out a bruised and browned apple that has a bite taken out of it and places it on the desk. A year or two ago, Megumi would have blushed profusely and stuttered some lame excuse and apology; but he's a teenager now, so it is only his ears that redden while he averts his gaze.
"Really, Megumi?" Satoru raises his eyebrows and crosses his arms, sounding disappointed and tired, and Megumi wants to protest but his lips only tighten instead.
"I've… been having my meals… with Yuji and Nobara," he mumbles, sitting up fully, back leaning against the headboard, but not getting out of bed to help clean out and stock his sad little fridge - it's the middle of summer and he has no bottoms on.
He watches as Satoru shakes his head and goes back to putting the packed meals into his fridge. When that is done, he wraps the cold and disturbingly soft and… sticky apple in a generous amount of tissue paper before tossing it into a deflated tote bag that had once carried the current inhabitants of the fridge.
"Okay, first of all," Satoru lectures as he turns on the dorm room lights, temporarily blinding Megumi, "I was gone for a week. If this is what I get back to after a week, I dread to think what would happen if I am gone for longer."
He has now switched to busying himself with picking up discarded clothing and undergarments from the floor, piling them into his arms. Megumi can only draw his knees up and hug them, adjusting the duvet to make sure that… things… are appropriately obscured. He does feel a little guilty, maybe a little inadequate as well, as he watches the strongest sorcerer hook a finger into a pair of floored underwear with an elastic waistband that is frayed and torn, and lift it in Megumi's direction with a deep frown - the strongest sorcerer that only shifted the course of the world with his birth, engaging in, admittedly, hilarious domesticity. Although… Megumi is kind of liking that he can see the floor of his room now, and far be it from him to interrupt his sensei.
"Second," Satoru dumps the clothes into the empty laundry hamper, "while I'm glad that you're socialising, I was hoping you'd also take the opportunity to learn how to take care of yourself. Yuji's been at it for years and I wanted you to get inspired! Nobara is…" Satoru blinks as he searches for… something. "She always irons her clean laundry."
Megumi's eyebrows drop, "Smooth."
Satoru pulls out the wheely chair from under the study desk, sits on it, and with a single kick from his long legs rolls it to sit by Megumi's bedside. He leans forward, hands clasped with elbows resting on his thighs, the Six Eyes boring into Megumi's green and Megumi wanting to hide under the duvet.
"Well? Explain."
The red of Megumi's ears start creeping down and out towards the rest of his head, and it is starting to become more effortful to keep his scowl from turning into the face he used to have after being caught and told off about one thing or another. "I… well…".
No, no. Why do I have to explain?
It is very unsettling seeing Satoru resume this scolding-adult-I'm-right-you're-wrong role - and with such ease, too - after it has been very intentionally absent for the past year or so. Is that what is triggering this weird subconscious regression? Has Megumi not built up enough of a wall to manufacture some kind of distance? And what is more, recently it has been the other way around, with him getting annoyed at Satoru. Oh, no, it's not going to be that easy catching him in this emotional snare.
Scowl's back on, "Okay, get off my back. What's got you in a mood, Jesus!" he spits, but the last word falters out of his lips at the unexpected reaction he receives.
Satoru drops his head with a sigh, and after a small moment lifts it again to sit back leaning heavily against the chair. Megumi has to wonder if Satoru had found some edibles during his business trip the week prior, and silently worries about cross-contamination in the food he was just given. Is there a way to ask Dr. Shoko to check…?
Satoru lifts his head and tiredly looks at Megumi. He was never a very expressive person - well, not genuine in his expressions anyway, as for some reason he found the need to put on that he is immeasurably confident (or stupid, if anyone were to interrogate Megumi) and unwaveringly responsible for his pupils and most of his peers and colleagues - but the history that the two of them shared allowed him to drop any masks. What the hell is going on?
"Look I've… just had a very… weird and, frankly, traumatising evening, alright?" He smiles weakly and serves two soft pats atop Megumi's crown, the recipient far too stunned to reject the show of affection.
"...O…kay…?"
There is a short moment of silence while Megumi curls his fingers to grip his toes and Saturo runs both his hands through his hair before bringing them back down together for a decisive clap.
"Megumi, we need to have… The Talk."
"Oh my fucking God." Megumi starts to slide down to hide under the duvet.
"Wait, wait, wait!"
He finds himself suddenly wrestling against hands that are pulling him back up into a seated position, something difficult to do as he is also holding the duvet tightly around his waist to maintain some dignity. The only sounds reverberating in the room is the violent rustling of the bedding and desperate grunts of Get off of me and Wait, Christ, come on hissing out of clenched teeth. Of course, he loses the battle, relenting to strong hands holding him upright firmly by the shoulders. But this doesn't mean he needs to look at his torturer so he shuts his eyes - tight.
"Megumi, you're a growing boy, and as you continue to grow you may start to notice some very confusing changes…"
Jesus, could this be any more scripted?
"Get out."
"...and I'm sure it is very confusing with all the emotions and urges…"
"Oh my God, please shut up."
"...But, Gumi, we need to have The Talk."
Megumi's eyes snap open and glares at Satoru who, surprisingly, is wearing an expression of something between panic, desperation, embarrassment, determination, and frustration. Oh, the frustration Megumi can recognise well because he certainly feels it too, and tenfold.
"Go have it with Itadori, then," he bites but withdraws the venom in his voice slightly when the grips on his shoulders loosen.
Satoru is sighing heavily as he drops his arms, a hand pinching the bridge of his nose as he scrunches his eyes shut. "He's already had it with his grandfather."
"...Wait, how do you know…?" Megumi was not being serious, or at least he doesn't think he was being serious, when he made that request.
Satoru, the most awkward Megumi has ever seen him which was just turning this moment into a potentially traumatic life event, turns to once again train his blue to Megumi's green with a most unreadable expression. What in the Pandora's Box is he about to spill?
"Okay," he starts, refusing to remove his eyes from Megumi and Megumi feeling an anxious dread coil in the pit of his chest, "so I was only going to drop off the food and drinks but I saw that your lights were off and Yuji's were on. I heard music and voices so I just thought you guys were, I don't know, talking or watching a movie or something. I knocked, walked in, and I saw… his… his laptop… Yuji was…"
The rest of the sentence is drowned out by the thumping of Megumi knocking his head against the headboard.
"I just panicked! I mean, I get it! I was his age once..."
Thump. Nope, that didn't knock out the image of teen-Gojo in the midst of his sexual awakening.
"...I mean, he hasn't got a dad, I don't know, I've had the talk. So I just thought…"
Thump. Megumi is now trying hard to enter a dissociative state, but Satoru is still going strong.
"...told him to use fragrance-free lotion, but then he told me he's already had The Talk with his grandfather so I just got the fu- got out of there.
Thump.
"And you're 14, Christ. I just thought that if Yuji's had it, then you are certainly due The Talk."
A final thump before Megumi lifts his head to look at the now silent Satoru. Unfortunately, he cannot willingly trigger his brain to dissociate from the horror of the evening thus far, so he must be precise in his deliberations. Satoru is well-known for his occasional utter lack of tact, certainly famous for his persistence, and has a growing reputation as one who is fond of intentionally or unintentionally embarrassing his pupils in front of each other. This is certainly not a trauma he would like to revisit in the future, least of all in front of an audience of his peers - or worse, his upperclassmen - and so with a pained resignation he simply nods at the man before him.
"Alright." he mumbles tiredly.
"...Alright?"
Megumi shuts his eyes and drops his head to his knees. "Just get it over with and leave, please."
He feels Satoru shuffle and hear him clear his throat, certain that he is getting into position to recite a long and rehearsed speech; whether it was something he had searched for online, or whether it is recycled from the one he was told, Megumi didn't care to know. Afterall, he probably had it coming for a while now, with Satoru taking on the role of a very much hands-on parent since the transfer of his guardianship (or purchase, depending on perspective); but as the years ticked on and it never happened he started to get a little too comfortable with the idea that maybe it never will and Satoru just forgot.
"So, Megumi, you are a growing boy. And as you continue to grow you may start to notice some very confusing changes."
"I think I'm going to die."
Satoru ignores this and goes on. Meanwhile, Megumi's brain has finally decided to submit to his wish for the most part, and he begins drifting in and out between the present moment and some psychological safe space far away from this. He does catch a sentence or two here and there, feel the heat of his own embarrassment, before succumbing to the brief respite of a short glossy-eyed disassociation. For however long Satoru has been droning on for so far (An hour? It feels like an hour…), he hasn't been ignoring everything, though. When his sensei goes on about body hair, Megumi absently runs his fingers on his forearms which are wrapped around his knees. He doesn't have much body hair at the moment, and what he has is still relatively fine. His face is still soft and blanketed in an invisible layer of vellus hairs. While he does have some hair in his armpits and… there, and he does wonder exactly how much more he can expect to have. He has no memories of his biological father, no memory of whether or not he was a hairy man. Satoru is deceptively hairy; his forearms, legs and chest covered in a moderate amount of thick but neat hairs. It isn't very noticeable on account of them being all white, but Megumi has memories from his youth of laying on a strong bare chest attempting to grip and tug at neatly growing nipple hairs, while Satoru pretended to sleep soundly and painlessly. But Satoru cannot be a model for his future development, even as he is papa.
His brain subconsciously returning Satoru's voice, he passively listens to the part of the speech about body image and self-love. It isn't something that Megumi ever really worried about before, what with having been the only child in an entire school for many of his formative years. When enrolment opened up, he was too young and too isolated to draw comparisons between his body and that of the onboarding teenagers. Even as recently as last year, when he had spied Yuuta and Toge on the training grounds from the safety of the teaching faculty's living quarters, he wasn't compelled towards a deep study of his physique. Yuuta and Toge are not much older than he is, and the three of them are similarly slender and awkwardly long-limbed as adolescents tend to be. However, when Yuji joined his year he did start to feel a little self-conscious. While Yuji is shorter (not by much, but to a pair of competitive boys two centimetres may as well be a foot), he sometimes makes Megumi feel like the smaller one. Yuji is built like a tank and weighs over 20kg more than he does. Sure, he's no Aoi Todo, but he is about Megumi's age and a part of him feels like they should be on the same development curve.
Body hair, physique, even the deepening of his voice, Yuji is just a couple of steps ahead of him in his development - which, of course, makes sense as the greater the muscle mass the greater the testosterone production, but try explaining that to a teenager.
Well, Megumi often comforts himself, at least not intellectually, that walking driftwood.
"Now, you may notice that your… p-penis…"
This is precisely where Megumi decides to cease all cognitive function. Ripping down his psychological breaker box is the best way to preserve himself and keep the tortured animal squeak from spilling out of his throat. And he switches off the lights at precisely the right time when he hears the words nocturnal emissions, and foreskin retraction. It is one thing to hear the man who raised him stutter about his…about that with him, and it is a whole other thing to hear it from the man who raised him talk about that after having just divulged the revelation of Yuji's… extra curricular nighttime activity - especially when he will inevitably have to confront his peer tomorrow, and confront that at some point in changing rooms, baths, and whatnot.
"My point is, Megumi," Satoru's voice is returning to focus, sounding more confident, less rehearsed, and somehow Megumi feels a weird pull to pay greater attention. Whether it be from the sincerity behind his voice, or the fact that it is beginning to sound like this is finally over, he does not know. "Everybody develops differently and at different times, but it does happen to all of us. Hell, I, myself, was a late bloomer, too. At 16 I was just beginning to feel the changes, while my classmates and underclassmen were already well into theirs."
Megumi feels a hand on his forearm, soft and shy at first, before the grip tightens. He peers up, tired, but more than that afraid of what he might see. Saturo is gazing at him, something soft and comforting in his eyes, searching for a kind of acknowledgement from him, the kind of smile Satoru rarely wears adorning his face. When did he last see this side of his sensei…?
"Growing up is an evolution of the mind, body, sexuality, and experiences. However you choose to explore these is normal, so long as you do so comfortably, safely, and with consent." Megumi is now sitting up straighter, unsure of what exactly triggered the change in his mood, in Satoru's, in the collective between the both of them. "And if you ever, ever need to talk about anything - relating to this or anything else - I will always be here and I will always support you."
They hold each other's gazes for a moment, before they simultaneously let out an exhale they didn't know they had trapped, shut their eyes, and turn away from each other to lean against the wall and headboard respectively. As if rehearsed ahead of time, their actions mirroring one another, they sit still and silently for a while. Megumi can't explain it, he barely understands it, but it feels as if a barrier he didn't know existed between them has shattered and he is now somehow closer to Satoru, more equal. He always felt supported, sure, but he felt supported as a boy who relied on a protector, a father. Now, he feels like a man supported by an ally. Maybe he did need to receive The Talk…
"Well, I'm gonna let you get back to…"
"Papa?"
Megumi watches as Satoru snaps wide blue eyes at him, before they soften with the addition of an almost gleeful grin. He thinks he sees a bittersweet nostalgic ghost swim across his face, and it tugs at his guilty heart a bit. When did he last really talk to Satoru as he once did, a boy and his papa, a hard-fought relationship nurtured to defy the notion that blood ran thicker than water?
"Thanks, papa."
Just as quickly as the sentimentality between them grew, it's replaced with an irritation and a dread in Megumi's heart as Satoru's grin starts to show teeth. And before he has a chance to even conceive of an escape, Satoru is pouncing.
"My boy!" he bellows as he grabs Megumi towards him for a fierce bone crushing hug, and then proceeds to fold him down like a piece of paper, pulling his sleep shirt over his head creating a 90% cotton 10% polyester prison, and with a large hand, smacks his finally exposed bottom with a thunderous clap.
Thank goodness Megumi has somehow managed - with crucial timing, to boot - to imbue his bum with some cursed energy (something he never imagined he would ever have to do), and he hopes that his underwear helps in preventing any more damage to his skin and dignity.
But neither stops the muffled anguished howl that escapes his lips.
With an arm slung over Satoru's shoulder, Megumi limps painfully on his way to the dormitory common room en route to Dr. Shoko supported his papa's arm around his waist. White arm hairs tickle his exposed skin, but this time it does not trigger anything nostalgic from his childhood. As they near the common room, both he and Satoru spy Yuji lounging on the sofa. As soon as he sees them, he shoots up on his feet, revealing that he is clad in naught but grey boxer briefs and The Hulk bedroom slippers. His eyes are shocked, fearful, and curious as he scans Megumi wearing an oversized T-shirt and briefs while Satoru is wearing, well, Megumi. Three red faces managed the impossible task of staring and not staring, three minds worrying themselves with wondering exactly how much does the other know of the events of the evening.
"Hey." Yuji gruffs, fists clenched.
Toxic masculinity, moxic tasculinity, this is something that will never ever be discussed. It will be buried deep and forgotten. No amount of third wave feminism can change that.
"Hey," Megumi and Satoru reply in unison, equally gruff.
And just like that they turn from each other, the three of them determined to return to their respective goals.
"You… guys…?"
Three pairs of eyes shoot to the common room's entrance where a red faced Nobara stands next to a Maki whose canines glitter mischievously in the dim room.
"This is too good."
Elbows on the gurney and body bent forward as he stands, Megumi tries his best to asphyxiate himself with a pillow. Dr. Shoko's warm hands hover over his bare bottom, underwear rolled down to his knees. He can feel her reparative reverse cursed technique but it is not nearly fast enough to end this humiliation.
"Gojo, explain." he hears her say.
An excruciatingly irritating guffaw is followed by a "My boy and I had The Talk". Satoru then has the gall to sound a little sheepish, "A little friendly banter to lighten the mood mayyy have gone a little out of hand."
Megumi at this point has already started to do that thing his brain does to escape, but not before he hears the doctor whisper something that threatens to make him smile.
"With how frequently I see your students come to me with banter-related injuries, I may have to start considering child protective services."
END
Note:
I'm not sure if I should have a sequel with Yuji's perspective, or make Nobara the next victim of Good-Dad-Gojo.
