"Days I feel like a human being, while other days I feel more like a sound. I touch the world not as myself but as an echo of who I was." - Ocean Vuong

It's not the first time Nobara breaks into Megumi's dorm. It is, however, the first time she does so with purpose. Wait, no. Scratch that. Let her rephrase.

It's the first time said purpose doesn't involve co-pranking alongside Yuji. As her hand twists the doorknob with the experience of a grade A thief, slipping inside and closing the door after her...she becomes acutely aware that it's not the same thing. Not even close. It can't be. There is dust on every piece of furniture her eyes land on and Nobara would swear nothing has ever made her stomach churn more than the spider web she spots into one of the corners.

It's Fushiguro's room; the dark blue bedsheets and matching curtains as well as the dent in the wall Itadori made sometime after teaming up together...tell her as much.

And yet it's not.

The mess in his (a certified clean freak's) room bothers her more than the worst Yuji's had to offer. And if she were to be entirely honest with herself, she'd conclude it's not the mess, per se, the problem. There are no empty soda cans, half eaten pizzas or dirty underwear littering the floor, after all.

No - it's what the mess represents that rubs her the wrong way.

Absence.

Megumi isn't around to tidy up his room anymore.

But she will find him. And drag him back. Him and Yuji. She won't give up on them; she won't let them give up on her, either. Nobara swallows down the lump in her throat and ignores the voice at the back of her mind whispering that they already have.

She can't afford to entertain such thoughts.

"Now, if I were Fushiguro..." she wonders outloud, pacing aimlessly. "...where would I go?" Stroking her chin with a thoughtful expression and armed with years of watching crime tv shows, she surveys the room.

It's as sparse as she remembers it but, the wardrobe is empty where once it had been full, and it takes Nobara a good three minutes or so before she manages to tear her gaze away, and move on with the inspection.

The bathroom is just as empty. Void of any and all products, few as the male species is known to possess...it's outrageous. There is not even toothpaste left. Nor towels. No anything to prove that someone has once upon a time used this place.

That's when it hits her.

He...doesn't plan on coming back.

And it's like a punch in the gut, realizing she is struggling to find someone who doesn't want to be found.

Yuji's room wasn't much better when she had first stepped foot inside after waking up from her coma. Forget messy. It might as well have had the label of 'on the run' slapped all over it. Even so, she had fought the women that came to clean and throw out everything on the basis of "Council orders... Sukuna's vessel has never belonged at this school anyways."

She protested and lost. His dorm looks as though it belongs to a ghost from the past now and not at all like a guy's who used to have three blankets on top of each, unwilling to part with either, even as they were old and ripped.

It's... It's almost as if Itadori and Fushiguro haven't entered my life to begin with.

She sinks down near the wall, feeling as though someone pulled out the rug from under her feet while she had been still standing on it.

Nobara doesn't cry.

She doesn't.

She won't.

She hasn't felt like herself in a long time so it makes sense that she, she does. Kugisaki Nobara doesn't cry.

But right there, with her knees digging into a carpet that hasn't been vacuumed in weeks and a magenta pink eyepatch that's supposed to make the prospect of a hole look less unappealing, she does.

And it's not pretty.

I fell asleep?!

She doesn't know how many hours passed since she came here with the sole intention of searching for clues. Probably a lot, if the night sky she can see through Megumi's window counts as proof.

She remembers there being daytime when she first decided to forgo writing her feelings down. Nobara sits upright and rubs at her eye tiredly. Sometime during her inner turmoil, the entire process of letting it all out must have exhausted her enough to doze off.

But pitying herself won't make the boys magically appear, however. So, she buries this incident as deep as she can, stands up and goes to switch on the light.

If nothing else, Megumi's bookshelf is full and that has to mean something. Nobara has always trusted her instinct first and foremost. And right now, that same instinct is screaming that she checks it out.

At a first glance, it looks normal. Boring even, just like its owner himself is. There are just a couple of school related things...a dictionary and some English novels that are too old fashioned for her taste. She takes out a few and flips through them more out of curiosity than any actual interest. Specific lines stand out to her but only because he underlined them.

What a nerd.

Her eyes scan the pages of Pride and Prejudice, reading.

"There are few people who I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more I am dissatisfied with it."

Yep, sounds like him.

"I certainly have not the talent which some people possess," said Darcy, "of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done."

Nobara's lips twitch upwards in what can only be described as fondness.

"Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night."

The words 'Shakespeare' alongside 'Romeo and Juliet' had caught her attention. Because that's as outdated as he can get.

"If I loved you less, I might be able to speak about it more."

Jane Austen again but a different novel.

And...she could have kept going but she has more important things to do. Nobara closes the book shut, carefully placing it back where it belongs.

Huh...I never thought Fushiguro would be the romantic type.

She occupies the edge of his bed, face in her hands. Her gut instinct must be broken. That's the only way she can explain this...this failure. The bookshelf, just like the rest of Megumi's bedroom, hasn't told her a thing. Nothing, she has nothing.

Nothing that might shed some light onto where he is.

Unless, she counts England. Would it be so farfetched to assume his literature preferences extend to their country of origin? She knows he has the money to travel across the entire world, if he wanted to. But where in England? She can't just go looking for him in every damn province and city, cross her fingers and hope for the best.

London would be the obvious choice but if Megumi is helping Yuji hide...then that can't be it. They would have gone somewhere more...remoted. And that's assuming the boys are together.

I wonder...

If she manages to hack into his email somehow... Any flight ticket will show up there. For all she knows, maybe Fushiguro never left Japan. Best not to throw away her money on international trips just yet.

Nobara is no IT specialist but watching 'educational' Youtube videos and picking up certain tricks turned out to be easier than expected. Well, if you can count four days of relentless trial and error - easy, that is.

As a test, she attempts hacking into her own email account. If it works, that means she is capable of doing it to somebody else cough Fushiguro cough. If it doesn't, back to the Youtube videos she goes.

It's her fifth day.

And if she fails again she might just strangle someone.

What was it that my therapist told me to do when I start feeling murderous? Take a deep breath?

Nobara does just that. Her anger doesn't automatically vanish into thin air but she reaches a point where her eyes don't see red anymore and that's good enough. Little does she know then that the knock at her door is threatening to disrupt whatever peace of mind she has.

"Come in."

Whoever is interrupting me better have a good reason.

"Kugisaki."

She turns her head around so fast she almost gets whiplash. No freakin-

"I'd say fancy seeing you again but we both know I'd be lying."

Mai Zenin.

Nobara shuts her laptop with a resounding snap. Hacking is going to have to wait. "What do you want?"

The brunette ignores her, looking around her dorm as though heavily criticizing every single aspect of it before leaning against the doorway.

"Aren't you going to invite me in first?"

Her eyebrow twitches.

"...Suit yourself."

Mai strolls inside on a pair of black heeled boots Nobara doesn't feel the least bit jealous of. She claims the office chair beside her desk, long fingernails annoyingly drumming against its wooden surface.

"Nice eyepatch, by the way."

She sneers.

Of course that'd be the first thing to come out of her mouth.

Nobara doesn't retaliate though she grips the bedsheets.

"Oh, did I hit a nerve? My bad, sorry."

It's laughable. It's laughable especially because she doesn't believe Mai has one single apologetic bone in her body. "If you just came here to gloat, there is the exit."

"I'm not making fun of your misery, Kugisaki. I mean, what would even be the point? It'd be the equivalent of kicking a puppy that's already down."

She is up on her feet and near the desk in an instant, Shoko's words the only thing stopping her from starting a fight. "Get out."

"You are being too sensiti-"

I don't care.

"I said..." she grits her teeth. "Get. Out."

"This-"

"-OUT."

Mai sighs, the drumming of her fingers coming to a halt as she stands and walks towards the door. "I will be taking Itadori's room."

Nobara freezes.

"W-What?"

She is taking whose what now?!

"What you heard." Mai stops, hand already having twisted the doorknob to open the door. "I was sent from Kyoto with joint school business."

She couldn't care less about that.

"You aren't taking shit, Zenin."

"Excuse me?!"

"That room already has an owner." she glares. "Itadori Yuji."

"You mean Sukuna's vessel that's being wanted for the bloodshed that was Shibuya, the one who's responsible for your almost death... That one?"

Something in Nobara snaps then and she slaps her. Hard. Mai stumbles out the door and barely manages to regain her footing while her face is red on its way to becoming purple from the force of impact.

"Touch his room or Fushiguro's and you will see just how much bite this puppy still has left in her."

Mai is holding her cheek, snarling, with blood trailing down her nose. "Are you threatening me?!"

A glint that hasn't been there in months resurfaces in her orange eyes, setting them ablaze. "Threaten you? No."

She smiles.

"I promise you."

Before the brunette can get another word in or even rush to hit her back, she shuts the door and locks it. Her heart's racing and it's a familiar feeling, one she hasn't experienced in a long time. Too long.

Adrenaline.

And she laughs as Mai screams her lungs out, punching the door with her fists like a humiliated child on a playground. She laughs because, if only for a moment, Kugisaki Nobara felt powerful again.