Chapter Text
Fushiguro Megumi didn’t hate his job.
Working as a Staff Reporter for the city’s paper wasn’t something that he had originally planned, but it was a job that paid the bills and was easily acquired.
Sure, it’s not like journalism was his first pick for a career while studying in a major for Japanese Literature and Linguistics, but when your college advisor and mentor connects you with someone who runs a newspaper in one of the central wards of Tokyo, what was Megumi supposed to do? Say no, thank you, I would rather be unemployed while I pay ridiculous amounts of money to study a degree for eight years?
He wasn’t an idiot; he knew that he needed to do something. At least through journalism, Megumi could still use his skills and knowledge related to writing and storytelling while he planned out the next phases of his life.
The end goal was Professor, but he’ll take Staff Reporter in the meantime.
The Editor-In-Chief was an eccentric man. He was several years older than Megumi, having been old college buddies with his academic's advisor, Kento Nanami.
Well, “buddies” might not have been the right term.
“He’s an idiot, but he’s not inept,” Nanami had said, looking at Megumi over his round-rimmed glasses. His blonde hair was slicked back neatly, but a single strand fell as he bore into Megumi’s eyes. “He owns a newspaper in Toshima City, Toshima Shimbun Unlimited. Not very original, but it’s fairly successful. You said you wanted to do something with your degree? Well, this may not be exactly what you were hoping for, but I know that Gojo is looking to bring on a new journalist and he has flexible hours. What do you say?”
Gojo Satoru, owner of TSU and an entire character on his own. Stark white hair that immediately stood out in a crowd and if his hair wasn’t blinding enough, he had piercing blue eyes. He was also an impressive journalist and writer. It was like he just had a knack for identifying stories and seeking things out. He always said it was because of his eyes. Whatever that meant.
Despite being someone that Megumi had to get used to, like an acquired taste, Gojo had a type of character that Megumi could only admire. Somewhere along the way of working for this impulsive, high-spirited, and slightly unorganized personality of a boss, Megumi did enjoy his time at the Unlimited. Though, he would never admit that.
Megumi had worked at the newspaper all throughout university, even taking a gap year after his undergrad to work fulltime before he returned to begin grad school. It was only spring now, but he knew that he’d soon have to start cutting his hours down in preparation for the fall.
Working at the newspaper was something that he found to be easy. Easy to do, easy to love. He worked in city news, occasionally picking up a miscellaneous story every now and then, but his main beats were crime and politics. He didn’t mind writing the every-so-often soft news story—a local hero, a small business, a public figure profile—for the Unlimited, but Megumi thrived better writing hard news.
Crime and politics.
It was straightforward, with secure facts that followed the basic reporting flow. You gather the who’s, the what’s, the when’s, the where’s, the why’s, and the how’s, and then you cut out all of the unimportant information. It was the inverted pyramid: everything important sat at the top, and everything else went to the bottom.
Megumi liked the simplicity of it all, and the familiarity that grew around the Unlimited only added to his enjoyment.
Maybe it was the simpler writing style that came as a nice change to him from the typical pieces that was and will be expected of him for school; maybe it was the fact that the paper was willing to bend completely around Megumi’s school schedule, specifically citing the importance of a good education and support system for the reason why his weird hours were never questioned or judged; or maybe it was Gojo, who often liked to come into the office and buy everyone lunch, just because he felt like it, because he was genuinely a good guy.
So, yeah, Megumi didn’t hate his job.
But in this moment…
“The sports beat?” Megumi asked incredulously.
Gojo sat before him at his desk, swiveling back and forth in his office chair. There was a ridiculous smile painted on his lips, one that said this will be fun… for me!, along with the mischievous glint in his eyes. Megumi had been called into Gojo’s office the moment that he stepped foot inside the building. It was bad enough that he was already flustered from earlier that morning, but to be called into the boss’s office first thing in the workday was enough to have him near death. He stood in front of Gojo’s desk, having refused the seat in the hopes that it would have been a quick conversation.
How wrong he was.
“That’s correct, Megumi!” Gojo chirped, stopping his ridiculous swiveling to look him in the eyes. “Maki usually covers that, but she and her girlfriend are going on a little vacation together for a couple of months, and—”
“Months?!” This time, Megumi was damn near yelling the word.
Maki, who was coincidentally a distant cousin of Megumi’s, also worked at the Unlimited. She and her girlfriend, Kugisaki, covered the sports and the entertainment stories.
Gojo simply smiled wider. “Can you believe that they both racked up the PTO for that? I sure couldn’t either when they put it in, but, hey, who am I to deny the happy couple from such a lovely and romantic adventure?”
“Where in the world are Maki and Kugisaki going for them to be gone for two months?” Megumi asked, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“A cruise! Wholly booked and paid for, and entirely cheesy!” Gojo clapped his hands together, standing to meet Megumi’s level. Though with Gojo’s height, he stood tall enough that he had to lean forward over the desk, just slightly, to look him in the eye. “Yuuta has the entertainment beats covered, so that leaves you with sports.”
“Sports,” Megumi repeated, though it was more of a breathless whisper, a statement of disbelief. His hands dropped to his sides, and he looked Gojo back in the eye. “Is there anything specific that I need to cover?”
Please not football, please not football, please not footba—
“Yeah, actually, there was this big feature story that Maki wanted to write,” Gojo said. He straightened himself back up before falling back into his chair. The swiveling resumed.
A feature story. Great.
“But, alas, her availability for it only really cleared up recently. Right when the cruise was booked for,” he continued. Yes, how sad. “She said that she would just write it once she got back, but I thought ‘hey, this is a great story to be told,’ and decided that it would be passed on to you instead. So, no, you are not expected to cover all of the sports news like Maki did—Yuuta will be writing that, and Toge is going to step in as a temporary writer to help out—this will be a long, profile feature of this boxer guy who runs a local gym. Talk to him, learn his story, we’ll get some photographers out to the site at some point, and then write it! Easy, no?”
“If I’m not fully covering the sports beat, then why did you tell me that?” Megumi asked.
“Because I thought it would be funny,” Gojo shrugged. “And also, you would be, if we had the stories for it. But currently, we have them all covered! Don’t be too surprised if you get a straggler story every now and then in the next couple of months, but for now, just focus on the boxer guy story.”
Megumi sighed. “Who’s covering my stories?”
“That would be one of the Senior Editors and yours truly,” Gojo replied. “Don’t worry about your stories.”
“So, why do I have to be the one to write the boxer story and not you?” was Megumi’s next question.
Gojo tsked, that same shit-eating grin coming back to consume Megumi in a state of paranoia. What was this guy thinking? “I think that you would actually come to really enjoy this story, Megumi! A real heart warmer. A rags to riches kind of thing, where he went from being your average kid to a successful boxer! Who doesn’t love to hear those kinds of success stories?”
“Amazing,” Megumi deadpanned, sarcasm dripped from his words. “Because you know just how much I love those sappy stories about famous people who always start off as ‘average.’”
“Okay,” Gojo said, crossing his arms with a pout, “what’s bothering my favorite crime journalist? Tell me your woes.”
Megumi stared at him with a look of confusion. “My w— huh? I’m not upset.” Just annoyed.
“You so are.”
“No, I’m not.”
“I can feel it, Megumi!”
“No, you can’t!”
Megumi huffed a bit, completely convinced that Gojo was doing this on purpose to mess with him. That’s what he liked to do, anyway. Ever since he was a freshman in college.
“No, but seriously, what’s bugging you?” he asked, eyebrows raised with a slight uptick in the corner of his mouth.
“Nothing’s bugging me, Gojo, it’s just been a weird morning,” Megumi replied. He sighed in defeat as he took a seat in one of Gojo’s stupidly expensive chairs. It was comfortable, as it always was, but if Megumi could help it, he’d never sit there for too long.
“Care to tell me the story? You know I love a good story,” Gojo made an exhibition of leaning forward, placing his elbows on the desk and planting his chin in hands, palms cradling both sides of his face. He looked like a little kid, or maybe a schoolgirl, with the way that he smiled at Megumi waiting for him to continue. “Aren’t I your friend?”
“You’re my boss,” Megumi corrected.
Gojo waved his hand flippantly before returning it to his face.
Megumi considered punching him.
“Same thing,” Gojo said. “Tell me a story, journalist.”
“It’s not—” Megumi sighed, closing his eyes for a moment as he asked himself why he ever took this job all those years ago, “it’s not a story really, I just met someone this morning and it threw me off.”
Gojo’s eyebrows shot up so high that they could have met the ceiling. “Oh? My little reporter met a partner in crime?”
He snickered to himself while Megumi just raised an eyebrow at him, wondering how someone so immature and ridiculous could ever run such a quality newspaper.
“Get it?” he continued. Megumi got it. “Because you’re on the crime beat.”
“Was,” Megumi corrected. “I was on the crime beat. Some idiot took me off of it and decided to throw me into a story type that I’m not used to writing.”
“Maybe that idiot thinks that you could stand to expand and maybe exercise that creative writing you had to use every now and then back in college,” Gojo shot back matter-of-factly with a smug look on his face.
And, okay, he had a point there.
God, Megumi hated it when he had a point.
“Anyway, do continue the story,” Gojo said as he returned to that childlike look of staring at Megumi like a kid waiting for a bedtime story. “You never meet anyone.”
Megumi sighed and said, “It wasn’t anything special, we just ran into each other at The Caf. Like we literally ran into each other.”
The Caf was a local coffee shop just two blocks down from the newspaper. Megumi usually liked to make his own coffee at home before work, but it was a convenient crutch on those days where he was running late or feeling lazy.
“A meet cute at a coffee shop?” Gojo gasped dramatically, like this was the most riveting story of all time.
Megumi blushed in return and scowled. This man was truly an idiot. “Jesus, Gojo, can’t you be normal? No, it wasn’t some stupid ‘meet cute.’ I was walking up to get my coffee and tried to say, ‘excuse me,’ but he must not have heard me because he turned around and ran straight into me. He spilled his coffee on himself and everything, it was embarrassing.”
“Oh, yeah, I can tell,” Gojo said with a smile, “your face is turning red and everything at the thought of it.”
The tone in his voice indicated that Gojo did not believe for minute that Megumi was just embarrassed, but there was no way that Megumi was going to tell his boss that the stranger that he had ran into left Megumi completely speechless. He was tall, and from what Megumi could tell through his loose-fitting t-shirt and jeans, was fit—like really fit. Just running into him made him feel like he had walked into a brick wall. When the stranger had asked if he was okay, bringing a rough, calloused hand to Megumi’s arm to steady him, he also instantly noted the gentle touch that contrasted so greatly with the initial grasp.
Megumi thought that he might have run into a Greek statue, carved to perfection with a solid, built form. His touch had been soft, but there was nothing else about him that read as “sweet and approachable.” Yet there was this aura that had surrounded him of comfort and kindness. The stranger had looked like someone who could and would beat down on some people, with scars running across his face and the possibility of a healing bruise on his left cheekbone, he seemed like the type of person to yell at Megumi for spilling his coffee and demanding that he either pay him back or meet him outside. But he never did that. He had just stared at him with concern, grabbing ahold of his arm, asking if he was okay as he looked Megumi directly in the eyes.
And meeting his eyes. God.
If Megumi had already been speechless then from the fit stranger and the gentle but firm grip of his hand, his eyes were enough to take away what little bit of brain power that he might have had left. A soft, warm, golden brown. The kind of brown that came from melted sugar, from honey in the summer. That comforting type of brown that reminded Megumi of fall, cozy cabins, and rich sunsets. The brown that you associate with the forest, the peaceful serenity of being surrounded by the smell of nature, the bark on the trees that surround and envelop you, the crunch of the leaves beneath you.
The stranger’s eyes were bright, shining like a beacon of light and happiness. True kindness shone through as he asked Megumi if he was okay, and all Megumi had the wherewithal to say in reply was uh huh.
Like a real charmer.
So, he had decided in that moment that he couldn’t look at the stranger in his eyes. There was no way he could get through an intelligent conversation with him if he did, so he had guided his gaze up instead and met the soft tufts of pink hair that peeked from his ball cap. Pink was never a color that Megumi ever really cared for, but this stranger had him wondering if he had held the wrong opinion his entire life. Though there hadn’t been much showing due to the hat, Megumi imagined that the stranger’s hair was soft and messy. It had jutted out from the cap and refused to lay flat on his head in defiance, and the pink contrasted well with the dark brown undercut that softly sat under the hat, Megumi had thought.
Brown.
And then Megumi was stuck back thinking about those stupid brown eyes.
“So, what, did you like buy his coffee or something?” Gojo asked, breaking Megumi from his pathetic daydreaming about the mystery stranger.
Well, was it really a daydream if it actually happened?
Okay, so Gojo broke him from his reminiscing.
“No, I didn’t buy his coffee,” Megumi replied. “I asked if I could, to say that I was sorry, but he shook his head and told me not to worry about it.”
“Did you at least get a name?”
Megumi sighed, thinking back to worst bout of intelligence in his life. “No, I didn’t. I said ‘okay, sorry about that’ and left.”
Gojo snorted, dropping his head in his hands to hide is laughter, as if his shoulders weren’t shaking from the chortle, letting Megumi know exactly what Gojo thought of the situation. Megumi had to fight the urge to either sink into the stupid, comfortable, expensive chair and die or to punch his boss in his face. He imagined that he wouldn’t get fired for that, this wasn’t a typical workplace setting anyway.
“Megumi, that is truly sad, y’know?” Gojo asked as he raised his head back up to meet his gaze.
Megumi tsked, looking off to his right. Gojo’s accomplishments were arranged on the wall—degrees, awards, journalism prizes. Megumi scowled as he stared at the Pulitzer Prize display. The medal sat in a frame, a fair-sized coin that was plated with 24-carat gold. Next to the medal in the display was a photo of Gojo himself, from his abroad years in university, and a clip of text from the Pulitzer article that explained his accomplishments and the series of stories that he had written to win the prize.
It was some major sociopolitical story from his time in America right after college. A series of reported stories highlighting the struggles of the younger generation with a focus in the ways that the working environment has been set up to where children and young adults were expected to provide more than they can or should. It caused a lot of discourse at the time and opened up a lot of uncomfortable conversations. A couple of years after receiving the award, Gojo had returned to Japan and started Toshima Shimbun Unlimited.
“Like my golden coin?” Gojo asked with a bout of pride. Megumi could hear the smugness in his tone.
“I’m thinking about throwing it at your head,” Megumi said, before adding, “and it’s silver. Not gold.” The Pulitzer Prize medal was made of silver.
Gojo shrugged in his peripherals. “It has gold on the outside.”
Megumi turned back to his boss, who in turn flashed him another stupid smile, and stood up. “I’m going to go to my desk now. The morning has been exhausting enough as it is.”
“Wait, Megumi, tell me more about the coffee stranger! Was he cute? Did yo—”
The door to Gojo’s office slammed shut, but Megumi could still hear his obnoxious laughter from the other side of it. Inumaki and Okkotsu peeked around from the walls of their desks, eyeing him with matching looks of confusion.
Megumi shook his head as he said, “Just Gojo being Gojo.”
Inumaki nodded and returned to his computer. He was the Unlimited’s photographer who had studied photojournalism under Nanami. He was quiet and didn’t speak much, but Megumi never minded the silence when they were working on a story together. Sometimes he could be too quiet, though. Megumi quickly learned that he really, really wasn’t a big talker, and the masks that he always wore kept his face from being read too easily. Inumaki always had a plain expression, which contrasted greatly from his platinum blonde hair and vibrant eyes.
Okkotsu, in contrast, was always open to a conversation, presenting a warm and friendly aura. When he first started working at the Unlimited, Megumi was a bit intimidated by Okkotsu due to his appearance—long dark hair that framed his face and dark blue eyes that always looked a bit distant and tired. Megumi felt like if he tried to approach him, he would just get ignored. Though, it didn’t take long for Okkotsu to open up, and soon enough, Megumi realized that he was just on the shier side at first, but he did love to talk. However, his and Okkotsu’s conversations were never just about the latest movie or TV show or whatever the most recent fashion trends were like Kugisaki liked to gossip about. Okkotsu almost always provoked decent conversations, and Megumi held a level of respect to him for that. So, when Okkotsu stood and walked over, falling in step as they made their way to Megumi’s desk, he didn’t bother to complain.
“I could hear Gojo’s laughter from my desk, I guess he’s giving you a hard time?” he asked.
Megumi scoffed. “You could say that again.”
Okkotsu hummed in response. “Yeah, he’s always sort of been like that for as long as I’ve known him. That’s one thing about Gojo, he never changes.”
Okkotsu was Megumi’s senior, both literally and at the paper. He was a little under two years older than him and had actually majored in Journalism while in university. He started out as an intern in high school and maintained the position during his studies. He quickly made his way up in the paper, accepting a fulltime position upon graduating. Currently, he was a Senior Reporter for the Unlimited.
“I just can’t believe I have to write a sports feature,” Megumi complained, reaching his desk. Okkotsu leaned over the small wall of the cubicle, looking down at him. “It’s like the two things that I don’t know well enough to write about.”
“That’s probably why he wants you to do this,” Okkotsu offered.
“That’s exactly why he wants me to do it, but I don’t want to.”
Okkotsu snickered in reply before his face settled into a downturned smile. “You’re whining like a kid, Fushiguro. This might be fun for you! It’ll be like your final project before you have to go back to part-time. And it’s not like you will only be writing this, I’m sure Gojo will have some smaller news stories for you to write too.”
Megumi sighed, leaning back in his chair. He clicked the spacebar on his keyboard and waited as the screens came to life. “I know, I just… I really have to focus on a sports feature all summer?”
“Sounds like it’ll be a pretty big story. Maki wasn’t even the one to come up with it,” Okkotsu shrugged.
Megumi sat up, looking over at him. “Wait, what? Gojo said that she pitched it.”
“Well, yeah, she pitched it, but this was a story that someone reached out to her about,” Okkotsu explained. “A couple of families in the area were wanting to bring attention to this boxer guy and his gym. I don’t really know the full details, just from what Maki’s told me.”
“So, people are wanting to read this then,” Megumi groaned, turning back to his computer. He signed in and looked at the screen aimlessly as the desktop loaded. Clicking open his email, he already saw the message from Maki, with the subject line being the name of the gym.
“Divergent fist: Boxing and Gym?” Megumi read aloud. “Seems a little corny, no?”
He turned back to Okkotsu, who shrugged but was smiling as he said, “I like it, pretty straightforward, but the first part really captures your attention.”
Megumi hummed and looked at his screen, skimming through the story details. No pictures yet. He sighed, reaching next to him on his desk and grabbing his tablet to write down some notes.
“Itadori Yuuji?” Megumi read the name that Maki had given him.
“Oh, I’ve heard of him!” Okkotsu piped up from the cubicle wall. “He was some big-shot boxer! Super talented, crazy fighter.”
“‘Was?’” Megumi asked as he read over the detail notes from Maki.
Itadori Yuuji, 22, from Sendai. He’s from a small family, comprised of his grandfather and his half-brother. He did two years of community college and took part in some boxing in high school. Had real talent for it and went on to be pretty well-known in the industry. Now runs a gym in Toshima City.
Megumi read the profile over a couple of times. So, this Itadori guy was some famous boxer who came to Toshima to start his own thing. Interesting. Megumi could see the story behind that, but was he really the kind of person to write this story? This was something probably better suited for Okkotsu to take over.
“He quit the industry sometime last year, no one really knows why,” Okkotsu shrugged.
Megumi hummed and turned back to him. “Why didn’t you take this story?”
He shrugged, glancing back towards Gojo’s office before saying, “Gojo said you would do a better job at the storytelling for this kind of thing, and I’m inclined to agree.”
“I don’t write this kind of stuff though,” Megumi countered.
“No, but you’re a talented writer, Fushiguro,” he replied. “If the community wants a big story about this boxer guy, then we need someone like you to put that out.”
“Aren’t you the journalism major here?”
Okkotsu laughed. “Didn’t you study storytelling? This will be like stretching out those muscles.”
“I studied literature, but this feels a lot more… catered and polished. I like nonfiction and hard news, not whatever sap story this is about to be,” Megumi said matter-of-factly.
“Well, time to learn how to be sappy, Fushiguro,” Okkotsu patted the top of his cubicle wall a couple of time before pushing himself off and turning back towards his own desk. “I think you’ll really come to love this story.
Megumi stared at the email, reading over the details again and again.
“I’m sure I will,” he muttered to himself, his voice filled with skepticism.
Itadori Yuuji.
He definitely had to be some sort of asshole, right? A real hey, look at me, I made it! kind of guy, right?
Megumi was curious to know why he would have left the industry; he did wonder what would drive him to ending such a successful career. He quit his job and came to the biggest city in Japan to open up his own gym right in one of the central wards. There had to be a good story behind that, but why was Megumi the one to dig it out?
Gojo wanted him to expand his writing abilities, and while he appreciated the sentiment, Megumi couldn’t help but think that this was a rather big story to start off on for that. Though, he supposed that something like that fell in line with Gojo’s leadership strategy anyway. A real “push you in the pool and hope you can swim” type of boss. He often challenged Megumi to do better, to write better, and while he was annoying and frustrating at times, Megumi had learned a lot in the four years he’s been at the Unlimited.
Megumi sighed and opened up Itadori’s contact information. He quickly found his number and email in Maki’s notes and debated giving him a call. Maki specifically wrote that the guy was open to texting, but that still felt a bit unprofessional, so Megumi opted for an email.
He drafted something quick, introducing himself and asking when the best available time for an interview would be. He also asked for Itadori’s schedule and availability overall, since meeting him would be a common occurrence. This story was supposed to be a feature on this guy and his gym and its operations as a whole. Maki had outlined the story and currently noted that the interview process should be about a month and half to leave enough time to write the story and have it ready to be published by the end of July.
Megumi’s first feature story and it’s a two-month feature project.
He really could kill Gojo.
His computer pinged and, surprisingly, not even five minutes after sending the email, Itadori had responded. The first thing that Megumi noted was his overuse of exclamation points and all lowercase letters. Raising an eyebrow, he read over the message. Itadori had said that he could meet this afternoon, just after 3:30pm, and also said that they could discuss his availability in person.
my schedule it just a lil chaotic sorry!! is what he had written.
Megumi sighed, typing back a response that 3:30 worked just fine for him and he would see him then. With his morning and the earlier part of the afternoon free, he could at least work on cleaning up and finalizing his last story before he had to meet with Itadori. He had written a story related to some city official’s work, the story being rather boring overall, but still interesting enough. At the very least, it was familiar.
He cleaned up his work a bit before submitting it for editor’s review. It took Megumi a better part of the morning, and when lunch rolled around, he decided to just head to The Caf for a quick pick-me-up.
The walk was brief and, thankfully, the line was short. Despite the emptiness in the store, Megumi still found himself glancing around. He could stand there and pretend like he didn’t know what he was searching for, but the image of pink hair and ripped muscles and calloused hands told him exactly what he wanted to see.
What I’d give to interview you, Mr. Greek Statue.
The stranger was still present in his mind, and Megumi wondered what it would be like to—
Shaking his head, Megumi tried to clear his thoughts.
He needed to eat. And chill out.
He really needed to chill out.
Megumi sighed, grabbing his order before he started to make his way back to the office. He still found his eyes wandering, jumping from person to person in search of the hot mystery stranger. He knew that it was fruitless though. His hours were all wonky at the paper, and millions of people passed through Toshima City every day.
He decided that he would just have to live with the idea of never seeing arguably the hottest person that Megumi had ever laid eyes on again.
He could live with that, couldn’t he?