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It's his birthday today.
Satoru hasn't forgotten. Can't forget, maybe.
It's been nearly a month since he and Sukuna agreed to fight, and when he'd suggested the date, just two days away now, he hadn't thought about it. He'd been too overwhelmed, too shocked, at seeing Megumi standing there next to the stitched up corpse of Suguru, hair combed back and dark curse marks marring his skin, to even think to consider it. It was like looking into a funhouse mirror determined to show him his greatest failures, those of the past and those yet to come, so unsettling that for a moment he hadn't believed it to be real—refused to accept that it could be.
So, he hadn't hesitated at spitting out the date, one that follows him like a wretched curse but seemed oddly fitting at the time, and now he's sitting here alone on Megumi's sixteenth birthday, blowing out his candles for him.
Megumi's never been one to make a big deal about his birthday, but Tsumiki loves—loved birthdays, or any reason to celebrate and eat too many sweets, and so Megumi had suffered through them for her sake. When Satoru took them in (took them in is being generous, he thinks; he was barely eighteen, fresh off losing Suguru and entirely incapable of taking proper care of himself, not to mention a pair of abandoned children, one with the weight of a thousand year old familial curse on his shoulders and the other so dedicated to filling the void of their parents that she'd worked herself to the bone to keep them afloat), he'd made it a point to spend their birthdays with them. His parents had never really bothered to make anything important out of his own birthday, other than forcing him to partake in the traditional clan rituals and accept lavish, pointless gifts he never asked for.
He hadn't wanted that for them. For Megumi, in particular. Tsumiki was a lovely child, easy to please, but Megumi was never so simple. His first birthday under Satoru's care was a mess, to say the least (he never made the mistake of inviting all of Megumi's classmates again).
If it was up to Megumi, the day would be like any other. Maybe he'd have some cake, just to appease Tsumiki, but that was hard for Satoru to accept. Coming from a childhood where birthdays were seen as nothing more than a guilded checkmark before he would assume his role as clan head, he simply couldn't understand why any kid wouldn't want what extravagence and attention he was offering them. Cake should be expected, the most basic aspect of a birthday. Why wouldn't Megumi want more? Why wouldn't he trust Satoru enough to ask for it?
Thinking back, that was a common theme for him and Megumi. Misunderstandings, he means. Perhaps he was simply too stuck in his ways to really see Megumi's point of view, or perhaps Megumi was willfully stubborn about it because he enjoyed seeing Satoru get flustered when his attempts at bonding were rebuked. Perhaps, Megumi, with his dark hair and tendency to put Satoru in his place without remorse, just reminded him too much of someone he hadn't given enough attention to, and he's been desperate to avoid following the same path ever since.
He likes to think he did the best he could, but look where all his efforts got them.
The image of Megumi—no, Sukuna, wearing Megumi's skin, grinning with a malice he's never seen on the face that still has hints of baby fat on it, the cheeks he used to pinch and prod when Megumi would get in a mood, the teeth he saw grow in after tying floss to a doorknob to remove the old ones, it will surely haunt him through death.
So, he sits here, alone, slicing up a cake that's not nearly sweet enough for him because he'd ordered it months ahead of time, as usual, with Megumi's tastes in mind.
It's likely that Yuuji would come, if he asked, but Satoru doesn't even know if he's aware of the significance of the date (when do new friends think to mention birthdays?), and if he isn't then Satoru refuses to be the one to tell him. It's not a burden to celebrate Megumi's birthday, it never has been and never will be, but nonetheless it's a responsibility he has to bear alone.
He can't help but chuckle a little bit at his own melodrama. He's even got the lights turned off, for Tengen's sake.
Maybe he'd gone soft at some point, but can anyone blame him? Megumi is just so strong. So strong. He unlocked the capability of opening his domain years before Satoru had, and, with time, Satoru was sure that, no matter what happened to him, Megumi would be able to move forward. He'd be able to do what Satoru never could, surrounded by powerful friends and allies. Hell, eventually Megumi would probably have saved Yuuji from his death sentence out of pure spite, trying to prove he could succeed where Satoru failed.
But, now he can't do any of that, at least not for a while longer yet. And it's Satoru's fault. His fault that Megumi, barely even his own person yet, is spending his sixteenth birthday as the King of Curse's meatsuit.
Chewing on another bite of too-bitter cake, he sighs.
He'll make sure to make Megumi's seventeenth birthday the best one yet.