Mahiru Shiina: Trial 2 Synthesis Theory
Hello everyone! For the “I Love You” drop, I’m just going to jump straight into a full-length theory because I have a LOT that I want to cover and it’s much more comprehensive than my initial thoughts posts usually are. This is partially because all four other admins helped me out, as well as our 6th roommate who isn’t an admin!
As always, I will be using the very fast translation done by @onigiriico, which is linked here! I’ll also be using @iaobug ‘s wonderful translation of Mahiru’s 16 step guide in This Is How To Be In Love With You, which I’ll put here.
T/W: Suicide, stalking, kidnapping/abduction, toxic relationships, murder, hanging, drowning, malnourishment, force feeding a rat. There WILL be images so please read at your own discretion!
Alright, let’s jump into it!
Mahiru’s murder took place in Aokigahara, AKA the Sea of Trees, AKA the Suicide Forest.
This is based on an initial post by @tomoesan, which has since become unavailable. I’ll post a photo of it here, though:
It compares Mahiru’s murder location on her card from Undercover to a real place in Japan: Aokigahara. From the pictures, it’s very clear that this was an intentional move by the artists to place Mahiru’s murder somewhere actively recognizable through some google searches. I firmly believe that the forest that they move through in the MV is Aokigahara.
That’s not all, though. From this image, you can pretty clearly see that the photo seems to be taken from inside a cave. We’ve determined this specific cave to be Ryugu Cave, or The Dragon Cave.
This article shows the exact same photo in the earlier post, citing it as being from the Ryugu Cave.
The Ryugu Cave also contains the Seno Umi Shrine, within it. You can read a bit about it here, but I firmly believe this to be the shrine mentioned on Day 15 of This Is How To Be In Love With You; more on that later.
Furthermore, the shrine is to Toyotama-hime. In mythology, this references a goddess who falls in love with a prince at a water well. However, he breaks a promise not to spy on her, which results in him seeing her in a monstrous form. Given the lyrical translation of daisuki (which should just mean I love you repeatedly) in the chorus to “monstrously in love,” “monstrous cause I love you,” “monstrous dilemma”... I think that the writers absolutely knew what they were going for, and they were giving a nod to this specific story and the shrine, with Mahiru being the lover turned monster.
Based on all of this, and the fact that I do believe Mahiru’s lover committed suicide, I think that all signs point to Aokigahara, specifically Ryugu Cave, being the location of the murder. I’ll be using this assumption throughout the rest of my theory.
I’ll follow along with the guide, starting at Days 1-8.
I think that Mahiru portrays Days 1-8 approximately correctly.
Days 1-7 are, I think, completely correct. Mahiru meets this guy, assumes it’s fate, and does small things to try to get closer to him and get to know about him. At this point, things probably seem completely normal to him, so there wouldn’t be any reason for him to reject her jogging with him or whatever.
Day 8 is when she waits outside his work, takes him to the park and presumably confesses her love to him. This is where her first inconsistency is.
She says that they talked the night away, but she also says that she “chooses not to believe they talked the night away” and that “it felt like no time passed at all.” She also very notably doesn’t actually say what his response was, though she implied it was positive.
I think that it was actually very short; rather than them talking the night away, he probably swiftly rejected her. This, therefore, ends Mahiru’s attempts to get him into a relationship normally. If he won’t love her the way she wants him to, she’ll find a way to make it happen, no matter what.
Mahiru sets a plan into action, starting Day 9.
This is the first page in her journal where the text switches from normal, pristine rows to slanted text. That’s a sign that something is going wrong.
She mentions that her “boyfriend” is really cute when he’s blackout drunk. I think that it’s possible she drugged him, but even if she didn’t, she used this to get some kind of information. It’s possible she brought him back to his house, getting his address, possibly even stealing keys or something like that.
I’d theorize that, rather than going here together, she followed him to the bar. Once he was pretty drunk, it’d be a lot easier to convince him to go along with her.
Day 10 is her talking to her beautician; I think that’s all correct. The beautician simply heard about the story through Mahiru’s eyes.
Day 11 is, I think, similar to the bar; she probably followed him to the “date” location. She says it “can’t be a coincidence” their tastes are so similar and that she’s become a different person. That indicates that this isn’t actually a shared taste: he went to the location and she followed him there.
On Day 12, Mahiru abducts her lover.
Day 12 is the day when Mahiru goes to his house for the first time, but somehow, she can’t actually seem to remember anything.
While that alone is suspicious, there’s also the mirror. We can see her beautician in the mirror, so the fact that he isn’t in the mirror at all seems to imply that he isn’t within the camera’s view at all. Why is she in his entryway without him there to greet her?
The answer is that she’s uninvited. She enters his home, and she takes him. That’s what I think the shot of her jumping on the couch spreading the flowers in This Is How To Be In Love With You is:
Rather than this being her killing moment, I think that this is her going in and snatching him from his own house. I firmly believe that Mahiru took him to Aokigahara, and I think that this is when she did it.
The scene in the house with the feathers immediately follows Day 12, so it makes sense chronologically. Additionally, for Day 13 onwards, the text switches from just being slanted to being stitched together from smaller boxes; it seems like it’s mimicking a ransom note that’s patched together from magazine or book clippings. This indicates that this is when Mahiru is more actively committing a crime: in this case, kidnapping.
Days 13-15 are Mahiru moving the body.
If we assume that Mahiru’s end destination is Ryugu Cave based on earlier research, Days 13, 14 and 15 can be interpreted as movement.
Day 13 may seem strange, given that it’s Mahiru seemingly attending a wedding. However, if you pay careful attention to her phrasing, she does not say that she actually attended. She says that she was invited, and that soon, her dreams will come true. I think it’s possible that the wedding location was closer to Aokigahara–it’s near Mt. Fuji, so I’d imagine there could be some scenic locations or something–and she’s mentally using the wedding as a justification for heading that direction. Maybe she even did attend, if it was over that way.
Day 14 is an outdoor date under the stars. She practically begged him to come along. This is her taking him into the woods. I’m not sure exactly how compliant he was being and if she literally dragged him or if he was in more of a “resisting seems like a bad idea” kind of headspace, but I believe that Day 14 is them arriving at the forest and entering.
It’s notable that, in the scenes in I Love You, Mahiru seems to be leading her lover into the forest. Here’s a screenshot from around 1:37:
At this point, it doesn’t seem like he’s being forced. However, this ends with him groveling on the ground at 1:55.
Comparing that to the image immediately after, we understand that Mahiru isn’t seeing the situation clearly. Given that he’s in this kneeling position in both shots, I think it’s safe to say that the shots with the golden lighting are the situation through Mahiru’s eyes.
He’s very clearly actually beaten down and miserable, but Mahiru depicts them as a cute and happy couple. In fact, at 1:20, the lyrics support this interpretation:
This too-perfect image of her relationship is captioned with “I actually believed that.” It’s telling us, the audience, that while she actually, genuinely believed that these fantasy segments were reality, we, perhaps, should not do the same. These fantasy segments aren’t real.
Mahiru has already proven her capability of being an unreliable narrator in the past, concealing a lot of information within the text of her 16 Day Guide. I don’t want to completely discount these fantasies, but I’m trusting the side by side comparisons it gives us that they are NOT, in any way shape or form, what she portrays them as. I don’t want to take any of it at face value.
Anyways, Day 15 is the end destination of their journey: the arrival at Ryugu Cave. This is the shrine that she mentions.
As stated earlier, Ryugu Cave contains a shrine. Though the cave isn’t available to tourists, that just increases the chances that Mahiru could get away with imprisoning her captive there without being spotted by the patrols that go through.
For reference, this cave is very deep: 96 m, or approximately 315 ft. It would be pretty hard for him to escape once they’re there, which resounds with her wish: they’ll stay like that until the end of time, and no one will stand in her way.
Day 16 is… a snapping point.
Day 16 is when we see Mahiru prepare her lovely boyfriend a wonderful meal of all his favorites. I think that this is when the 2:13/2:14 fantasy split happens:
While she sees herself giving him cake pleasantly, in reality, she seems to be… force feeding him a rat??
I know some people think that the cake is a metaphor for toxicity, and that because he feeds it to her first in the video, it means that the relationship is mutually toxic. From what I’ve seen, this theory completely disregards both the rat aspect and the fantasy filter over the cake scene. I think it’s far more likely that him feeding her cake was Mahiru idealizing the real events. Maybe she ate the rats, too, and she liked to think he’d feed her, too. It’s them eating together; if the cake can be a rat, him feeding it to her can be a similarly significant misperception.
In any case, given that this is the last day in the guide, I think that this is the end of the line for him. He can’t take being her captive anymore, and sometime when she’s not away, he commits suicide.
I’m not entirely sure how. Obviously, we see him hanging at several points in the video, most prominently at the end:
But we can also see that he appears to be soaked with water at the very beginning.
There are lakes within Ryugu Cave. They’d also likely be cold enough to give him some form of hypothermia, explaining the blue tint to his skin in the second of the two images (he seems to have dried off by the second). Because of this, I’m somewhat inclined to lean towards drowning because it seems like it would have been more accessible to him. In that case, though, I’m not sure how he ends up hanging. I don’t feel like Mahiru would put him there; it feels much more likely to me that she would jump into the lake with him so that they could be together forever or something.
So, I’m not sure whether he hangs himself or drowns himself, but the gist is, he ends up dead. That’s what Mahiru blames herself for.
VOTE: GUILTY
I know that she’s currently leaning innocent and many people feel strongly about it, but please hear me out here.
In Mahiru’s audio drama, she very clearly does not grasp the gravity of what she did. If she really did kidnap him, bring him to the suicide forest and force feed him rats… that is NOT loving someone “normally,” as she’s so insistent that she did.
Her current perception is that when she loves someone normally, it’s wrong. That’s what she’s said about her guilty verdict. However, if we switch gears and vote her innocent, what will that tell her?
I think it would tell her that her love is okay–and, to the delusional Mahiru, that means saying that all of what she did is okay. If she believes this is loving someone normally, then I’d rather tell her not to love anyone like this again. It’s going to be hard for her to accept, and I recognize we might lose her between trials, but I think telling her that this is okay is even worse.
I do meta vote, but I do it in the context of trying to secure as many viable innocent votes for the third trial as possible. I think that, if we vote Mahiru innocent, she’ll go back to her fully delusional self. I think guilty is the only way to make the message stick, and the message has to stick if she has a chance at getting an innocent verdict in the end. I really urge you to consider it, because I think that voting her innocent will be a huge mistake on the fanbase’s part (which is the same exact way I felt about the Kotoko vote in Trial 1).
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the subject of every photo - fushiguro megumi
word count: 5,555 (i'm so proud of that)
warnings: swearin'
summary: a photoshoot at the pumpkin patch isn't his ideal day, but at least megumi gets to spend time with you. and maybe he'll take a few pictures anyway.
(a/n): really delayed pumpkin themed fic with the softest boy but i needed to write this ok a greater power called upon me to do it
___
“It’ll be fun!” Nobara had claimed, although her tone was more threatening than bubbly. “It’s just a little photoshoot at a pumpkin patch, why so gloomy about it?”
And it wasn’t that Megumi was gloomy about it, because he wasn’t. It would be immature to pout about a simple hangout among friends. The thing was… he just didn’t care for the whole pumpkin patch thing that really seemed to take off on instagram and tiktok these last few years.
He hadn’t carved a pumpkin since he was just a tot, and even then he’d only done it to satisfy Gojo’s bonkers need to participate in every holiday tradition. He never particularly liked scooping the guts and seeds out, and as a kid wasn’t decent enough with a blade to carve a face that actually looked interesting. Not to mention, it was always chilly in late October, making it insufferable to wander around outside solely to pick out a big orange vegetable.
Really, if he wanted a pumpkin that bad, he would’ve picked out a discount one from the grocery store. But really, he didn’t want a pumpkin.
Nonetheless, Nobara had bought four disposable cameras— which he didn’t know were even still a thing— told everyone to wear their cutest, coziest outfit, and pretty much demanded they all go spend the afternoon at one of the more popular farms in town. As with most plans, Megumi begrudgingly agreed.
Even under three layers— his coat, his sweater, and the long sleeved tee he wore underneath them both— the crisp air still pricked at his skin and left goosebumps in it’s wake. It was hard to enjoy being out here when he was fighting the urge to shiver.
“It’s pretty cold for this, huh?”
Megumi wipes away the resting bitch face he’d been making, opting instead for as much neutrality as he could muster. He turns to (y/n), only to find her peering up at him from behind her little plastic camera. His brows wrinkle.
“Don’t take a picture of me at that angle”
He puts his hand over the lens and pushes it away before she could even think about snapping the photo, and she chuckles a bit at his boyish antics. He almost cracks a smile when she’s peeking up at him with her cheeks tinged pink from the cold. He squashes it before his lip could curl too far.
“Well what side do you prefer then?” She teases, shifting around to stand before him and raising her shitty little camera again. “Full portrait? Or perhaps a side profile?”
Megumi rolls his eyes, but when he starts to walk away, she’s quick to follow. He doesn’t dislike her company.
Nobara is off farther in the field, ordering Yuuji to pick up as many pumpkins as he can for the perfect picture. It was only a matter of time before she came over and started barking at the two of them to make the perfect poses as well.
“So why do you hate pumpkin patches?” (y/n) breaks their silence, but when he turns to her again, she’s fixing her camera on a sparrow pecking away at a less than ripe pumpkin.
“I don’t hate pumpkin patches,” He replies, but even he has to admit the dryness in his voice makes it seem a bit unbelievable. “It’s just…” He glances at her out of the corner of his eye, but he’s quick to straighten his gaze when he finds her full attention on him now. “Cold” He finishes, lamely, but it’s not untrue.
He fiddles with the plastic camera in his hands.
“Yeah,” (y/n) agrees from beside him. “Would’ve been nice to do this a few weeks ago, when it was still sunny”
Megumi nods back at her, unsure of what else to say.
He hoped that they weren’t doomed to only speak about the weather today. However that meant he’d probably have to put the effort in to change the subject. His palms began to sweat.
It was their day off, so he didn’t want to strike up a conversation about work, and preferably he’d like to avoid the subject of sorcery altogether. So that narrowed down the options by a lot.
He knew that like him, she liked to read. But she was more into the fantasy stuff, and the only book off the top of his head he could make conversation about was The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe and he was fairly certain that wasn’t currently on her shelf.
Was it always this hard or was he just overthinking it?
“Wait, stay right there!”
Before he can suck it up and ask how her most recent assignment went, (y/n’s) throwing her arms up at him to make him freeze in place. Megumi startles at the sudden movement and holler, but he listens and stays put while she backs up a few steps.
“The sun is peeking out,” She explains, before steadying her camera in front of her face. “The lighting is great” She says with a grin, and then without warning, she snaps the photo.
Megumi wants to complain, he didn’t even have time to smile or pose or anything. When that picture got printed, he’d just be a guy standing there, probably with a resting bitch face. Nobara wouldn’t be happy.
But (y/n’s) still grinning as she lowers the camera.
“Too bad we gotta wait so long to see ‘em,” She says as she heads back towards him. “It’d be nice to—”
“Stop moving”
He’s more blunt than she is, already lifting his camera and peeking through the small lens. (y/n) gets the hint and retraces her steps to fit properly in the frame.
“Better?” She asks, tossing her hair over her shoulder dramatically before posing with a bright smile.
Megumi snaps the photo without warning, although he’s sure that this one will turn out much better than the one she’d taken of him. For one, she’s smiling, but he’s also certain that she’s much more photogenic than he is.
She’s at his side again as they wander around the patch, fiddling to fit the camera into the pocket of her coat. It takes him a few minutes to find his courage again, but eventually Megumi clears his throat and tries to spark conversation.
“Gojo used to take a million pictures of me and Tsumiki”
That seems to be exactly the right thing to say, because (y/n’s) entire demeanor lights up as she looks up at him with wide eyes.
“Really?” She laughs softly at the mental picture. “Did he keep, like, photo albums and stuff?”
“Oh yeah,” Megumi snorted, recalling the rows of photo books on the living room bookshelf when he was young. “Dozens, at least. It was like he couldn’t commit a thing to memory, always had to document everything”
When he was young, it was obnoxious to always have a camera shoved in his face. Now though, he wonders if the crazy bastard still had those albums.
“That’s sweet,” (y/n) muses, wandering off a bit to check out a display of gourds, all varying in shapes and colors. “I bet there’s tons of embarrassing ones of you, too” She teases.
Megumi doesn’t give her an answer, instead silently watching as she picks up a large green vegetable with a curly top. She holds the long end in her hand, before turning to face Megumi with the plump end out, holding it like it was a very deformed gun.
He rolls his eyes at the joke, but just as she looks away, he snaps a photo.
(y/n) seems to not even notice, setting the gourd back on the display and turning back to Megumi to continue their conversation.
“Was he a scrapbook mom?”
He chuckles, and he wants to deny it, but he can’t. Even if he tried he thinks she’d see through it with how he smiles with all of his teeth. She’s laughing before he even explains.
“He made one scrapbook, ever,” He tells her. “And you have to swear to never tell them this,” He adds quickly. (y/n) doesn’t have to ask to know who he means, and she simply drags her thumb and forefinger over her lips as if to zip them up. “It took him weeks. I think the kitchen table was covered in all of his crafts for a solid month”
“You’re kidding!” She laughs louder, loving the image of her mentor hunched over a table while he glued down photos and ribbon to pretty sheets of paper.
“I wish I was. I think it’s why he only ever made one,” Megumi shrugged. “But it’s… a lot. Every sheet was three dimensional. The spine of the scrapbook was stretched so wide the thing couldn’t even sit flat”
He knows that all of the pictures in that book would be embarrassing now. Gojo liked to document every first— first day of school, first science project, first A+, along with more ridiculous milestones, like when Megumi chopped all of his hair off in the fifth grade and looked ridiculous. If he remembered correctly, Gojo glued that hair in the book too, as if it were his baby hairs. That scrapbook really should be burned, but a part of him wishes he could show her now, just to prove how messy it really is.
“I’d do anything to get my hands on it,” (y/n) sighed, almost as if she could read his mind. “My parents did some stuff like that, but they certainly weren’t obsessive”
“Obsession is all he knows” Megumi mumbles, and he doesn’t mean to be funny, but she laughs, and it makes his chest feel warm.
“I still think it’s sweet,” She assures him, and then she stops in their slow and aimless walk, kneeling down to tie the shoelaces on her boot. Megumi waits beside her. He cared much more for her company than he did seeing the pumpkin patch. “He probably just wanted to save lots of memories of you guys when you were little. All parents say it goes by fast”
She goes to tie the other boot, and Megumi can only stand there in soft surprise. Sure, deep down he always considered Gojo his parent, because he simply just was. But no one else referred to their relationship that way, the others always called him teacher or mentor. But (y/n) must’ve understood that it was more than that.
He’s pulling his camera out again and stealing another quick picture while she was still focused on her shoes.
When she stands, he’s got the camera tucked back into his pocket and an innocent look on his face.
“Want to take a picture over there?” She asks, pointing to the tower of hay bales set up mostly for photos. Originally it was for children to climb and play on, but it’s purpose was far more often served as a posing station.
Megumi simply nods, and follows her as she races over the tower. It shouldn’t have surprised him when she started climbing the thing right away. Surely Nobara had been over here earlier, striking a pose with one hand on her hip and the other on the stack of hay, but not (y/n), who was almost to the top.
“You’re not gonna fall, right?” Megumi asks unsurely as she’s grabbing at the highest bale.
“I’m a trained athlete!” She shrieks back, clearly offended.
“I’m more worried about you destroying the play area” Megumi retorted, his lip curling upwards against his will. He can’t help but take a picture before she’s settled. Her hair’s a mess and her limbs are everywhere as she tries to steady herself on the wobbling tower, but it’s a perfect picture nonetheless.
“This is great!” She shouts back at him, before stretching her hands above her head. “Take my photo like this!”
It’s silly, it’s childish, but Megumi’s laughing to himself as he snaps a couple.
Somehow she manages to climb down without toppling the entire thing, and they quickly make their way across the pumpkin patch before an employee could scold them for being grown adults playing on the children’s setup.
Megumi finds it easier to talk with her the longer they walk around, aimlessly eyeing pumpkins without committing to picking any out, taking photos here and there, but mostly they just wander around and talk. Yuji and Nobara seem so wrapped up in the full on photoshoot they were having with each other that it could seem like they’d completely forgotten the other pair, but Megumi didn’t mind one bit.
Hang outs never turned out like this. Nobara tended to cling to (y/n) like a lifeline. She was always dragging her off to the next boutique on the strip or game in the arcade or exhibit at the museum— wherever they went, it seemed as soon as Megumi would get a minute of alone time with her, Nobara would steal her away. It was deflating, but he couldn’t be mad, they were best friends after all.
Today was like a gloomy day miracle. He almost felt spoiled having the last half hour with her all to himself. All of her laughter and smiles were only for him. It warmed up his chilled hands until soon, even the breeze wouldn’t make him shiver.
(y/n) didn’t appear to have the same effect, shaking like a leaf every time the wind picked up. She always shrank into the collar of her coat and shoved her hands into her pockets, and after a few times, Megumi couldn’t stand to see her freezing.
“Let’s go inside for a bit,” He nodded his head towards the small shop. (y/n) pouted back at him, before glancing around the pumpkin patch, clearly looking for their friends. “They won’t be upset that we went inside because we’re cold,” Megumi chuckles to himself, before gently pushing his hand against the small of her back so that he’d follow her. “I’ll text Itadori” He adds for good measure.
After a moment of hesitation she agreed and walked along with him, but just slow enough that he left his hand on her lower back. Just because it was nice to be so close to him.
Stepping into the shop was an instant rush of fresh warm air, and she finally felt like she could stretch her fingers. There was a small bakery inside with only a couple of tables, but without anyone else inside it was perfectly quaint to warm up in.
“I’m going to order a hot chocolate, do you want anything?”
The offer was sweet, but she’s already making her way to the counter, set on a mission as soon as the alluring smell of apples and cinnamon wafted past her nose.
“I could go for a coffee” Megumi hummed as he followed.
He’s ordering for the both of them as soon as a clerk arrives behind the counter, two drinks along with the enormous bear claw in the glass case that (y/n) hadn’t torn her eyes away from since stepping up to the counter. She tries to fight him when he pulls out his wallet but he’s faster at tapping his card to the reader than she is at hitting him.
Even once they sit down with their drinks and the pastry that takes up most of the table space between them, she argues with him about the payment, and all he can do is shake his head— and maybe smile to himself just a little bit. After realizing arguing is futile, she decides that as long as he eats some of the bear claw, she can forgive him.
And they continue to chat, about dumb things, about nothing, about everything. Megumi learns all about the book series that she is reading, along with her plans for getting promoted faster, and that her dream pet is a sugar glider.
“That’s ridiculous,” He mumbles through a mouthful of almond paste and cinnamon. “When would you ever have the time to take care of something like that?”
“That’s why it’s a dream pet, dummy,” (y/n) rolls her eyes at him. “Doesn’t have to be realistic. Don’t you have a dream pet?”
“I kinda already have a lot of pets”
“Oh, right,” She laughs to herself, and he thinks he can see a hint of a blush dusting over her cheeks. Was she embarrassed? He wasn’t sure exactly. But it was really cute. “Well if there’s ever a sugar glider shikigami, please summon it for me” She tells him in all seriousness, and Megumi bites his tongue as he agrees to the condition immediately.
He pulls out his camera for the tenth time that day and rests his elbows on the table as he brings it to his face. (y/n’s) eyes widen before she’s covering half her face with one hand.
“Are you taking a picture of me right now?” She hisses anxiously, before shaking her head at him.
“Duh” He mutters out as he tilts forward and back, trying to find just the right angle of lighting.
“I’m eating—”
“So? Not like you have food on your face. Hush. Go back to eating or something”
“I am not letting you take a picture of me while I eat”
“Alright then just sit there then”
She’s grabbing her paper cup of hot cocoa to use as a shield, but it’s too late. Megumi clicks the button and she can hear the soft whirring coming from inside the camera.
The lens cuts to black and Megumi pulls the camera away, eyeing the little roll of numbers next to the lens.
“I’m out already,” He says, tossing it onto the table. “Guess I win”
(y/n) laughs to herself.
“I didn’t know this was a competition,” She takes a sip of her warm beverage before setting it back down. “But I can’t believe you finished before me”
“How many do you have left?”
Curiously, (y/n) pulls the camera out of her pocket and eyes the tape with the amount of film left. She frowns as she looks back up at him.
“Just one,” She answers, and her frown tilts into a small, soft smile before she asks, “Do you want to take one together?”
___
Greedily, Nobara snatches the stack of freshly printed photos out of Megumi’s hands. (y/n) and Yuji are too busy sharing theirs with each other, and Nobara had been dying to know what photos Megumi and (y/n) had taken on their last outing. By the time the group had met up and gone home, their cameras were already full, and she knew she hadn’t been the subject of a single one of them.
“I swear Fushiguro if these are all dumb pictures of pumpkins, I’ll—”
But her threat falls short after sliding through the first three pictures.
The first was (y/n) on the path, just standing and smiling. It wasn’t special, there wasn’t even a pumpkin in the background, but it was cute.
The second was a picture of her crouched down and tying her shoe. Her face wasn’t even in the picture, her hair was hanging in front of it, but if you squinted you could barely make out the tip of her nose.
Then the third was another candid, where she was pretending to hold a gourd like a gun.
“What the—?”
Nobara flips through to the next one in the stack, and yet again there’s a candid of her climbing up the side of a hay bale tower. At least that one captured her smile. She shouldn’t have been surprised to see the fifth one in the stack was also of (y/n), this time sitting on top of the haystack victoriously
“You’ve got to be kidding me, dude”
“Okay give them back—!” Megumi tries to grab the stack of pictures from Nobara before she could keep being nosey, but she deflects fast, swiveling to turn away from him and keep skipping through the photos.
He shouldn’t have let her get her hands on them to begin with, but it was too late now. If he caused too big of a scene, Yuji and (y/n) would notice. He didn’t exactly want all of his pictures on display.
So Nobara kept flipping.
One was of her lifting up the tiniest of pumpkins— definitely the runt of the whole patch. It fit in the palm of her hand but she seemed delighted by it.
The next few were just of her walking around, nothing too exciting in the frame. Just the occasional pumpkin in the background.
There was a decent one taken from inside the shop. (y/n) was still in the frame but her back was turned as she eyed the glass case of sweets. Nobara could almost let Megumi off the hook for that one. Almost.
And then the last photo was of her laughing, the blurry image of a paper cup waving in the space beside her face. Her eyes are on the camera, so she must’ve known he was taking that picture, but judging by the surprise in her expression, it was easy to conclude she was trying to hide behind that cup.
Once she’d ogled every picture, Nobara finally turned back to Megumi. Her brows twitched and furrowed, lips parted in shock, not a single word spoken as she handed the stack back to him. It’s practically shoved towards him, but he doesn’t complain, just snatches them back as fast as he can.
He wants to find a way to quickly and discreetly ask her to keep this to herself, but before he can find the words, she’s gawking at him again.
“Every single one?” Nobara asks in a mutter.
“We hung out the whole time, okay? It's not like—” Megumi tries to defend himself, but it’s no use. Nobara’s already speaking over him again.
“It’s almost pathetic, dude. Just ask her out like a normal person”
His brows almost raise to his hairline in shock. Here he thought she was about to call him out for being a creep or something. But no, her disgust only lied in his pathetic pining and lack of action. Maybe he should have assumed that already.
He doesn’t get the chance to say anything before Nobara’s marching over to Yuji and demanding to see his photos as well. Megumi’s left reeling from the whole interaction, the humiliation still lingering in his gut.
The feeling remains as (y/n) makes her way to him, her own fresh stack of photos in her hands. There’s a nervous sort of smile on her face as she glances back at Yuji and Nobara, double checking that they were out of earshot.
“They took that pretty seriously, huh?” Her voice was still low, careful not to draw the attention of their rambunctious friends. “Yuji takes great photos, don’t get me wrong. But I think she should pay him for his time”
There’s some relief in his chest when he cracks a smile, a small laugh coming out. He could only imagine the quality of Nobara and Yuji’s photos, certainly prepped for instagram.
“I bet she still puts filters over all of them” He mutters back, and (y/n) stifles a giggle behind her hand, but nods her head in agreement.
“Can we leave now or what?” Nobara calls out, already dragging Yuji by the arm to leave the store. “I want to get boba before home”
“Boba sounds good,” (y/n) agrees softly. “Let’s go”
As the red head continued to drag her friend despite him arguing that he was an adult who could walk by himself, she turned and aggressively whispered something to him. After her obvious threatening, she glances back at (y/n) and Megumi, which Yuji promptly follows her pointed glance. Suddenly after that he was upright and speed walking along with her.
(y/n) and Megumi share a baffled look as their friends so blatantly ditch them, but they don’t exactly pick up the pace to follow.
“So, did you get good photos?” Megumi asks, tucking his own away in his pocket. Foolishly, he hoped if they were out of sight she wouldn’t ask him about them.
“Oh,” (y/n) chuckles nervously, holding her stack of pictures in both hands. She tilts them towards herself so he can’t see, and Megumi raises a brow at the secrecy. “It’s kind of embarrassing, actually” She says sheepishly.
Her cheeks flood with color, and Megumi can’t help the curious grin that begins to stretch across his face.
“Embarrassing?” He repeats, sounding horrifically hopeful. (y/n) sighs, and sticks her arm out, handing him the stack. He’s quick to take them and start flipping through, eyeing her anxious demeanor in his peripheral vision.
“Yuji’s probably going to tell you anyway. But… they’re sort of all..”
His steps slow further after quickly sliding through the bunch of pictures.
The first was at the entrance of the pumpkin patch, with the cute sign with the family name painted on it, and just under it was him. He wasn’t paying attention, and quite frankly he looked rather bored standing there. She must’ve taken it while he was still pouting about having to go.
The next photo was of the sparrow poking at the rotted pumpkin, and he had to admit the way she captured it actually was sort of cute.
The third was the photo Megumi dreaded seeing. He recognized it as soon as he saw himself standing on the thin path of dirt. He grimaced as he looked closer to see just how bad it was. But to his surprise, he wasn’t scowling like he thought he’d been. He was actually smiling.
Which was odd… he certainly didn’t remember smiling for that picture. He clearly remembered being upset because he hadn’t tried to look nice for her picture at all.
He glances at (y/n) to gauge her reaction so far, but she was holding her expression at a neutral state, waiting for him to react first.
So Megumi goes back to the photos, and flips to the next one. Which was… also him. It wasn’t anything special, just him standing there, but he was smiling a little bit in that one, too.
When the following is also a candid of him with that dumb little smile, he glances over at (y/n) again, raising a brow at her in silent question.
She’s a tough one to crack, but the corner of her lips gives her away as she tries to bite back a smile. His own smile is unable to be hidden as he flips through a few more photos.
And to his shock and delight, they’re all him. Him while he was picking up that big pumpkin she dared him to, him while he was drinking his coffee and not paying attention, him just standing and doing nothing in particular, but for whatever reason, she’d used up all her film on capturing it.
His favorite is the one of the both of them. She’d given him the camera so he could stretch his arm out and snap the photo selfie style. They’re sitting at the small table, two paper cups and the enormous bear claw between them, but pushed aside as (y/n) leans across the tabletop in order to better center herself. She’s grinning from ear to ear, her chin set in one hand while the other holds up a peace sign. Megumi’s smile isn’t as wide but nevertheless it’s genuine, and anyone looking at the picture would know. It’s a great picture of the two of them, and he thinks it’s probably the first, too.
Megumi hadn’t realized he’d gone through the whole stack till he flips to the next one and is met with the first photo, but once he does, (y/n’s) quick to reach out and take them back. She doesn’t snatch them as aggressively as Nobara had, she handles them gently, careful not to leave an ugly smudge or crease.
Megumi watches with eager intrigue as she tucks the edges together neatly, making the stack smooth in her hands.
“Sorry if that’s creepy— is that creepy?” She turns to him suddenly, full of worry that she’d crossed a line, but Megumi just chuckles, and shakes his head at her.
“Not creepy” He muses, his soft smile remaining as he dips his hand into his pocket, retrieving his own small collection of photos.
He stares at them for an indecisive minute, clenching and unclenching his jaw, working up the courage to make the smallest of gestures. When he does hold them out to her, he still doesn’t say a thing. His throat is too dry and hot to even try. He thinks it would be worse if his voice cracked right now.
(y/n) smiles as she tucks her pictures away in her purse with great care so that she could better look through the pictures he’d taken. His face flushes with color when she finally takes them from him. Even the small brush of the tips of her fingers against his has Megumi’s breath catching in his throat.
And he holds his breath as she eagerly slides through the stack of photos. His throat is far too constricted now to show any sign of life. He very well could pass out at any moment. He just hopes she’d leave him there in a heap on the ground.
The relief of the exhale doesn’t come until she begins to giggle. It’s soft at first, almost under her breath as she continues admiring his photos, but then it erupts into something brilliant and bubbly, as if it was coming out of her uncontrollably. As lovely as the reaction was, it didn’t do much to ease Megumi’s nerves. They began to sink their teeth into his heart and gut, and he knew that any minute now, his knees would give out.
When her laughter calms down and she finally looks up at him, the surprise is evident on his features when he sees her colored cheeks and nervous smile. She hands the stack back to him, and Megumi’s quick to tuck them into his pocket, where maybe he they’d disappear forever, or at least just from the front of their minds.
“That’s pretty cute, huh?” She asks, an aftershock of quiet laughter shaking her shoulders and crinkling the corners of her eyes. This time, Megumi can’t help the way he laughs with her, but he does duck his head bashfully.
(y/n) thinks it’s all the more cuter, how he resorts to his nervous habit of rubbing the back of his neck and looking anywhere but directly at her. She wonders if he even knows he’s doing it. With a surge of confidence, she rocks on her feet.
“Wanna ditch our friends and get lunch or something?”
He shrugs and nods, thinking anything would be better sustenance than the too-sugary drinks that Nobara had an addiction to. But the implication of the question dawns on him too late, and suddenly his eyes are widening as he realizes what she really meant.
“You mean— like, a date?”
It’s so damn cute the way his brows furrow and then raise ever so slightly, waiting without a single ounce of patience for her clarification. (y/n’s) giggling again as she nods her head, putting him out of his misery.
“Yeah, like a date,” She repeats teasingly.
Megumi nods his head again, this time faster, as if there was a time limit to her offer and he was worried he’d already wasted too much of it. Her smile brightens and there’s a small but noticeable skip in her step as they head off in a new direction together.
“Now maybe it won’t be so creepy when our friends see those pictures” She says, and Megumi can’t decipher if she’s messing with him or not. The look he gives her barely hides his panic.
“They’re gonna see them?”
“What do you think they’re talking about right now?” (y/n) retorts, knowing for a fact that Yuji and Nobara were gossiping away about the pair’s photos that consisted only of each other.
The thought makes Megumi’s face feel hot, and there’s no discretion in the way he tugs at his collar. The idea makes him nervous, his stomach flipping excessively. That said, he knew with the amount of gossip those two chatterboxes would generate, there was plenty of time to add a date to today’s agenda.
“They probably won’t even notice we’re gone”
(y/n) nods in agreement.
“They’ll be grateful to have the time for girl talk,” She teases.
With purpose, she steps closer to him so she could link her arm around his, tucking her hand into the crook of his elbow and shyly smiling up at him. Megumi returns the smile, his arm hooking a little further to keep her tucked next to him as close as he wanted. It was another chilly day outside, but he could almost forget about it with the way her closeness sparked warmth in his chest that flooded throughout his whole body. He hoped he’d get to do this for the rest of their day—
“So… where do we want to go?”
—and more days to come.
___
xoxo ~ jordie
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