Chapter Text
Sanemi hates Tomioka Giyuu.
The entire foundation of the world that he's stood upon since before he put a sword in his hand has been destroyed, wiped out, and so this is the new bedrock he's chosen for himself.
Not that the other man makes it hard. He's just always there, his blank eyes and doll mouth unchanging even as the world lies shattered around them.
Perfect Giyuu. Of fucking course he made it out. Sanemi knows that he's alive because his suffering is a shared cosmic joke, but Giyuu probably expected this result. Brushed off the deaths of their comrades like they meant nothing. It wasn't like they were friends, with how Giyuu held himself apart. He was probably thinking they should have been faster, should have been better. Who had he needed to grieve, really?
Once the wreckage was cleared, the bodies burned— what few bodies there were, he thinks bitterly— Sanemi had made his way back to the estate, because where the fuck else was he going to go? For a few months, he was alone, and had managed to convince himself that Giyuu had left with the Kamado siblings permanently. But now, as Sanemi makes his way across the grounds, checking the perimeter to find anything that needed fixing, he finds Tomioka fucking Giyuu standing in the middle of the water Hashira's old courtyard.
"What the fuck are you doing here?"
Giyuu turns his head, pouting little mouth opening in a perfect "oh" shape. "Sanemi," he says, voice lofty and monotone. "I— this is my house?"
He has the gall to look confused and Sanemi grunts. "Thought you went with the little brats."
"Tanjiro and Nezuko?" Giyuu asks before shaking his head. "I couldn't impose on them. They are eager to get back to their lives."
"Unlike us?"
Giyuu ducks his head in acknowledgement, dumb ponytail swishing as he does so. "I visited Urokodaki-san for a few days but…well, everyone is trying to move on. It felt wrong to push the village's hospitality any further."
Hearig Giyuu speak in a full sentence is a novelty and it only serves to irritate him more. "Whatever. If you're gonna be here, just don't get in my way."
He pushes onward, shoulder checking Giyuu for good measure, only to feel eyes on him as he continues on.
Giyuu was quiet, but Sanemi was still a Hashira. As creepy as the attention is, he assumes that if he just ignores him, he'll go away.
Unfortunately, the other man chooses to speak up. "What are you doing?"
"Why do you care?"
"Well— this is my house. As I said."
There he was. Talking to Sanemi like he was an idiot. He whirls around to glare at him. "Do you know how to repair the broken well? Because I can leave it for you to figure out how to get your own water if it's a problem for you."
Giyuu blinks at him and Sanemi seriously wonders if the man has ever experienced a thought without someone forcing him to. "That's— kind of you, Sanemi. Thank you."
He grunts again, turning his attention back to the broken well. When it becomes obvious that the idiot is still standing there, he says, "Anything else?"
"No. I'm just— glad that you're here as well. That's all." He nods once more and heads back for the house, leaving Sanemi staring dumbfounded after him.
What the hell was this guy's angle? He'd never said more than two words in Sanemi's direction before, and when he did, it was only to make it clear that he saw him as less than the dirt on his shoe. And now all of a sudden he was seeking him out?
Clearly, he was mocking Sanemi somehow. He hasn't figured out how yet, but he was sticking around to watch Sanemi fall apart. Waiting around for proof that Sanemi was only alive for how useless he'd been during the final battle.
He sits down beside the broken well, letting his head rest against it as he watches Giyuu ascend the stairs. He reaches the top og the entrance before turning his head to glance back at Sanemi, raising a hand to wave at him, a stilted motion like he'd never had occasion to do it before.
Sanemi raises an eyebrow at him, until he finally gives up and disappears into the house.
Sanemi scoffs, staring at the space he left behind.
He hates Tomioka Giyuu.
—
Thankfully, Sanemi is able to avoid Giyuu successfully after that unfortunate meeting. The other man had always been a hermit, and it's a relief to see that some things hadn't changed. Sanemi wanders and Giyuu stays in his proverbial tower and life moves on.
Sanemi's almost been able to forget about Giyuu's presence altogether until he hears a knock on the gate one afternoon while he sits on the front steps. He grumbles as he stands, wrenching it open to glare at the blank-faced idiot before him.
"Why the hell are you knocking? It's not like there's anything for you to interrupt."
Giyuu tilts his head. "Well, it would be rude to just come in, wouldn't it?"
Sanemi rubs his eye, exhausted already. It really had been a peaceful few weeks. He steps to the side, letting Giyuu pass for some inscrutable reason. Maybe he's losing his mind. Clearly Giyuu has. "It's not like I sit at the gate waiting for visitors all day. I might not have heard you."
"But you were there today," Giyuu says.
Sanemi clenches his fist at the easy judgment. "Yeah. So what do you want?"
Giyuu shrugs and it's only then that Sanemi registers the basket he's carrying, propped against his hip to make up for his missing arm. "Pork buns. I always have too many."
Sanemi blinks. "You cook?"
He has the gall to look embarrassed, ducking his head a bit. "Not well. But it's given me something to do. Like you fixing the well."
The look Giyuu levels him with is the same as ever— infuriatingly unreadable. Is he trying to goad him into a fight?
Sanemi scoffs, looking past Giyuu at the gate. "I didn't fix it for you."
The edges of Giyuu's lips twitch upward and Sanemi knows he's never seen the bastard smile so he must be laughing at him. Sanemi's about to curse him out, only for Giyuu to say, "Well, I didn't cook these for you. But it seems we can still be useful to each other."
That draws Sanemi up short. He resents being mocked, but the idea that Tomioka of all people pities him is worse. "So this is charity then? Imagining I must be sitting here starving?"
Giyuu's lips thin out as he looks down at his basket. "No? It's- they're only extra pork buns, Sanemi."
It's the second time since they defeated Muzan that Giyuu's addressed him using his given name instead of his family name. And when had he started thinking of him as Giyuu anyway? "Since when do you call me Sanemi?"
"I— it's your name?" Giyuu says and Sanemi has never wanted to throttle someone more.
"I'm asking why you care. We did our job, we beat Kibutsuji. You don't have to pretend to give a shit about me because of guilt or duty or…whatever is holding you here."
"I didn't care about you," Giyuu says bluntly, enough that it shuts even Sanemi up. "Before. But we worked together, didn't we? We beat him together. So I thought maybe we could be friends."
It's Sanemi's turn to blink at him. That speech was more words than he thinks he's ever heard Giyuu string together since meeting him, so he realizes with mounting horror that maybe this is Giyuu being…sincere?
"Friends? You want—us—to be friends?"
Something in Giyuu's eyes shutter at the question and his mouth twists unhappily. "Is that so unbelievable?"
"You didn't want anything to do with us."
Sanemi grunts as the basket of pork buns is practically shoved at him. "If you're unwilling to believe anything else, consider them payment for fixing the broken well. Shinazugawa."
He's seen Giyuu battle angry before— gritting his teeth with the force of driving their blade in tandem through Muzan's neck— but this, the flush on his normally pale cheeks, the disapproving pout to his lips, is new. Or at least, new to him. He had never taken the time to think beyond the blank look Giyuu wore around them.
Was he— was there another reason for it? For keeping himself so separate from the other Hashira, only to lose them?
Sanemi trails after him past the gate, watching as he trudges back the way he came, empty handed and feels, for the first time, a certain understanding that he and Giyuu, for better or worse, were the only ones who knew what this— this being left behind— felt like.
And so, with a deep sigh, he calls after Giyuu. "I'm not going to be able to finish these, so you might as well come in."
Giyuu slows to a halt, turning to walk slowly back towards Sanemi, who huffs gently. "You can stop looking like a stray cat any time now."
The other man only blinks at him, seemingly incapable of following the request as he follows him into the house.
The pork buns are wrapped horribly, but they are, surprisingly, quite tasty.
—
Like a stray cat, once he's been invited in, Giyuu can't seem to keep himself away, and he becomes a fixture in Sanemi's home a few nights a week. If nothing else, it helps Sanemi keep his sense of time intact. With nothing to do all day, having Giyuu there to remind him to eat is annoyingly useful. Plus, his cooking, while not the most visually appealing, is better than anything Sanemi was going to bother to make for himself.
The downside of the other man inserting himself into Sanemi's life is that Giyuu is a horribly messy cook. He assumed the other man would have been at least apologetic about taking up so much space in someone else's home, but while Giyuu flits about like a ghost everywhere else, in the kitchen, he leaves a trail of utensils and ingredients in his wake.
Maybe he wasn't always like this. He was probably more meticulous with both arms. Giyuu had sheepishly confessed to finding some tools to help make some of the finer points easier— a curved blade instead of a knife, wooden dowels for affixing food to its place— but his dedication was one thing they had in common. Or maybe they were both just similarly determined to pretend nothing had changed.
Sanemi comes inside from where he's spent the afternoon visiting the nearby town, restocking on supplies. He doesn't enjoy being around that many people, but he knows if he sends Giyuu into town, it would be hours before he returned, and it would undoubtedly be missing something important. It's easier to just do it himself.
Iguro was the only one Sanemi ever went into town with anyway, and Giyuu's silences would only make the absence of his sarcastic remarks more apparent anyway.
He sets down the basket of food and plucks a turnip from where it's rolled onto floor, a casualty in the battle Giyuu is waging against a pot of food. "It seems the soldiers are retreating," he says in greeting, holding the vegetable up triumphantly.
Giyuu glances up at him, barely acknowledging Sanemi's jibe at his expense. "Oh. You brought more food."
His cheeks are flushed from the steam of what smells like miso soup, and his hair has fallen loose from its tie, part of his long bangs covering his face. Sanemi's hand itches to reach forward and tuck it behind his ear, a thought so laden with insanity he has to push it down almost violently.
He steps forward, laying the basket on the table with a grunt. "You make miso soup when we're running low. Figured it was good timing."
Giyuu smiles softly at that, and Sanemi has to look away. He smiles like Sanemi has told him a secret, and it makes something hot and frightening rise up in his chest.
He's distracted by a soft noise to his left and he sees Giyuu rifling through the bounty. "Salmon and daikon?"
When Sanemi braves a glance at Giyuu's face, his mouth is closed, the same set it always keeps. But his eyes are bright, wide in a way that Sanemi has learned by now means he's truly happy. It should fill him with pride, but all it serves to give him is a sinking sense of dread that where he once saw a blank mask, he's learned to read a thousand different expressions.
"You're making sure I don't starve to death for some reason," he answers gruffly. "You might as well get to make something you want for a change."
Giyuu only hums, turning back to the simmering pot he's tending. "Thank you, Sanemi."
They settle into a companionable silence as Sanemi goes to store the food he's bought for tomorrow, and the short walk manages to clear his head of his unsettling thoughts. He thinks they've managed to return to normalcy, when Giyuu speaks up again.
"You asked me to get salmon daikon with you once."
Sanemi huffs, more breath than laugh. "You remember that?"
"I remember I upset you. But I didn't know what I did."
Sanemi stares at him incredulously. "You said no! Made it clear even your favorite food couldn't make you lower yourself to eating with me."
Giyuu's brow furrows slightly. "That wasn't why." It's a subtle change, but on Giyuu it reads as genuine distress. "I had already eaten with— with Kocho."
After a beat of silence, Sanemi barks out a genuine laugh. "I wasn't offering for only one day, dumbass."
"You had never asked me before. How was I supposed to know that?"
"It's called an inference, sweetheart."
He intends for the pet name to come out mocking, but even he can hear the fondness that's crept into it, and he watches as the word washes over Giyuu, as his mouth opens again in an "oh" shape.
Sanemi is about to take it back, to say something cutting that will force them back into the stalemate from before, but Giyuu beats him to it.
"We wouldn't need inferences if people were more direct. It would save time that way."
He's being plagued again by that damn loose strand of hair, and whatever's infected his brain has apparently spread to his hand, as he moves to brush it back behind Giyuu's ear like a man possessed.
The tick of seconds pass like hours as they stare at each other, unmoving, Sanemi's hand frozen on the curve of his ear. Until Sanemi is propelled forward by some unnamed force to press a kiss to his lips.
It might not be a very good kiss— hell, it's not like Sanemi's got any experience to compare to— but Giyuu's lips are warm and pliable, and even if this is all he gets, he figures he's lived off of less than the soft sound that Giyuu makes as they pull apart.
"Was that direct?" he asks, voice rough and too loud as it echoes around the room.
Giyuu looks impassive as ever, looking to genuinely be considering the question. "Well, I believe being direct requires words, so by definition, no." The faint glimmer in his eyes is the only tell that he knows exactly what he's doing.
"You are such a bastard," Sanemi grumbles, pulling him closer by that stupid two-toned haori he still wears.
"Is that why you kissed me?"
"Yes," Sanemi says. "I kissed you because you piss me off."
"Okay," Giyuu says, "Then for the sake of being direct, I would like you to do it again."
This time Sanemi is ready for it, and it might be his second kiss but he's a fast learner, and this time, he's gonna make Giyuu break his composure.
He might not be a Hashira anymore, but he never backed down from a challenge.