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My heart, a companion of clouds,
Flies away to faraway horizons,
Towards boundless void,
In this music of the showers of Shraban.
My heart flies away on the wings of the rows of swans
In this restless light glittering now and then.
With a furious joy the storm thunders.
The ripples of the stream softly murmur
Invoking the holocaust.
The wind blows from the eastern ocean
And raises the waves in the river.
My heart runs away in its maddening flow
Towards the trembling branches of the palm forest.
— Rabindranath Tagore, "Mon Mor Megher Songi"
Muichirou grew up with clouds: huge, big fluffy ones that filled the sky. Smaller, rounder ones that formed shapes and animals and other creatures he used to laugh at and point out. Thinner ones, that stretched out from one end of infinity to another, seemingly endless lines of white thread.
Muichirou grew up with clouds; somewhere along the line, he turned into one himself.
Regaining his memories had felt like a step forwards, like returning to reality. He was more sure of who he was, where he came from and why. He was connected to the ground beneath his feet for what felt like the first time in his life: the earth was solid and safe and he felt - he felt real.
But here he is, now, falling through the darkness:
Falling, falling, falling without any end, almost like his skin is being stripped apart from his flesh, almost like his pieces are breaking away from each other despite their careful stitch works, almost like he’s crumbling to dust with every passing second.
His memories are a distant afterthought. All he remembers is metal in his mouth and the coolness of tiles behind his neck, searing heat and the demon staring straight into his eyes.
He’s still falling. Tumbling through nothingness, an endless pile of shadows that offer him no respite: he tastes something in the back of his mouth. Coppery. The darkness is taking on shapes and noises the further he falls, and he’s scared. He’s scared. He’s still falling.
And suddenly, he’s opening his eyes.
It’s not dark, anymore. He feels like his skin has been scrubbed through and through; like he’s finally pure and rid of all the blood. His clothes have changed, too: he’s wrapped in a patterned cloth he doesn’t recognise. It’s white. There’s ginkgo leaves all around him. It’s comforting, he thinks, to find something he recognises in this place.
When he looks in front of him, it’s his own eyes that he sees.
“Nii-san.”
It’s Yuichirou. It’s really Yuichirou. He hasn’t seen him in years, years . It’s Yuichirou.
“Don’t come here!” He’s crying. Why is he crying? Muichirou steps a little closer. “Go back!”
Muichirou thinks he might be crying a little himself, too.
Even as he speaks, as his brother tells him that he shouldn’t be here and he shouldn’t be dead and shouldn’t be so foolish , Muichirou finds it hard to believe that he’s really there. That he’s solid flesh and bone, standing in front of him, that he’s real.
He feels like a little kid again.
Yuichirou is still crying when Muichirou replies to him. “You were born to be happy, too, nii-san. We all were. We all were.”
He talks about his friends. He talks about Inosuke, with his boar head and his way of challenging everyone he met to a fight. He talks about Zenitsu, who seemed like nothing but a useless creep at first, but hid a much more real and warm personality. He talks about Genya, who wanted nothing more in the world than his brother’s acceptance, and he prays that he made it through the fight unscathed. He talks about Tanjirou, with his kind red eyes like their father and his way of spreading warmth wherever he went.
It’s then that he realises that he’s not going back to them. It hurts to think about it, but it’s a good kind of hurt. His friends are strong. They’ll survive, and they’ll beat Muzan. He’s sure of it. He’s sure of it.
The tears won’t stop leaving his eyes, but he rubs them away with his hand and continues talking. He doesn’t realise Yuichirouu is hugging him until he feels the warmth of his arms around him: the warmth of a brother, of being understood, of being loved.
“I just didn’t want you to die, Muichirou.”
He doesn’t know how long they both stand there, snot and tears ruining their robes, clinging onto each other for support. He feels like he could stand there forever.
After a lifetime, they pull apart. Yuichirou isn’t crying anymore, but he can still hear sniffles. He slips a small hand through Muichirou’s, and clasps it tightly. He can feel the other’s fingers trembling.
“Let’s go.” The fear in his voice from earlier has been replaced with determination. “Mom and dad are waiting for us.”
Muichirou stays quiet, content to simply follow his brother’s lead. It’s all like how it used to be.
Then he sees them: the kind red eyes he’d seen in his dreams every night, without fail. He’s crying again. The tears blur his vision, until everything is hazy except his father’s smile.
“Muichirou,” says his father, ever so gently. He bends down, wrapping him in a hug, and Muichirou sees their whole life together: pointing at clouds in the sky and learning how to chop wood and huddling around the fire in winter. His mom’s there, too, and he sees her when his father finally lets go.
“Otou-san, okaa-san… ”
His mother hugs him too, and the brightness of her cheeks and eyes only makes Muichirou cry harder. She’s so different from when he last saw her, from when she was constantly bedridden, constantly sickly - she’s so alive.
His throat is tight. Something in his body aches. “I- I…”
“I know. I know.”
They’re all there, now, all hugging each other and sniffling and smiling. Yuichirou is holding onto his hand again, and Muichirou is grateful for the support. He thinks he might explode.
His father pulls him close to his chest, rubbing circles onto his back. Muichirou blinks against his blue haori. “You did well, Muichirou. We’re so proud of you.”
The words reach the bottom of his soul, and a brief image of another pair of kind eyes flashes through his mind. He thinks about him, thinks about the fight, and sends a prayer to whoever is above to keep him safe.
“It’s time to go, now.”
And that’s when it hits him - the finality of it all. He’s never going to be able to return, to see his friends again. The ache that courses through his body at the thought threatens to overwhelm him, but Yuichirou squeezes his hand, almost like he knows what he’s thinking about.
With his brother on one side of him and his parents on the other, Muichirou realises that he was born to be infinite.