Chapter Text
For a moment she's excited when she tells him. "I wanted to become a hashira so I can find a strong man I can marry!" But then the shimmer in her eyes disappears. It’s obvious she realized how different her motivation is from everyone else's. They are all fighting for revenge, for justice, to pay for their sins. In this sea of blood her dream is a cherry blossom floating atop. He watches how her smile fades and he hates it.
"That's stupid, I know. But I didn't see it before I came here."
Obanai nods. He nods ! And he wants to hit himself in the face doing so, but he has no control. Instead he watches as her smile comes back, but different: sad, disappointed, guilty .
“But I got so strong now, I could as well be of help, right?”
When he is back in his house, all dark and empty, he sinks to the floor, the door shut close behind him. Why the hell did he nod?
“No, it’s not stupid, Kanroji-san,” that’s what he should have said. “It’s a beautiful dream and it’s just as valid as everyone’s motivation, if not more. Because there’s no violence in your dream, no pain and no suffering. Only sweet, tender love. And I think that is a wonderful thing.” That’s what he should have said, but he didn’t! He just stood there, still and expressionless like the shed skin of a snake, and nodded .
“Fool,” Kaburamaru whispers, just that he doesn’t, it was Obanai himself. That doesn't make it any less true.
It’s been days since he first saw her, and then weeks. Winter bleeds into spring. Like the soft little buds on the bony trees, something grows in Obanai.
The missions are all the same. Blood, gore, screams. Pain. The kakushi clean up their mess, and time does the rest. The sky is clear and white when everything else is soaked in blood.
The missions are the same, but returning to the pillar meetings isn’t.
“You were brave out there, Iguro-san,” she praises him. Her smile bright like the sky in March.
He can’t answer, because Oyakata greets them, but he’s glad because he’s just as speechless as last time. He would have nodded silently, again, Buddha have mercy on his soul!
And as the meeting continues, he finds her eyes on him when he looks over to her. He looks over to her a lot.
That night, when he’s back in his bedroom, in his little house, cool and dark, he sits down on the blank tatami. His eyes stare into the darkness, but he doesn’t see.
Kaburamaru slides towards what’s left of the coal fire to warm up.
She’s beautiful, he realizes, way too late. She’s different. Maybe that’s why. Of all the beautiful women that have surrounded him since the day he was born, she is the first who doesn’t scare him. Her hair is not black like midnight, her skin not pale like the full moon. She’s not like Obanai. She’s… colorful.
She’s alive.
“She’s beautiful,” he speaks into the dark.
The plum blossoms bloom, then the cherry blossoms. The nights get warmer, the sky a darker blue. On her cheeks he can see golden sprinkles if he has a chance to look close enough.
“Ah, yes,” Kochou says, “Mitsuri-san has freckles. It’s so cute.”
Freckles… He nods, silent.
“It happens in the sunlight,” the butterfly pillar explains, slowly. Maybe she’s not sure if Obanai even knows what freckles are. His silent nods will get him into trouble one day.
“Freckles,” he repeats, finally, like a late echo, as he thinks about it.
He thinks about them a lot, honestly, in the days that follow. Freckles. They look like someone spilled gold flakes on her cheeks. As if her skin, soft and rosy, wasn’t colorful enough already. Someone decided to give her even more. Amaterasu herself if Kochou is right.
“How is she so beautiful?” he wonders in the dark of his room, but no one’s there to answer except Kaburamaru and he doesn’t answer ever.
The problem is that he’s not the only one who thinks Kanroji-san is special.
“A good woman!” Kyoujurou exclaims, way too loud for Obanai’s taste, but he’s always been like this. “Strong and kind-hearted.” Then he squints his eyes. “Why are you asking my opinion? Are you interested in her?”
Although Obanai shakes his head quickly, Kyoujurou hits his shoulder brotherly and way too hard.
“Don’t worry, old friend, your secret is safe with me!” His laugh his loud. Everything about him is loud, but Obanai got used to it a long time ago.
“There’s no secret,” he murmurs, still hunched over from the hand on his shoulder. It’s not like a woman like her would ever be interested in a creature like him.
“I’m not like her,” he explains to Kaburamaru late at night, when the moon has risen. “She’s beautiful, and strong, and kind-hearted. And I am…”
Graceful. That’s what she is. He realizes on a mission in late April when the nemophila flowers cover the hills in a blue as soft as the morning sky.
When she fights it’s a dance, rhythmic and sublime. It’s like she follows a melody only she can hear. Her steps are measured perfectly, every gesture eloquent and precise. It’s nothing like how he fights. The blood looks like little poppies blooming on her cheeks.
“Thank you for helping me out there, Iguro-san,” she bows before him when it’s over. “I would’ve gotten in trouble without you.” She stands upright, taller than him. “Maybe, as a thanks, I could treat you to some asari clams when we’re back? I know a very nice shop that has tasty asami soup.”
For once he doesn’t nod.
“I’m sorry,” he says, then bows himself. He really doesn’t want to decline, but how could he go eat with her when his face is half-covered in bandages? Not to mention that the mere thought of chewing meat between his teeth gives him anxiety. She doesn’t know that, of course, but he doesn’t want to see her smile fade, so he turns away and leaves for the butterfly estate to have his injuries checked.
“You left her standing there without an explanation?!” Kochou stares at him dumbfounded, a pair of tweezers in one hand, alcohol soaked muslin in the other. “That’s so rude, Iguro!”
“I know!” he complains. “But what were I supposed to tell her? That eating anything but steamed vegetables and white rice makes me panic because it triggers my childhood trauma? That I can’t take off the bandages when anyone’s around because I look like a monster underneath?”
Kochou lets her shoulders hang in defeat. “You don’t look like a monster, Iguro, how many times have I told you?”
“Enough to annoy the hell out of me,” he answers. The “but not enough to make me believe it” is implied.
“Still,” she says after a moment and continues pulling bone splinters out of the cut on his upper arm. “You need to treat girls better, even after what you’ve been through. She’s not like them.” The alcohol burns on his wound, but he’s so used to it by now he doesn’t even flinch. “No one’s like them.”
Of course Obanai knows she’s right. No family in the world is as cruel as his family was. No woman in the world would make her own flesh and blood make go through what he had to endure. He knows she’s better than that, better than anyone maybe. He should not have treated her like that.
But as he sits on his engawa , watching the stars glittering like her eyes when she spoke of those stupid clamshells, he knows that he’s way too broken to treat her like she deserves.
“I’m not good enough,” he confesses to Kaburamaru in his lap. “Not for anyone. And especially not for her.”
He doesn’t see her during the rainy season. Not during tanabata or bon odori. The summer is hotter than ever and it takes its toll on Oyakata-sama.
The next full pillar meeting is in late summer, during a stormy day.
She doesn’t look his way.
So he writes to her.
Is this the quiet
After the bloody beheading
High in the sky?
The sun has fallen, what’s left
Is pale purple violet.
Late at night, when not even Kaburamaru listens, that’s what comes to his mind.
He never has the letter delivered to her.