Work Text:
Kamado Sumihiko is born in summer, on a particularly warm day, a year after his older brother, with hair and eyes so red it seems unatural.
When his mother holds him for the first time, exhausted and sweaty, she looks at him and cries. The nurses blame it on joy and fatigue.
(She whispers, so low that no one hears her.)
(Sun Child.)
Sumihiko is a quiet child. Not as quiet as Kanata, but still discreet. He is however very energetic, so much that it almost worries his mother.
One day, when he starts running around the house and doesn't stop even after an hour of non-stop running, she asks him, desperated.
“Aren't you tired?”
The child only laughs, and only his brother's promise to play with him manages to calm him and keeps him in place. His mother laughs too, and looks at her youngest son's face, so similar yet different than the one in this precious picture, and wonders.
His mother meets a long lost cousin, and it feels like fate. And so the Kamados meet the Agatsumas.
Touko and Kanata get along well. A crush maybe, one that will fade with time. The two children laugh and talk, and leave theirs younger brothers behind.
Agatsuma Yoshiteru clenches the old book against him and smiles. It's the start of a beautiful friendship.
When Sumihiko is nine, his mother takes a look at his red hair and red eyes and gives him a soft smile.
She leads him in the garden and shows him. Sumihiko watches her dance, and feels like his chest is burning.
We dance for the Hinokami. She whispers, smile happy and sad in a strange way. And Sumihiko may be a child, may only be nine, but he looks at his mother's identical eyes and nods solemnly.
The day after, he's the one dancing.
(Let's make things clear.)
(Kamado Sumihiko doesn't dream. He doesn't have memories of a past life, he never fought demons or held a sword or anything like that. He didn't win a centuries-old war. He never will.)
(Kamado Sumihiko isn't Kamado Tanjirou.)
(That's not a problem.)
(He still dances for the Hinokami.)
Once he is thirteen, he dances at least once a week, sometimes during all night. It makes him sleepy, and Kanata calls him lazy. Sumihiko laughs, sheepish, but doesn't stop.
Kamado Sumihiko dances for the Hinokami, like his ancestors before him.
(Sometimes, when he's almost too tired to continue and when his lungs hurt, he hears a voice whispering, as if guiding him.)
(Breathe.)
Yoshiteru is curious about the pictures and the sword. Sumihiko doesn't tell him about the dance, not because he doesn't want to, but because he doesn't see the link between them.
It's far later, when he'll see for the first time his cousin with a sword and moving in a way different yet familiar, that he will understand.
Rengoku Toujurou is his friend. He doesn't see anything special about it. Toujurou is a nice guy, after all, even if he seems too obsessed by kendou.
But Sumihiko thinks of the feeling of the wind against his arms, of the burning in his lungs when dancing, and doesn't tease him about it.
Kanata confronts him once, worried about his habit of staying awake late to dance.
“I do it for the Hinokami.” he says, and half-expects to be scolded.
His brother doesn't laugh or mock him. He frowns and asks him to slow down, because he worries their mother, and really, that can't be healthy.
Kanata is here this night when he dances. He's holding a butterfly hair clip.
Yoshiteru comes late at night once, looking incredibly tired. His eyes are fixed on the picture.
Sumihiko hugs him and doesn't ask.
His cousin isn't at school the following day.
“Hey Sumihiko.”
He holds the phone and rubs his eyes, yawning.
“Hi Yoshiteru! You're already awake?”
It's a common greeting between them, but his cousin doesn't immediately answer. Sumihiko frowns.
“Yoshiteru? Are you okay?”
A silence.
“I was wondering if you guys could come visit someone with me. His name is Yamamoto Yushiro.”