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“Hah?!”
Sanemi glared down the figure now standing before him. The man was crouched down, in his palms a wooden box. He chanced the faint scent of Anko powder wafting through the open air, the breeze sweeping the comforting aroma through the estate. He would think that Giyuu had already got the message after he had beat him up a few days prior — leave him alone. And yet here he was, grovelling at his feet like a stout servant, his head bowed and posture reverent.
“Here.” He looked up. Sanemi could’ve sworn that there was a flicker of hope shining in his eyes. “Ohagi.”
He could feel steam boiling up in his throat and trailing out of his ears like fine mist. “I know.” His hands were clenched, veins bulging and popping through his white skin. Anybody could see that he was seething , but somehow, Giyuu remained painfully oblivious.
Or, Sanemi backtracked, absolutely ignorant.
“What I’m asking is why.”
He frowned. “I thought you liked it.”
“Who told you that?”
Giyuu shrugged, his face impassive and unmoving. “I made it myself.”
“I said,” He grit his teeth. “Who the fuck told you that?”
The man thought for a while, before setting the little box to his side. Sanemi had half the mind to slap it away, but something in his heart stilled his hand. God, this man was testing his patience. “You were there. It was Tanjirou.”
Ah. Anger was beginning to grip at his lungs, each laboured breath swirling through the air in white smoke. That little shit. He wanted to strangle him, maybe run the kid through with his katana. Tanjirou had annoyed him enough: after their fistfight, it was evident that they would never get along. He had asked too many questions and dug too deep, feeling in the dark for everything that Sanemi had struggled to hide away — about his likes, about his past, about Genya. Too many things he had uncovered in the span of a few days because of his accursed sense of smell and annoying talent for discerning his emotions. Even after they were barred from seeing each other, the boy was now ridiculing him from afar. Through the fucking water pillar.
His lips were drawn into a painful smile, fist raised. “So you came here just to mock me?”
“No.” He stood up. Pebbles from the gravel floor clung to his black uniform, forming flecks of grey that dotted the fabric like little stars. “I’m here to ask you a question.”
Sanemi growled. Seriously? “I don’t care about your question.” He said, each word hissing through the air and coiling up like a snake. “Ask Iguro, or Kochou. Now kindly fuck—“
Giyuu raised a hand. “It’s about Kanae.”
Sanemi froze. His hand wavered in the air before falling to his side, limp like a withered stem, his mouth left ajar. The wind seemed to halt its sway, yellow leaves once floating through the air now falling to the ground like golden rain. A single leaf drifted into his lap, settling on his leg in a gentle touch.
Sanemi looked down at the floor.
“...Kanae?”
He hadn’t heard that name in a long time. No, not in a few years. It was an unspoken rule, a hushed promise, that her name was uttered only in the celebration of her life, the way she passed a quiet secret. All this for the sake of Shinobu, who had been beset with grief. The death of any pillar was a tragedy that few would ever mention: because it sowed doubt in their prowess, a grim reminder that no matter how hard you may train, you will always be human. In the face of demons, in their supernatural ways and insurmountable power, and in the face of the Twelve Moons, who possessed skill unmatched by even the strongest individuals of the corps, death was inevitable.
But that wasn’t all, was it? That clandestine message passed between the pillars was a painful truth. Don’t mention her to Kochou Shinobu.
And don’t mention her to Shinazugawa Sanemi.
His mouth was dry, hands balled and shaking. He rose to his feet, standing from his perch on the wooden engawa . The cypress of the veranda groaned in response.
“Get out.” He spat.
“No.” Giyuu said, staring straight at him. Sanemi couldn’t tell if his voice was wobbling and unsure, the pain in his chest too overpowering, taking over any semblance of common thought.
Giyuu was silent, his face unreadable like the surface of a still puddle, reflecting the light of the sky. “I want to know about you and her.”
He gripped his haori. “Because I made a mistake, and I want to make it right.”
Sanemi scowled, sitting back down. He looked down at his lap.
What right did he have to feel such sorrow? He wasn’t Kochou, he was never her family. He didn’t have the right to weep over her death.
So why did he feel so much pain? The guilt of his anguish weighed down on him, piercing through his skin and washing through him like a cold gust. He tried to forget her, he truly did. But her face would haunt him like a ghost: he saw her elegant hairpins dancing in the sky, in the shapes of butterflies or moths, he saw her pale violet eyes sparkling in wisteria that grew on the mountainsides, and her pale skin in the faces of geisha women wandering through the villages. Yet all these things could never amount to her real beauty, her kindness in the way she chastised him, when she said do not speak badly of Oyakata-sama, or when the warmth of her hand when she held his.
What would she say in a situation like this?
There was a pang in his heart. Who was he kidding? He already knew what her response would be. Listen to him. Maybe he has something important to say.
“...Make it quick.”
Giyuu pushed the box of ohagi towards him in silent thanks. Sanemi ignored it and looked down at his hands. They were filled with wrinkles and scars, just like the entirety of his body. It was an ugly mess of muscle and old wounds burnt into the skin, forming patterns of faces and mountains, all proof of his bloodstained past. But they’re beautiful. Kanae has said to him softly, her fingers lightly tracing every blemish. She smiled with such purity, skin pale and so unmarred by the world, that he had tried to push her away. Tell her that he wasn’t worth the time, not someone as broken as he was, a shell of a man with only one person left to fight for, one person he still loved, Genya . But she had insisted, easing herself into his life, even when he was so prideful he had rejected her offerings of ohagi and talk.
Now Giyuu had come, and he had broken down his walls with a mention of her name. It all felt so ironic, Sanemi stifled the inane urge to cry.
“I made Shinobu mad.”
“Really, now?” Sanemi grimaced. Was that all? “Seems easy for someone like you.”
“It’s because I said something about getting married.” He said bluntly. “And asked her if she was looking for someone, too.”
“What kind of idiot asks a woman about marriage?” Giyuu’s two-patterned haori was crumpled, stitches running through it like lines of ants. The afternoon sun rose high into the air like a blazing chariot, the blue sky cloudless and clear. “If you ask a loaded question, people get mad. Simple as that.”
“Maybe it was my fault.” Giyuu exhaled. His eyebrows were furrowed, his usual calm and serenity pierced by a moment of dissonance. It was like watching waves form on the oceanfront, stirring up emotions that were previously hidden under lock and key. “...But it was her reaction. She asked me if it was that selfish, asking about things, events… That some people may never live to enjoy.”
“Have you thought of these things before,” He said, motioning awkwardly. “With Kanae?”
Sanemi remembered now, a moment buried under piles of memory. Do you think that maybe, after all this, we can live a normal life? She had said one day, fingers combing through her long black hair. Kanae had invited herself to his estate, sitting on the stone steps, surrounded by the light of tall, shining tōrōs that painted her white skin in hues of soft yellows and orange. The fires crackling within the stone lanterns sent sparks through the air that soared into the throws of lady night, like little lights racing to the heavens. She had been talking to thin air, him being all but silent throughout the entirety of her one-sided conversation. Do you think that one day, we will be able to live with demons? Or maybe live in a world without them?
That would mean we’d have to kill Muzan. He had said with finality, breathing in the chill air. The cobblestone felt cold to the touch, the long, wild grass whistling as they swayed from side to side. The large boughs of emperor maples seemed to be carved from brown clay, their pink leaves resembling cherry blossom flowers. They looked as beautiful as her.
So there’s no use in spouting useless shit. He had glanced at her, watching as she stopped her movements and turned to smile at him. Until the day he falls, we shouldn’t care about anything else.
Even while he had been so uncouth, acting out like a delinquent with no other care in the world whose only purpose was to kill, she had looked at him with pity.
Every single time, he wanted to grab and scream at her to stop wasting her feelings on him — that he was done with regrets and sadness, and that he didn’t need another’s sympathy. But in each instance she had looked at him with not only pity but with respect , clinging to each word with a gentle hold, listening to his woes and worries like he was the most important person in the world.
But then what future are we working for? She said softly. What kind of world do you want to see?
He had stopped.
I don’t know.
“...I have.” Sanemi said.
Maybe that was the time he had changed his mind. Spared thought for treasuring things, things beyond the spurting blood of a demon’s carcass, or the wisp of their ashes scattered by daylight. She had leaned forward, hesitantly, and he had reached towards her with his scarred hands. They shared a moment of reprise amidst the horrors of the world: of demons, of monsters, and men. And somehow, in that single moment, he had felt complete.
“But I think the question you should be asking is why Kochou is acting this way.” His old gashes began to ache and throb like they were fresh wounds. “And why you care .”
Giyuu was silent.
Sanemi propped his head up. “Well?”
“Shinobu is kind.” He said slowly.
“Shinobu is kind . She doesn’t act like it to me, but when she’s with the girls of the Butterfly Estate, she becomes a doting mother — when she fusses about them, or worries about Kanao.”
Like Kanae. When she fluttered incessantly about him, and dressed his every wound.
“And she’s strong.” Giyuu balled his fists. “Strong and confident. When we battle, I remember Sabito: she’s agile and nimble, and capable in her own right. When we spar, I couldn’t ask for a better partner.”
Like her, when she had fought to the death: forcing the demon to duel with her til sunrise.
“She’s…” He said, looking at Sanemi. He was silent. “She’s my friend . My companion.”
Kanae.
“And...” Giyuu stopped.
Sanemi stared at him. He already knew what he was about to say.
“And?”
I love her.
Words he had longed to say to her.
Once upon a time, Sanemi had hoped and loved, left space in his heart for someone who wasn’t his last remaining family. He had wished for happiness and lost it all the same, all in a game of chance. Fate was a cruel mistress, her bony hands spinning the threads of their lives, commanding that they would meet, that they would love, and that they would die.
He had lost his mother, his siblings, his family, save for a little brother he had sworn to protect. And then, when he was ready to live again, he had lost her . Maybe it’s better to ask him not to hope. To ask him to wish for something else. Because love hurts , and Sanemi knew it better than anyone.
But that was what made it beautiful. That you can feel so much pain, but feel so much joy from the same thing. And in the end, when he was set on remembering all those times, of secret words and her love, he found that he couldn’t be happier.
He could see the cogs turning in Giyuu’s head, coming to a conclusion that Sanemi had recognised, because he had remembered feeling the same way, too. Of being afraid to lose her . Of realising that things would never be the same, that there would be things that would come to pass, things that would take them away.
Sanemi watched as Giyuu made a choice. Then and there, under the watchful gaze of chirping birds and rustling bamboo, he saw the other man find something in himself.
“I don’t want to lose her.” He said.
The white-haired man stood up, walking towards the house entrance. His hands held the canvas doors, the paper shoji crumpling slightly in his grasp.
“Then go tell her.”
Sanemi watched as Giyuu walked away from the estate, his figure melting into the shadows of the trees. As he knelt down to pick up the box of ohagi, he saw, blooming in the cracks of the gravel, wildflowers growing in hues of pink and green.