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It started slowly, like nighttime or maybe a sunrise, and was passed between them, something small and precious that seemed to carry immense weight. Hiyori felt it inside her chest, growing, expanding with every touch, darting glance, blush. Meeting Yato’s eyes felt like remembering the words to a favorite song she’d loved when she was very small.
He’d asked her once, in a very quiet voice, not to forget him, and she didn’t plan to.
She didn’t think he believed her. She could see it in his eyes, in the way his smiles became fragile, easily shattered when he thought nobody was watching. She thought she understood why; she’d left him once. Not on purpose, of course, never on purpose, but she’d left him all the same.
Her memories returned, but something between them stayed porcelain. He was still the same Yato, still jersey-clad and dorky and overly dramatic, but there was something different in the way he looked at her.
Like he was trying to memorize her, drink her in. Like every time could be the last time.
She understood the sentiment, so she returned the favor.
Hiyori memorized the slope of his shoulders. She memorized his smile, goofy and sudden and full of fire, like the sun. She memorized the miniscule shifts in the intense, impossible blue of his eyes, the way they seemed to almost glow in certain light. She memorized the way his mop of inky hair fell into his forehead, and the way he bit his lip when he was thinking, and the way he hugged that stupid bottle of five-yen coins to his chest.
The brush of his hands.
The sound of his laugh.
The way he teased Yukine.
His scent.
Their first kiss was decidedly unromantic, but she memorized that, too. It was an accident, actually, the result of them turning to look at each other too quickly. They’d been sitting close, their shoulders brushing, and Hiyori remembered the way the whole world seemed to smell like him when their lips brushed.
They were both startled, and they both jumped back. Yato stammered, his eyes searching her face, but she couldn’t look at him. Her head felt like it was on fire. When Yukine shouted for her from the other room, she shot to her feet like she’d been electrocuted and sprinted out.
The second time was marginally better. She initiated, after several days of embarrassed, awkward laughter and nervous, trembling hands. She misjudged, though, and ended up pressing her lips to his cheek, just away from the corner of his mouth.
He looked down at her, eyes wide, lips slightly parted like she’d smacked him between the eyes. She could feel her face heating up again and attempted to stumble through an apology, but then his fingers were on her chin, and his lips were pressed to hers.
Their breath mingled together, his hands on her face and hers fisted in the back of his jersey, and dear God, the day she forgot this would be the day she died. She never wanted it to stop, never wanted to have to pull away, but then something clattered to the floor and they leapt apart. Yato grinned at her, catlike, and she had to fight from grinning back.
By the third time, they’d mostly figured things out. It was late, and the sky was velvet and the air was cool, and Yato’s eyes blazed when he pulled her to him and their lips met. She memorized everything, every inch of him, the way his body felt impossibly, unbelievably warm and real against hers.
The words came next, easily – “I love you” – and Hiyori had never realized how round the syllables felt, how much they tasted like sunlight on her tongue. He smiled, surprised and elated and breathlessly handsome, and she loved him, she loved him, the ghost girl and the god.
It didn’t feel like remembering, it just felt like truth.