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Sanemi is like the wind. He appears all of a sudden and blows and blows, slaughtering demons as though possessed. Those that watch him say that he looks it, his dark eyes wide and crazed, teeth bared like fangs. The wind howls, and Sanemi rages, and at some point he blows himself out.
His life has been hard, he confesses to her. Not in the infirmary, where they so often seem to meet, but at the training grounds where Kanae has come to scold him for training too soon after the injury that slashed his face and nearly took his eye. His life has been hard. Like many in the Corps he is an orphan, and before that he was the oldest son of an abusive man. He confesses he doesn’t know what it means to rest peacefully as Kanae wishes he would. He suffers from nightmares, he tells her, sees himself killing his demon mother over and over among the corpses of his siblings.
Kanae has never seen Sanemi like this but she understands. They all do. They in the Corps have all lost someone, all know what it is to have the ones they love violently ripped from their arms. To watch their lives gutted out like so many fragile candle flames.
She tells him to come to the Butterfly Estate when he has trouble sleeping. Gives him an easy smile and a soft squeeze on the arm and tells him that she has nightmares, too, and perhaps some tea will help. And if it does not, at least they won’t be alone stewing in their grief.
It only takes four days for Sanemi to accept her offer.
*
Sanemi is like the wind. He is harsh and quick, tearing with his green nichirin sword at clothes and flesh alike. His tsuguko pretend they are dead when they hear his angry stomping, for an angry Sanemi is more dangerous than the wind of a typhoon. He is the only hashira of whom the lower ranks are openly afraid.
But to Kanae he is kind, and in the same way her sister Shinobu is kind. It makes her laugh when she realizes. Shinobu will often snap and yell and scowl and yet she is fierce and protective, and Sanemi is the same. He’s easy for Kanae to read because like Shinobu, his brusque, cold demeanor is merely a mask. A wall he’s built to protect himself from the horrors of the world that no one should be forced to see. Kanae sees that and understands it, and knows that when he’s yelling it’s not actually at anyone in particular but the world at large.
He shows up in the middle of the night often, unable to sleep for the nightmares. He doesn’t talk about them, and Kanae doesn’t ask. If he wanted her to know he would tell her. Instead they pass the time drinking hot, soothing tea. Kanae teaches Sanemi how to play Go in the wee hours of the morning, and it turns out he’s a natural. He asks her about the various plants and gardens of the Butterfly Estate, the laboratory where she and Shinobu mix medicines. He cooks her ohagi as thanks for the tea and this, too, becomes part of their routine. Sanemi is an excellent cook.
Kanae watches from her window in the morning as Sanemi leaves and pretends not to notice her sister smirking in the doorway. Shinobu has the wrong idea, of course. Sanemi isn’t like that to Kanae. They’ve merely found kinship in shared experiences and enjoyment in each other’s company. Shinobu remarks that no one enjoys Sanemi’s company so much as Kanae.
Kanae throws a pillow at her.
*
Sanemi is like the wind, for he is always present even when he is not. He’s there on the grounds in the way his tsuguko train with his Breath of Wind, and he’s there in the watchful eyes of his close friend Iguro Obanai, not yet a hashira but so very close. Kanae knows Obanai well, for she’s treated him nearly as often as Sanemi.
A month after his injury Kanae sends her crow off with a message. She has just learned that against her medical advice Sanemi has returned to the field and she is livid, and her crow, Kirara, furious on her behalf. This is the first letter they exchange, a beratement for Sanemi’s foolish decisions. If he cuts his face open again he’ll be more scar than skin and Kanae will refuse to stitch him together again. (This is a lie, of course.) Sorai returns with Sanemi’s reply, equally agitated at having to sit on his ass at the Wind Estate doing nothing while others sacrifice their lives. Kanae sees it for what it is, understands that Sanemi needs to feel useful and needs to do something. If his time in the infirmary has taught her nothing else, it’s that Shinazugawa Sanemi needs to always be moving. Always be hunting demons.
Their next exchange comes when it’s Kanae out this time, tracking a demon rumored to devour swathes of humans at one time. She doesn’t find it but Sanemi’s letter finds her. Complains that Shinobu is too mean to run the infirmary by herself and threatened to strap him to the bed if he didn’t cooperate. Through his bellyaching Kanae understands the message beneath: Sanemi is asking her when she’s coming back.
For some reason it makes her breath catch.
*
Sanemi is like the summer breeze as it ruffles Kanae’s long, inky hair. His fingers are calloused and rough but his touch is gentle, gentler than one would believe a man like Sanemi to be. He cups her cheek tenderly as though she’s made of glass, stroking the pad of his thumb over her skin. Like a warm summer breeze, Sanemi is blushing, and it surprises Kanae how awkward he can be. How, deep down, this may be who he really is, who he was supposed to grow into. Someone shy and quiet with women, who blushes at heartfelt compliments both given and received. It makes Kanae giggle and Sanemi drops his hand.
He doesn’t want her to laugh at him, mistakes it as taunting. His eyebrows knit together and before his mouth can twist itself into a frown Kanae explains that she’s not laughing at him. Never laughing at him. Explains that she thinks he’s being cute and that she’s quite nervous, herself. There are butterflies larger than her hairpins fluttering about in her stomach, and Sanemi gulps. His mouth untwists. Kanae’s always thought he has quite a nice mouth.
With his tsuguko Sanemi is ruthless and tough, deriding them and their abilities. Constantly pushing for them to do better. Be better. But with Kanae he is gentle and kind. When his nightmares bring him to the Butterfly Estate at night he brings fresh ohagi and apologizes for his intrusion, and in the mornings he cooks her breakfast. This time when he leaves it’s with flaming cheeks and a soft, chaste kiss. Kanae’s cheeks heat and then Sanemi is gone, back to his duties as the Wind Hashira and striking fear into tsuguko and demons alike. Kanae's heart pounds, too.
*
Sanemi is reliable as the wind as it blows through the trees, scattering flower petals and seeds and washing not pinned right. He is present for every hashira meeting, knows every detail of his territory. He scuffles with Iguro, who looks at Kanae now as though he knows more than he should, and spars with Tomioka over imagined slights. He can be counted on to walk Kanae back to the Butterfly Estate no matter from where, and if anyone notices, they fear him too much to ask.
With others he is impatient, short-tempered, angry. Sanemi admits that these are faults, and that with Kanae he will always listen no matter how dull or stupid the subject. Kanae laughs and decides to teach him about the husbandry of flowers, which Sanemi does not understand nor especially wish to, and in the time it takes to walk from the Butterfly Estate’s gate to its front door he’s had enough. He can’t, he says, it’s too much, and Kanae laughs again. Their fingers brush together as he turns to say goodbye.
*
Kanae is like a flower, Sanemi thinks. Beautiful but deadly like those in the gated garden guarded by a kakushi. Like a flower in the way she belongs in the sun, the way she brings smiles to people’s faces. Everyone is always happy to see Kanae, and Sanemi is no exception.
Kanae is more than just some pretty thing. If she were really a flower she would be wisteria with its demon-repelling properties. Belladonna with its fatal poison. Rose with its many uses in cooking and cosmetics. Lavender with its calming properties. Yes. Kanae is like the purple lavender she hangs in the Butterfly Estate, a haven for those who have been lost and hurt and abused. For those who just need a safe place for a time until the world doesn’t wail so loud. Kanae is Sanemi’s safe place.
But Sanemi doesn’t know how to express himself, didn’t grow up in a home of love and kindness. Raised himself and his siblings, too, and got in fights with his abusive father for defending his mother. Sanemi is afraid that he’ll crush the precious flower that is Kanae with his too strong and calloused hands. Growing up as he did taught him that he would never raise a hand to a woman and yet he does every day, but do demons really count? Though they pin back their hair and paint their faces, possess womanly bodies, are they truly women if they are demons? Sanemi doesn’t know. He doesn’t know and he cuts them down and the strength and the fury he shows them makes him afraid that he will hurt Kanae, too.
You could never hurt me, Kanae assures him, and she’s right. Sanemi reins in his temper and his anger at the world, and his touch does not hurt her.
*
Kanae is like a flower. She is beautiful, and she bears her own thorns, and like the pretty purple wisteria she can be fatal to demons. But Kanae is human and humans, like flowers, are fragile. Breakable. Mortal.
Kanae doesn’t reply to Sanemi’s letter. She’s tracking a demon with her sister, rumored to be a Twelve Kizuki. Sanemi doesn’t worry because staying alive in the face of such an antagonist is more important than writing a letter. Kanae will come back, maybe blood splattered and maybe injured, and after she reports to Oyakata-sama she and Sanemi will share tea and ohagi and forget for a few hours that they live in a world where demons exist.
The kakushi bring back a body, the juniors say. The kakushi are always bringing back bodies, when they can, and Sanemi doesn’t listen. He howls at his tsuguko to get back to training, and at the other juniors to leave his estate before he murders them. The wind rages through practice, until a familiar crow flies over the field. Dainty as her mistress with razor-sharp claws, Kirara calls for Sanemi. The color drains from the world.
*
Sanemi is like the wind. Fierce and angry and enduring. Kanae was like a flower. Beautiful. Breakable. Mortal.