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The first sign he gets that something is wrong is the smell.
Akaza can’t pretend he hadn’t known Kyoujurou would be carrying out a mission here, but he’d expected to find him steadfast, impossibly bright like he always is. The Kyoujurou he finds on the crest of a hill stumbles, shoulders hunched like he wants to curl in on himself.
He’s far enough away that he’s just a silhouette. With his back turned, he can’t have noticed Akaza’s presence yet— and it’s probably the only reason why he allows himself to lean on his sword, swaying dangerously to one side.
Kyoujurou’s form falls.
Akaza tells himself it’s curiosity that pushes him forward. Anything that can make a Hashira crumple like that must be… interesting, Akaza thinks firmly, ignoring the way he’s clenching his jaw so hard it aches.
Kyoujurou tenses when he realizes he’s not alone, a hand shooting to his sword, but he relaxes again when he sees Akaza clearing the hill.
“Blood art,” Kyoujurou tells him as soon as he’s within earshot. He can smell it clearly now— the sour, acrid scent beneath the ash.
“Is it…“ Bad, he was going to ask, but Akaza sees the blood seeping between Kyoujurou’s fingers and skips that question for the next one. “What the hell happened?”
“Strange– fight,” Kyoujurou says, then coughs, wet and rattly, as Akaza looks around for anything that might contain first aid materials. He doesn’t seem to have brought his pack with him. “I had to tell the demon everything I was going to do, everything I was thinking, I couldn’t stop, and it kept evading every attack, knowing what would come next, and I think it’s still—“
“Kyoujurou,” Akaza interrupts, and Kyoujurou’s mouth snaps shut. “Shut up.”
Akaza eases Kyoujurou’s hand from his bleeding abdomen and replaces it with his own, applying more pressure. He doesn’t know whether to worry or not; it’s been, quite literally, a lifetime since Akaza has had to think about how much blood loss is too much. But this is Kyoujurou. Surely he wouldn’t die from something so… frivolous.
Unworthy, Akaza thinks, feeling a twist of annoyance at the scent of the other demon still on Kyoujurou’s skin. It cuts through the iron tang of blood even as Kyoujurou wipes his red palm on his uniform.
“I think it’s still happening,” Kyoujurou says, looking the closest to sheepish that Akaza’s ever seen him. “The Blood Art, it’s making me… say things.”
“…Say things,” Akaza repeats.
“Yes.”
There’s a pause as Akaza considers the wide-eyed look Kyoujurou gives him.
“Relax,” he mumbles. It shouldn’t be this easy to make the decision. It shouldn’t even be a decision, but– “I’m not going to pry into your secrets.”
“I–“ Kyoujurou starts, then stops. “You’re not?”
“Where’s your gauze?” Akaza asks, itching to get past this part of the conversation.
“…In my pocket.”
Akaza doesn’t bother asking which side and just picks one, feeling his fingers close around a roll of rough fabric a moment later. Kyoujurou watches as he rips a length of it.
“I may still tell you,” Kyoujurou says, voice stable but the tense line of his mouth betraying how he really feels about it. “It… it’s making me want to.”
“Upper Moon Three,” Akaza reminds him.
“Upper Moon Three,” Kyoujurou agrees, sounding distant.
There’s nothing around that Akaza can use to clean the wound, so he presses the gauze down as neatly as he can, feeling Kyoujurou’s ribcage expand around a breath under his palm. Red spots through and Akaza adds another fold.
Kyoujurou’s body heat meets Akaza’s hands a moment later, even through the extra barrier. Akaza takes in a slow, steadying breath. He’s spent enough time in Kyoujurou’s personal space to know how to hide the way his senses sharpen whenever he gets too close; he folds away the urge to seek out more of that warmth, to find out just how feverish Kyoujurou can get, and keeps his eyes on his own hands.
It’s easy to lean into the clinical feeling of it. Just him and the blood the goal to slow it down. But Kyoujurou still looks troubled in his periphery, and after another beat, Kyoujurou’s silence is loud enough to make Akaza sigh and risk a glance at him.
“You’re really that scared I’ll interrogate all the secrets of the Demon Slayer Corps out of you?”
Kyoujurou’s bottom lip reappears from under his teeth, red and worried. Akaza pulls his gaze away again.
“I trust you,” Kyoujurou says, then looks affronted about it. He screws his eyes shut. “I do not trust myself.”
Well. Akaza can dwell on that later.
He considers taking him to the village for care, but he doubts Kyoujurou would want anyone seeing him like this, unsteady when he’s supposed to be their protector.
“Even now,” Kyoujurou says quietly. Hearing him speak without his usual booming confidence throws Akaza slightly off-kilter. “It is a great effort to keep from telling you… everything. Anything.”
Akaza shoots him a sideways grin. “Maybe I’m just that charming.” Kyoujurou’s expression flattens, unamused, but he doesn’t open his mouth to argue. “Either way,” Akaza adds, “you’re stuck here until you stop bleeding everywhere. Aren’t you Hashira all about Total Concentration? Just meditate or something.”
He gets an eyebrow furrow in response.
Of course, Kyoujurou wouldn’t have to worry about bleeding at all if he’d just accept the offer to become a demon, but Akaza isn’t in the mood for that conversation tonight. If Kyoujurou can go on for hours about honour and strength and the beauty of mortality without the help of a Blood Art, he doesn’t want to know what he’d have to sit through if he brought it up now.
Kyoujurou stays quiet for long enough that Akaza thinks the worst might be over. Underneath the sounds of crickets and evening breeze Akaza can hear the rhythmic in-and-out of Kyoujurou’s breathing– he probably is meditating, the stickler– and he turns his attention back to the wound, gingerly lifting the gauze to check the blood flow.
It isn’t as bad as it had initially looked. Akaza reaches for the roll again, grateful that the movement keeps his relief from showing, and tears a new length of it. All that’s left is to bind the wound and–
“I am in so much pain,” Kyoujurou announces, then slaps a hand over his mouth. Akaza’s hands falter without his permission. “Ignore that,” Kyoujurou adds hastily. “Don’t listen to that, it’s…“
Fine, he doesn’t say, because it would be a lie. Akaza’s stomach tightens.
His job here isn’t to soothe Kyoujurou through the waves of the Blood Art. He knows that. But Kyoujurou is so tense that he seems to have directed his concentration to keeping quiet instead of slowing his own bleeding, and this isn’t going to work if all Akaza has is a flimsy roll of gauze.
“Kyoujurou,” he says, doubling the pressure on the wound, “you will not die just because you’re too proud to admit to feeling pain.”
“Not– pride,” Kyoujurou gasps. His hair has started to stick to his forehead.
”Kyoujurou.” A surge of blood dampens the fabric under Akaza’s hands. “Fucking breathe and slow the bleeding.”
Kyoujurou closes his eyes and breathes slow, keeping his lips curled between his teeth. The exhale comes out as a shudder.
“I cannot do both,” Kyoujurou says. His voice sounds rough, scraped raw. “It will make me… talk.”
At least you’ll be alive to do it, you stubborn idiot. Akaza suppresses a huff of annoyance.
“Do you know any other languages?”
“No.”
“Should I punch you in the mouth?”
“You could–“ Kyoujurou starts, then stops, ears pink.
That’s interesting. Akaza raises an eyebrow.
“I could what,” Akaza says.
“Nothing.” Kyoujurou breathes again. “I can. Handle it.”
“Gag you? Is that what you were going to say?”
”No,” Kyoujurou says, looking scandalized.
“It’s not a bad idea.”
“Just– bind the wound,” Kyoujurou sputters.
Akaza bites back a grin. At least riling him up is as easy as ever.
A simple solution would involve stuffing gauze into Akaza’s ears, but they’re still close to the road and at least one of them has to stay alert for random passers-by that may stumble upon Akaza’s red hands and Kyoujurou’s mess of a wound and go running to town screaming bloody murder. Just thinking about it makes Akaza want to groan. He hopes no one’s out for a stroll tonight.
He’ll need to use the entire roll to bind the wound properly, but the bleeding has at least slowed again. Akaza is distantly aware of Kyoujurou murmuring to himself, describing the treeline and the stars above it, likely in an attempt to keep the more dangerous truths at bay. It could almost be calming– but Kyoujurou’s admission that this is hurting him is harder to brush off than it should be. Akaza finds himself hesitating where he normally wouldn’t, as if each pause is a warning for Kyoujurou to brace himself.
Ridiculous. Kyoujurou’s a Pillar, for fuck’s sake.
“You don’t have to be careful!” Kyoujurou interrupts himself to smile warmly. Of course he’d noticed. “I trust you.”
“Great,” Akaza says, a little too loud. He can understand uncontrollable honesty, but the smile can’t have been necessary. “Just… lift your back a little.”
Akaza pulls the gauze snug and does not think of the curve of Kyoujurou’s spine.
“That’s Senjuro’s favourite constellation,” Kyoujurou tells him with a weak wave of his hand towards the sky, then quiets into murmurs again.
Akaza catches bits and pieces, about Kyoujurou’s brother, his home, his childhood, and immediately feels like he shouldn’t be listening. Kyoujurou is so full of light. He could have easily chosen any other thread to follow, like how much he hates it when Akaza bothers him during his missions, or all the ways he’s dreamed of killing him. But he lies there, torn open and bleeding, and talks about soft things.
Akaza doesn’t deserve them. Doesn’t want them, he tells himself firmly as he wraps the gauze around Kyoujurou’s torso again. He listens for the rasp of his own fingers on the fabric and holds on to the distraction.
It’s tempting to start asking questions– harmless, stupid questions like do you think I’m handsome that Akaza can hang over Kyoujurou’s head after this is over– but even those feel like they belong to a territory he shouldn’t veer into. Flirting on the battlefield when they’d first met had all been good and fun, but then Kyoujurou had gone and lived , which just makes things irritatingly complicated. The sparring, for one. Just last week they’d spent an entire night going over sword forms, of all things; Kyoujurou hadn’t let him use his sword, but he’d set it aside so they could both use bamboo sticks, and Akaza, like an idiot, hadn’t tried to kill him once.
And now— this, the wound tending thing. The let me and I trust you and you don’t have to be careful thing. Akaza grits his teeth. Kyoujurou doesn’t even tense up under his touch anymore, and it’s hard not to think about what would happen if any of the other Moons knew. He’d almost rather Muzan find out than Douma.
He tunes back in right as Kyoujurou’s stream of consciousness changes direction.
“–at the last Pillar meeting. We–“
Akaza’s covering a palm over Kyoujurou’s mouth before he knows what he’s doing. He almost winces once his mind catches up, but he doesn’t lift his hand and doesn’t think of what Muzan would do if he saw any of this. Kyoujurou’s eyes stare back at him from above his knuckles, wide and stricken.
“Tell me…” Akaza’s voice sounds rough, even to himself. “Tell me what you did this morning. You’ve been staying at the town, haven’t you?”
Kyoujurou nods silently.
“Right.” Akaza lifts his palm until it’s just barely hovering over Kyoujurou’s lips. “Talk about that.”
Kyoujurou launches into a detailed account of his breakfast, an anxious current running through his words that wasn’t there before. The remnants of the Blood Art can’t be getting worse – Akaza would smell it– but the near slip-up seems to have rattled him, enough so that Kyoujurou’s eyes are closed with the effort to focus.
“The innkeeper had a cat,” Kyoujurou says, nearly breathless, once he runs out of things to say about food. There’s a faint ripping sound where Kyoujurou’s fingers have dug into the soil, snapping blades of grass.
“What colour,” Akaza asks distractedly. More of Kyoujurou’s blood has seeped through; the smell of it curls in the air and Akaza’s hands tighten around Kyoujurou’s sides before he can stop himself. He wishes he’d fed before coming here.
Kyoujurou doesn’t seem to notice, too busy keeping himself under control.
“Grey. Striped.” Kyoujurou’s words slur together just enough for it to be noticeable. “Amber eyes.”
“Thought of me, huh?”
“I think of you often.”
The gauze runs out. Akaza nearly fumbles with the tail as he smooths it down and lets his fingers stay there, stark blue against the white. Kyoujurou’s abdomen stills, holding a breath.
“Ah,” Akaza says carefully.
It could mean anything. Akaza forces his attention back to tying off the binding so he doesn’t snap and pin Kyoujurou to the tilted ground of the hill and ask him what exactly he thinks about– often, his mind echoes unhelpfully– and then he’s finally, finally done. Kyoujurou has gone an anticipatory sort of silent beside him.
“Akaza,” Kyoujurou murmurs. “I…”
It’s a mistake to look up.
Kyoujurou could never look weak , but he looks unguarded, exposed, like Akaza could break him now and he’d let him do it. The heady scent of Kyoujurou’s blood only makes it harder for him to think about leaning back, taking his hands off Kyoujurou’s body like he’s supposed to, and Akaza wants to–
All at once, Kyoujurou flinches and raises his arm to muffle his voice with his sleeve, squeezing his eyes shut.
This secret looks painful. Kyoujurou is whispering it into the crook of his elbow like he can crush it once it’s out, and Akaza has never felt so out of place. He can’t cover his ears with his hands frozen on Kyoujurou’s torso, and for some reason his throat feels too cotton-filled to speak over Kyoujurou’s whispers.
He can’t make out the words anyway. Akaza pushes down what feels like disappointment.
Kyoujurou lapses into silence and opens his eyes, mouth still covered. He looks worn out and– sad, Akaza realizes with a jolt.
“You should go,” Kyoujurou says quietly.
“I didn’t hear anything,” Akaza says. He feels small, like a petulant child insisting that he hadn’t done anything wrong.
“I know. I just–” Kyoujurou drags a hand over his face and starts sitting up. “I would rather not… risk it.”
“What is there to risk? I already told you I–“
“ You aren’t the one who is forced to tell the truth.”
“And you’ll just walk all the way back to town on your own with no problem, yeah?”
Kyoujurou bites his lip and says nothing to that, just as Akaza had expected. He traps Kyoujurou’s sword under his palm before Kyoujurou can pick it up and start spilling his guts trying to leave.
“Ask me.”
Kyoujurou stills. “What?”
“Even the playing field,” Akaza says, because this is a language they’re both fluent in. Let Kyoujurou think of this as a battle if that’s what makes him listen. “Ask me…” Akaza grits his teeth, not wanting to say it. “Anything. I’ll answer truthfully.”
Kyoujurou huffs, the suggestion of a laugh. His gaze flits between Akaza’s eyes, like he’s reading and re-reading the kanji there. “And I’m to trust your word on this?”
“Your choice.”
Akaza hadn’t moved back when Kyoujurou sat up; it hadn’t felt important then, but now Kyoujurou’s eyes are almost entirely pupil and his mouth is still red from all his efforts to bite back his words, and Akaza has to dig his nails into his palm to keep from leaning in. When Kyoujurou speaks, it’s uncharacteristically hesitant.
“Why are you helping me?”
Akaza almost laughs. Of course he’d choose the hardest question. Not how do I kill you or what’s the mission Muzan keeps sending you on. He thinks of Kyoujurou whispering desperately into his elbow, how he’d looked at him only seconds before. Maybe the hardest question is also the easiest.
He gives up on keeping his distance, brushing a sweat-damp strand of hair out of Kyoujurou’s eyes and watching them fall shut, a crease appearing between his brows. Kyoujurou’s throat moves as he swallows.
“Kyoujurou,” he says with a confidence he doesn’t feel, trying for his usual velvet-smooth and mostly succeeding. If Kyoujurou notices his voice fraying on the last syllable, he doesn’t mention it. “You already know why.” He hears Kyoujurou’s breath catch. “Don’t you?”
Kyoujurou turns his face into Akaza’s palm, just barely. “I don’t know if I’m…”
Akaza doesn’t know how they got here; Kyoujurou shivering, leaning into his touch, inching them both closer to a line they shouldn’t cross. He feels dizzy with want, and he tries to dig up all the old reminders: he’s a demon, Kyoujurou a demon slayer, Muzan can rummage through his memories anytime he wants, can kill him anytime he wants and most certainly will– but they’re unnervingly quiet when faced with Kyoujurou opening his eyes again. Akaza risks a brush of his thumb across Kyoujurou’s cheekbone.
“Should I stop?” Akaza’s throat feels dry.
“Yes,” breathes Kyoujurou, because he’s still stuck with telling the truth, and they both know that Akaza really should stop, but– “Don’t.”
Akaza pulls back a hair’s-width– or tries to, thinking that he must’ve heard wrong or misunderstood, but then Kyoujurou is closing the distance and all thoughts of asking are you sure dissipate.
Whatever noise of surprise Akaza could’ve made gets caught in his throat. Kyoujurou’s mouth is warm, gentler than it probably should be, and they both sway in an invisible current before Akaza finally allows himself to coax the kiss deeper. He feels what might be a murmur of his name as Kyoujurou yields, letting himself be kissed back against the hill.
Oh, he thinks sluggishly when Kyoujurou’s hand drifts to the back of his head. He can think of worse ways to set his own death in motion.
Some of his hunger seeps through before Akaza can rein it in. He wants more of Kyoujurou’s heat, the taste of him, the almost-gasps he lets out when Akaza’s teeth graze his lips. He lets go of Kyoujurou’s sword to trade it for the more important task of threading a hand through his hair and exposing his throat.
The scent of the other demon is almost gone. Kyoujurou’s mouth is left unoccupied as Akaza trails kisses down his neck, and he hears him whisper the last few truths before the effects of the Blood Art fade– want you, want you, so quiet Akaza almost doesn’t catch them.
-
“I think it’s over,” Kyoujurou says some time later, as Akaza helps him off the ground and towards the path.
The sky isn’t light yet, but Akaza can feel it starting to wake up. They make their way slowly in the direction of the town, Kyoujurou’s feet dragging slightly in the dirt.
“Tell me a lie, then.”
Kyoujurou is quiet for a moment. “You are the strongest demon I’ve ever fought.”
Akaza twists to glare at him, nearly dislodging Kyoujurou’s arm from his neck in the process. “I said a lie, Kyoujurou.”
Kyoujurou is smiling at the ground. “Hm.”
Akaza blinks, then growls, “unbelievable,” turning back to face the road.
He feels Kyoujurou laugh, warm all along his side, and it almost feels like they have time, like dawn isn’t coming. It would be so easy to pretend. There will be hell to pay for this later, but it all feels impossibly, dangerously far away.
He shifts his hold on Kyoujurou’s waist, taking on more of his weight, and pretends.