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Lazy Days
Giyuu had become quite lazy as soon as he had entered retirement, Kyojuro noted with amusement. The man would sleep late in the morning or until Kyojuro would urge him awake. If it was warm enough, he would nap on the engawa where he would soak up the sunlight in the afternoon; if it was a chilly autumn or the winter, Giyuu could be found drowsily bobbing his head over a cup of hot tea, cozily tucked under the kotatsu.
Senjuro was worried about Giyuu's excessive somnolence, but Kyojuro suspected that it was his way of catching up on sleep from years of restless nights.
Kyojuro, who hadn't stopped being an earlier riser, would wake up to the rhythmic breathing of the man sleeping beside him. He would turn his head and watch Giyuu's placid face, the slight parting of his lips, and the peace that encompassed him. He would watch as the morning rays would cast his pale skin in lovely radiance, and he would fall in love all over again.
And then Giyuu might snort inelegantly, scrunch his nose, and flop onto his back. This always made Kyojuro chuckle.
On most mornings, Kyojuro would let Giyuu slumber on as he would quietly get ready to start the day. On others, such as today where they were expecting a visit from the Kamados and their friends, Kyojuro would bury his face into the junction of Giyuu's neck and pepper every inch of bare skin with kisses until the other man would groan awake.
"Good morning, Beloved," Kyojuro greeted him.
Giyuu blearily blinked up at him. "Hrrrmm?"
His chest felt warm from the adorable sight, and he fought the urge to squish Giyuu closer to his embrace. He smiled softly at him. "Don't forget who we're supposed to be seeing today. You'll have to get up."
Kyojuro gave him a few seconds to process the information until his lips stretched into a small, beautiful smile. "Ah. Tanjiro and Nezuko."
"And Inosuke and Zenitsu," he reminded.
At the mention of the latter's name, Giyuu's smile dropped. "Hmph," he grunted, frowning.
Kyojuro chuckled as he tugged Giyuu upright into a sitting position. Since the battle, Nezuko and Giyuu had forged a sibling-like bond; as a result, that had awakened some brotherly instincts to be wary of any suitors that Tanjiro had appeared to be lacking. "Don't be like that! I'm sure that he isn't all that bad for Nezuko to allow him to court her."
"He's noisy," was Giyuu's disgruntled protest.
"So am I, and yet here we are." Kyojuro coiled his arms around Giyuu's waist and pulled him into his bosom which Giyuu readily collapsed into. Giyuu reflexively brought his arm around his neck and nestled into him.
"Well, true." Kyojuro laughed at Giyuu's easy admission. "But I like your kind of loud."
"I'm glad, then." Kyojuro kissed Giyuu one more time before ushering him to get dressed.
Clumsy Days
Kyojuro had his bouts of clumsiness when he had lost his eye to Upper Moon Three, not accustomed to having his periphery halved. He had knocked into corners of walls often and crashed into people and things that had entered his blind spot. He had been quick to accommodate his deficiencies, however.
Giyuu, however, hadn't been so adaptable to his new condition. It seemed like he would never get used to having only one hand, much less being forever left-handed.
He tended to spill rice all over the table and himself during meals. Where his handwriting had once been penned in a neat and tidy script, it was now cramped and messy, oftentimes downright ineligible. He could never tie his obi on properly, always requiring someone's assistance in putting his clothes on. Washing himself was a timely endeavor unless, once again, there was another person involved.
Fortunately, Kyojuro was there to be that person.
Kyojuro was also there to brush out Giyuu's hair. Shortly after the battle, Giyuu had opted to cut his hair short due to the length being chopped unevenly during the fight. However, Kyojuro knew that the main reason had been that maintaining long hair would have been inconvenient when the man had only one hand.
But Kyojuro, having loved Giyuu's long and wild mane, had insisted that Giyuu grew it out. He would be there to help him take care of it, anyway.
Hair-brushing and obi-tying aside, when it came to the day-to-day functions, Kyojuro found that they were all rather hopeless at it. He was immensely grateful that Senjuro didn't mind cooking their meals or helping them with chores. Where would he be without his incredible younger brother, Kyojuro had no clue.
"Honestly, Brother," Senjuro huffed, patting down a generous heaping of rice into a bowl before passing it over to him, "if you're going to be this awful at it, we might as well start with the basics. I'm sure that you can manage boiling water."
"I'm sure we can do that." Kyojuro then nudged Giyuu, who was helping set up the table. Despite his best efforts, the chopsticks were misaligned. "We were, after all, the Flame and Water Hashira. With us combined, we can boil water!"
When he noticed how strikingly similar Giyuu and his father's expressions were in response to the joke, Kyojuro guffawed.
To Senjuro's eternal incredulity and disappointment, neither Kyojuro nor Giyuu could manage to do something as simple as boiling water.
Hard Days
As much as Kyojuro cherished their carefree days - days that they were now able to afford - it was the hard days that reminded him of the trials that they had to undergo to get to where they were.
Kyojuro had long endured the pain that would lance through his torso and throb behind his eyepatch, pain that would unfailingly place him back in time when he had nearly lost his life to Akaza and had permanently rendered him useless for battle. But it had also been a time when he had helped three capable slayers and a little demon in rescuing two hundred lives. Whenever the pain would seem like it was too much to bear, he would remind himself of how much he had accomplished - of how many people got to live.
Giyuu, though, would succumb to the ache. On cold nights during rainfall, he would grip the stub where his right arm should be and ground his teeth, face twisted in visible agony. Sometimes, he would shoot up in the middle of the night, forehead beaded with sweat, chest heaving, and eyes focused on nothing. Kyojuro would have to coax him to lie back down; otherwise, Giyuu would spend the rest of the night awake, drifting aimlessly down the halls or lingering on the engawa like a ghost.
Kyojuro couldn't imagine what it must have been like in the final battle against Kibutsuji Muzan. True, he had been frustrated that he couldn't join the fray, relegated to bodyguarding the remaining Ubuyashiki family. However, to see what Giyuu had seen - to witness the mindless slaughter of their comrades and fellow Hashira - Kyojuro didn't know how he would have personally coped with it all.
When he had heard that his former student Kanroji, along with Iguro and Himejima, and even young Tokito, had died, he had wept. To hear that his lover had made it out alive despite the odds had been a miracle.
Kyojuro counted his blessings every day that he got to breathe, eat, dream, talk, and laugh. He had his family and friends. He had his home. He got to wake up every morning and see his beloved's beautiful face, his expression lax and loose from stress or anguish. They might have gone through hell, but here, right now, they were at peace.
Happy Days
Years ago, long before any of them had been Hashira, Kyojuro had been assigned to a mission along with a handful of other slayers. Giyuu had been there too, standing amongst them as one of the higher-ranked members.
Giyuu didn't remember this and had denied that it had ever happened, but Kyojuro would think back of those times with comical fondness, much to his lover's chagrin.
He must have been particularly annoying on that night, or that Giyuu hadn't liked his "kind of loud" yet, but whatever the reason had been, Giyuu had stopped short in front of him and had said, "I'm a year older than you, and as your senior, I'm telling you to be quiet."
Giyuu hadn't used his rank, which was something that most slayers would have used. No, instead, he had used his age.
"You've been one of the scariest senpais around," Kyojuro insisted. "I myself found myself stiff with fright after that confrontation!"
"You exaggerate," Giyuu groused, mortified.
"Tomioka? Scary?" Shinazugawa scoffed. "If anything, he's always been gloomy."
"Didn't you misconstrue his gloominess to be a sense of superiority for years?" Uzui teased.
"Yeah? Well, so did everyone else! What about it?" Shinazugawa snapped defensively.
Whenever the four of them got together like this, they would exchange stories of the past. Some nostalgic, some bittersweet, some lighthearted.
It felt all rather cathartic just to be able to talk about it as freely as they did. Before, to speak of such matters would have been like spelling out an inevitability - like a gathering of old men reminiscing their past before passing on. Before, they couldn't afford to pass on; they had to continue to survive to fight.
But now that the centuries-old war against Kibitsuji Muzan and his demons was over, they could do whatever they wanted knowing that humanity could thrive once more.
Kyojuro looked at his lover who covered his mouth with his sleeve, as if that could hide his smile from Shinazugawa's ire. He grinned, happy that he could share this moment with his friends and Giyuu.
Kyojuro knew that this moment wouldn't last, though. Giyuu had attained the mark during the fight, thus damning him to a short life. They only had a few years left together until Giyuu's twenty-fifth birthday. And following him in death would be Shinazugawa and Tanjiro.
The thought had once left Kyojuro muddled with despair, but he knew that he couldn't continue on like this. For the short time that he had left with Giyuu, he knew that he had to make the most of it.
For however long they had together, Kyojuro intended make these days happy ones.