Chapter Text
ɴᴏᴡ ᴘʟᴀʏɪɴɢ: ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ʏᴏᴜ, ᴛʜᴇ 𝟣𝟫𝟩𝟧 ♬
What defines the boundary between friendship and romance?
That’s a great question, a question Shinobu has been asking since the winter of her final year of junior high school.
She could not pinpoint when or why, but out of the blue, she would find herself looking for a pair of deep ocean eyes now and then. Every class, she would occasionally stretch her back in hopes of catching a glimpse of a certain taciturn boy who sat in the back row. Whether it was during school hours in the hallways amongst the sea of teenage chatter, or the depths of the night when her own eyes dared not look into the reflection in the mirror. Despite her banter of calling his eyes a zombie’s and others calling them devoid, Giyuu was far from devoid of emotion. There was something in those eyes that brought about a pit of dread in her stomach; to tug a string in her heart, hold on to a breath for too long, and a weight to hang on her chest whenever she gazed back.
The ache was not of his brutality or stoicism, but an unspoken feeling even she failed to diagnose. A feeling that would loom over her head for eternity, rearing its ugly head like a mushroom, especially during the most unlikely of times.
As if she couldn’t drift off any further away into the void, she found herself reminiscing about one of those unlikely times—when a tear rolled down her cheek back on that summer day in 2nd grade. When a half-inch cut grazed the finger of her shy classmate, Giyuu Tomioka, Shinobu found herself playing nurse.
Her mind wandered into the summer breeze and the sun’s warming glow of that fateful day. The feisty little girl was on a walk when she found a boy crying in one of the swings, the pad of his index finger pointing to the sky as he wiped off mucus with the cuff of his sleeve. Below him, the perpetrator, a sheet of paper rested on the vamp of his school shoe. He caught her eyes immediately, quickly attracting the inquisitive young lady to examine the scene.
‘A paper cut? What a child!’ She frowned as she put two and two together..
It was pathetically small, a grave overreaction from the injury—if you could call it that—especially to the young girl raised by a lineage of healthcare workers. Yet as much as she would have liked to scold the young boy for his clumsiness and overreaction, she felt punched in her gut with every sniffle that escaped him. So, with a tense expression on her face, she grumpily slapped on a blue band-aid from her mini first aid kit, then offered a tissue to him instead. On the outside, it was sweet and innocent; on the inside, the world shifted off its axis.
"T-t-thank y-y-you, Kocho-san..." Giyuu sobbed out, his glassy eyes locking in with hers.
Giyuu's sob came to a halt, replaced by a contemplative look. Shinobu's grumpy scowl loosened as her breath hitched. A silence hung in the air, the little kids paralyzed in each other's depths. It was like that for a minute, a few kids around the school playground gave them a look of judgment before going back to their blissful playing.
"Y-you're welcome, Tomioka-san..." Shinobu stammered, finally, crossing her arms, "Don't be a klutz and stop crying like a baby next time. It makes you weak." She turned her head away to hide the warmth of her face and offered three more plies of tissues.
He reached out for them awkwardly, wiping off tears. He copied her and hung his head low in embarrassment, hoping his mother or sister would pick him up soon. The feeling was mutual—Shinobu tried her best to busy herself by re-arranging her purple backpack at an excruciatingly slow pace. Giyuu could do nothing but swing himself with a light force, his eyes glued to the pebbles as if he had just discovered a rare mineral. The awkwardness had already settled; it was too late to start a conversation, even for Shinobu, who was usually outgoing.
"She's very...small...short..." Giyuu thought, poking a pebble with his shoe.
"He's very... quiet...awkward..." Shinobu thought, continuing to rummage through her backpack.
Before Giyuu could pray for the ground to swallow him whole, a savior had ended the awkward nightmare.
That day was the beginning of their newfound relationship, the first of many encounters yet to come. However, the feeling of warmth she was supposed to feel from her newfound relationship was absent; an unexplainable heaviness had settled in its place. Before she knew it, a warm tear escaped her eye after his older sister picked him up. The feeling was foreign, especially to the unwavering young girl who had not cried since she was in diapers.
Yet she dismissed it as an emotional tendency of her age. Until it happened throughout the years, out of nowhere, in fleeting moments of foreign nostalgia. It was especially strange because these moments happened during brief interactions and subtle observations of the stoic boy. Giyuu Tomioka, in young Tokito’s words, was a ‘decorative object,’ even in Shinobu’s elementary and junior high days; he had always been the brooding boy in the corner of the frame or the background. Their proximity and interactions were all coincidental. Shinobu would find him in the most unexpected moments and places, like in her class for 8 years straight, in the supermarket’s produce aisle when she was grocery shopping with her mother at 10.
“Isn’t that your friend from school?” Her mother, Hana, said softly, waving a hand to the woman holding Giyuu’s hand.
“No.” Shinobu would humph and strut away with her bag of onions, leading herself back to their shopping cart, away from the clueless boy and his mother.
Shinobu was not lying. They were not friends until the summer they went into their 10th-grade year, rather mere acquaintances, and side characters in each other’s lives. So, as a result of their newfound friendship and questionable closeness, that question began to arise, first from Kanae, then even Sabito. Every chance meeting, friends would only find more reasons to tease the two teenagers. From the flush on her cheeks on display, to the crack of a smile poorly hidden when he turned away, it was painfully obvious, except for the two parties involved.
But those were all mere assumptions.
Eventually, the summer breeze flew past her, along with the plaguing thoughts of Giyuu Tomioka—her mind had finally returned after wandering for who knew how long. Now seated in the front row of her chemistry class, with an array of various chemicals, Shinobu shoved the big question to the back of her mind, partially because she had to figure out the task at hand, but also because some mysteries are better left unsolved.
Some questions, to Shinobu, were better left unanswered. Even when the scent of his aquatic perfume lingered long after him. Even when the warmth of his small hands nestled her years after. And especially, even when the mystery involves vivid dreams of a man who reminded her of her friend.
*ੈ✩‧₊˚
Konichigaoka village, 1914
The dynamic duo of Hashiras ran out of bodily fuel after a long night of raiding a nest of demons in an abandoned neighborhood. As a reward for a job well done and a surprisingly timely accomplishment, Shinobu insisted on a dinner with her aloof companion, a request he could not refuse.
They stumbled upon a small family restaurant, where they recuperated their lost energy. The aroma of fresh soup and the warm lights provided a haven from the cruel world outside and a meal to satisfy their hunger.
“Tomioka-san, you’ll never make friends with the way you look at your food.” The young woman covered her mouth with a delicate hand, eyeing the man in the mismatched haori strangely.
“Geez, you can peel paint with that look…” She grimaced again.
“...” He was silent, the menacing ‘smile’ still plastered on his face as he inhaled the scent of his beloved dish, salmon daikon. The steam carried a pungent smell of a rich flavor and a hint of sweetness to fill his lungs, leaving his dry mouth to water in its wake. The second its rich broth reached his tongue, the world faded into the mist as he fell into a deep coma from the meal alone, the voices slurring into a muddle of nothingness for him to forget. Giyuu Tomioka was long gone; he was with the love of his life.
Much to the annoyance of his go-to mission partner, the Insect Hashira.
Nevertheless, the night went on without a hitch, a peaceful time in the ambient restaurant. Swords next to swords, their meals began to vanish at a leisurely pace as they enjoyed the warmth of the meals to fill the void left by hunger. The silence between them was ever comforting noise as the slurping of broth and clacking of chopsticks cascaded into a symphony in the background. Solace seldom came; when it did, it was precious—the ease between them was a testament to that.
Giyuu was strange, even to his colleagues. He was unmoving, unresponsive, and difficult to communicate with, a stark contrast to the woman next to him. Yet even with their differences, the newest pillar favored him as a partner on missions. The recluse was fun to tease.
He was an enigma; one she did not mind exploring. Shinobu had an insatiable thirst for knowledge after all, he was no different from a medicine yet to be discovered.
For yet another instance of many that night, her eyes wandered periphery to watch him from her periphery. The corners of his lips creased into a strange expression, and the minced piece of onion in the corner of his mouth made a quiet giggle escape her.
‘What a child.’ A thought flew by her head.
It was just the two slayers; the scene plays as a fuzzy moment frozen in time. Her eyes lay glued on him and him only, the messy spikes of his disheveled mane partially blocking her view. She was so engulfed in her concentration that the absence of heat and taste from each bite came unnoticed. Every lifted piece of ginger and fish falling ceased to exist with each bite. Her head was now fully turned to face him as he continued shoveling salmon into his mouth, the bowl untouched with each time he swallowed.
Even when the dinner seemed to go on forever, the broth level stayed the same, and her ginger pieces never disappeared. At this moment, the stoic Tomioka had long since left; instead, a childlike bliss lit up his face. To say he enjoyed his meal was an understatement; he wore a pitiful excuse of a smile the moment he was served. Despite her teasing remarks, Shinobu felt warmth in her chest and an urge in her hand to reach out and gently pat his airy head.
He never looked at her, his muscular frame frozen in that sitting position, moving robotically for what felt like ages. Too caught up in her daze, she failed to notice anything except his slurping sounds. That is, until those sapphire eyes finally met hers, and everything else vanished.
*ੈ✩‧₊˚
Another night, another dream.
Shinobu jolted awake in the comfort of her silk linen, soaked in a fine sheen of sweat, beads racing down her cheeks. Her breath was miles away from the speed of her mind, with bursts of panting rivaling the soft hum of her air conditioner. Her body was cool in the comfort of her room, yet her mind burned with a desire for something, too faint to grasp.
"Him again..." She groaned, rubbing her face harshly with the palms of her hands.
She shut her eyes tight in hopes of recalling his image, yet when she did, the image of him slipped away. The fine details of his sharp features and disheveled mane faded into a blurry silhouette before her, until he was nothing but fog.
"No, he had black hair...and a pointy nose... and..." She started, but quickly wandered. "No, he was blonde! Or no, a deep red? No!" She grumbled, her fist tapping against her temple in an attempt to jog the memory.
"Salmon daikon... ginger... red haori...no, weird green haori... no... no.." She mumbled before ending her attempt with a pitiful slam against her cushion. It was hopeless.
In her dream state, Shinobu could see and almost feel it all. There was a sense of clarity after years of dreaming the same narrative. She assumed the life of a young woman from the past who would fight off demon-like creatures and act as some kind of doctor. Sometimes, she would be stitching up a deep wound on strangers. Most of the time, she would bear a thin, needle-like blade and poison the monstrous creatures. Shinobu could put two and two together, with minor gaps in her perception.
“Kocho…” She heard a husky voice call out, not now, but from a familiar time.
What she could never understand, though, was the man who haunted her. She could never remember what he looked like, what he wore, or anything about him. Only the intense gaze of his cat-like eyes, his blues, that lingered whenever she did try to remember, almost as if a warning.
Once again, she had forgotten, like she had many times before. It was a vicious cycle of dreams and nightmares with vivid imagery that made her gut wrench from its...realism. They were awful because they were horrifically graphic, and, like this time, because they brought forth an achy memory. It was like grasping onto a thread as you fall to your death in a bottomless pit; the friction leaving a burning sensation on your skin as it cut you open to your doom.
It wasn't that bad, she knew. It didn't debilitate her; its remnants would be an afterthought by the time she finished her breakfast. By the time she made it to school, it was nothing but an itch. By the time she went in for after-school activities, it was long gone. Then the cycle would begin again.
She curled into her knees, hiding her face with her slender arms. Shinobu was torn between the desire to remember and the consequences of finding out. Nights like these left a stinging pain in her heart, a feeling towards something she could not even define—it didn't make the feeling any less prominent, though.
"How can you long for something you don't even know? For a time that was never even real? Or for someone you've never even met?" She sighed, the awful weight coming back to settle into her chest, a pit beginning to form in her stomach. Her mind swirled into oblivion beneath the solace of the moonlight.
Another question to plague her mind—one engraved into her soul by the visions whispered on the night she was just seven.