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It was supposed to be a very easy mission. Just a simple patrol around a village where the people were getting weary because of some noises at night. Giyuu didn’t even think about drawing his katana today. But, as always, fate seems to find a way to fuck him over.
One second he was walking and basking in the moonlight and the small crickets of insects, the next second he could feel the hair on the back of his neck rise. He could sense it: demon. What abilities did it have, he didn’t know. But he knew that it was dangerous. And so, he drew his katana and the moment he felt the demon near him, he fought.
They fought in a clash of metal and limbs. It was night time but they were quite near the village's plaza. That meant he had to lure the demon away as quietly and quickly as he could, or else, he could risk the lives of more people, something he wouldn’t ever dare to do.
They moved away with hurried moves and strong swings. Katana clanging and the powerful whips that the demon was using- almost similar to the Love Hashira’s katana. Their fight went on until Giyuu could finally cut off the head of the demon. It was finally over.
Or so he thought.
One of the whips attached to the demon's body had still been alive. It wrapped around him and kept him still. As he struggled against the whip, a pink circle started to appear beneath the ground where he stood. Just then, he started hearing the demon chanting something– whatever it was he was fucked.
Giyuu expected a surging pain, maybe he would be teleported to the Infinity Castle and be beheaded or recruited by Muzan. Hell, he even thought that this random magical circle would be the cause of his death. But after a few seconds the demon was done chanting, his whips were turned to ashes, and nothing was left as evidence that the demon ever existed. Except for a book. The book was rough at the edges, the state of the cover and the yellowish look of the pages would tell you that it was old, something that would belong to your great-grandfather.
As he flipped through every page, the aftermath of the fight began to catch up to him. He could feel the exhaustion deep within his bones, spreading throughout his body. Not only that, but there was a deep burning and aching sensation at the back of his eyes, like it was being dipped in a pool of acid while it was open. He squinted hard at a certain page, trying to get through the pain whilst trying to read.
The page had a familiar circle, like the one that had appeared beneath his feet when the demon was chanting. The page explained that the chant– or ritual– was more of a curse. That the one that stood on top of the circle would be cursed by love– that whoever was the first person that they saw would be the one that will be tied to them in love– forever.
Oh.
Oh fuck.
Giyuu was undoubtedly, thoroughly, fucked.
Just as he began to see the edges of his vision started to go black, and his body somehow falling and giving away from the hold of gravity, he heard his crow faintly: CAW! CAW! GIYUU TOMIOKA NEEDS HELP! CAW! CAW-
Hm. He would need to give lots of food to Kanzaburo later. For now, the ground felt like a really comfortable place. It wouldn’t hurt to close his eyes and rest- not that he could help it.
.
.
.
The next time Giyuu comes to, he wakes up with a piercing headache that makes him want to bang his head on a wall and eyes not feeling like they’re being dipped in acid anymore. One of his problems down, 2 more to go. He lays down for a while, feeling his aching body until he remembers his. . . predicament.
He sits up immediately. Pain shoots up his spine from the sudden movement and he lets out a hiss. Fuck, his back was killing him. He took a few seconds to calm the pain down, and while he did that, he looked around his surroundings. Which– didn’t look a lot like the infirmary. It was decorated enough to be considered someone's room but the lack of medical equipment was enough of a wake up call that he, in fact, was not in the infirmary.
If he was not there, then where was he?
Fuck, did Kanzaburo call a stranger instead of a Hashira? Crap, he needed to get out– but what if the stranger was a demon? What if he looked at the demon and it fell in love with him like the spell book said, how would he even fucking explain that to the master? WHat if -
His spiralling thoughts were interrupted by the opening of the door. He sat up straight and looked around for his katana, which thankfully was next to him. He drew his katana and looked down. The door closed and before the intruder could talk, Giyuu asked: “Who’s there?”
A few seconds passed and he was met with silence. He could probably peek but he would rather not risk tying his life to a demon forever. The best thing he could look at was the feet of the intruder which was normal. It was human looking. But that didn’t answer who was there. It could be a criminal for all he knew, he doesn't like the thought of a demon in love with him and neither would he wish that it was a criminal.
“I asked, who’s there? State your name.”
He was again met with a few seconds of silence before he was answered by a very familiar, very loud, very flamboyant sounding voice.
Oh gosh
“Haha! Chill out would you, Tomioka? It’s not nice to point a katana to your caretaker and saviour now is it? I suppose you don’t lack those manners now do you? That would be very unflamboyant of you” The voice tells him.
.
.
Wait, The Sound Hashira?
“Uzui?”
“Bingo!”
Now that- that he didn’t expect. He really did hope that he would end up in the infirmary or any medics office but in a room with the Sound Hashira was an option he had never placed on his list.
“Now you might be wondering how you are here and not on the field and fortunately I do have all the answers to your questions however I’m going to need you to put back your katana so that we can talk peacefully.” He heard Uzui's steps. He started to walk towards him at a slow pace, almost like the owner of a feral cat trying to feed its cat.
And so, he placed his katana back in its case, careful to not look at Uzui. Once he was done he turned back and sat properly- still looking down at his legs. Uzui followed suit, sitting down beside the mattress and placing two teacups next to him.
There was an air of awkwardness before it was cleared by Uzui clearing his throat.
“I brought tea. I wasn’t sure what you liked so I just made chamomile since it helps with stress. Here, can you hold it?”
He nodded, so Uzui passed him the cup, carefully blowing on it before setting it on his hands.
A few moments pass, and then
“So.”
“. . . so”
“Well, your questions?”
Right. He took a sip of his tea, humming in delight at the taste. The relief washed over his body, it was a good tea. Giyuu looked around, finding something else to look at so he wouldn’t catch Uzui’s eye.
“Where are we?”
“At my estate”
“How did you find me?”
“Your crow came to me because I was near your location”
Satisfied with the answer, he sipped his tea again.
He could feel Uzui’s gaze on him, like he was trying to take a look at his mind. God, he hoped Uzui would not ask why he was avoiding his gaze. It would be so fucking embaressing to answer that.
(Spoiler: Uzui does.)
He hears Uzui hum in suspicion and he can’t help but flush. He was going to bring it up, wasn’t he.
“. . . what?” Giyuu asked, his nervousness apparent with his hands fiddling with his clothes.
“Hm, nothing. Just- you’ve been acting weird ever since you came from the mission,” Uzui noticed. Of course Uzui noticed!
Giyuu mentally cursed in his mind.
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck
“Nothing bad happened during the mission?”
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck-
“Giyuu.”
He gulped, suddenly having too much saliva at his throat.
“Nothing.” Giyuu’s voice was clipped, and his stance was stiff. He knows that Uzui knows he’s lying.
He’ll just have to pull the truth out of him. “Hm okay, well I have a question. Since you asked me, it’s fair to only ask one to you, right?”
Giyuu nods stiffly.
Good.
Uzui sips from his tea and sets it down. He stared at Giyuus head for a while, trying to get him to look at him.
“Why are you avoiding my gaze?”
And with that, Giyuu could see and feel his mind overloading and overworking itself. System Error! System Error! We have been found out!
He feels a hand lay atop his own, holding it. “Giyuu,” Uzui calls his name, soft and patient.
“What happened?”
And fuck it was so- Giyuu didn’t know, but it was so overwhelming he found his vision start to blur and his hand immediately wiped his eyes.
“Oh woah woah woah now, oh dear” Uzui was shocked- Giyuu- stoic, ever cold Giyuu was crying. What the hell could have happened out there?
“Hey, no need to cry- I’m sure it wasn’t that bad-” Was probably the worst thing to say now and Uzui never felt more of a horrible person because Giyuu started to sob harder and his grip on Uzui's hand tightened so hard it felt like he was ready to rip it out if he said something wrong.
“Okay, I’m sorry- Shhh, I’m here now. Just, cry it out-”
It took a few seconds for Tomioka to cry the embarrassment out and for Uzui to be drowned in cries and guilt before Tomioka tried- keyword: tried to explain what happened.
“It’s- It - what happened wasn’t sad or anything or at least it is to me nobody died- but the demon, the fucking demon,” He started to ramble, every barely formed sentence ending with a sniffle.
Now, that was concerning. Uzui had checked Giyuu's body over a while back, making sure all wounds were tended to and nothing was left in a state of possible infection. But what if he missed something? What if that demon hurt Giyuu somewhere that Uzui didn’t see or check and he was in pain now? Fuck, the thought that Giyuu, any part of Giyuu would be hurt made him see red. “The fucking demon what, Tomioka? Did it hurt you? What did it-”
Uzui kept on questioning him, patting some parts of his body, cradling his face so that Tomuioka would finally face him at least.
“Tomioka, please tell me” He pleaded. Gosh, he never pleads but he needs to know what has made the Water Hashira a crying mess.
“It- it’s embarrassing okay!”
“Even so, lovely, I just need to know what you are sobbing about, okay?” So that I know if I have to hunt down the infinity castle myself and kill all demons that ever touched your hair or even glanced at you. Maybe, I’ll even pull that bastard that you fought back from the dead so that I could torture hi-
“heperformedaritualonmethatmadewhoeverilookedfirstwheniwokeupfallinlovewithme.” Fuck. He said it. He actually said it.
Tomioka didn’t know what to do- he had finally said it. He needed the ground to swallow him whole now or else he would self destruct right now. But, it felt like a weight was lifted from his shoulder and he finally felt like he could let out a sigh of relief.
Uzui- Uzui turned stiff. Stiffer than a stick or a rock. Had he heard that right?
Giyuu just said-
Eyes-
In love-
Him-
Oh.
Oh.
“Giyuu.”
Uzui called in a stiff voice. Giyuu sniffled in acknowledgement.
“Giyuu, I need you to look at me-”
Uzui was either deaf, crazy, or he didn't care at all, had he not heard what he had just said?
“No!”
“Giyuu-”
“No, Uzui! Are you out of your mind Did you not hear what I said? That demon just performed a ritual on me that would tie whoever looked at my eyes first romantically! You would go crazy and you would be forced, you-”
“And I promise you, it won’t affect me”
God, Giyuu wanted to argue, he really did, but something in Uzui’s tone was grounding. It was so sure and so stable like he could hold on to it and use it as his anchor right now.
“Trust me, Giyuu.”
And Giyuu let go. He opened his eyes for the first time in a while. Looked at Uzui’s magenta eyes, it was so pretty. He could feel the tears well in his eyes as he once again remembered what was happening. Gosh, he was such a crybaby.
He expected for Uzui to convulse, maybe have a seizure, completely change his personality but he didn’t expect absolutely nothing to happen. He was completely as he was before and all the tears and emotion that Giyuu showed to Tengen felt like it was running back to him like pictures on the film strip of shame.
Uzui wiped at his tears and smiled a little. “Nothing happened, sweet.” Huh? That was not possible. “A-are you sure? You’re feeling okay? No burning feeling? No acid dumped eye burning? No convulses?”
Uzui had the nerve to laugh at him. Giyuu was already too embarrassed and he was laughing at him. So he hit him in the arm, multiple times.
“Ow! Yes! Yes! Yes, I’m sure that nothing happened.” There was a hint of a smirk in Uzui’s tone. Like a secret or a joke that only Uzui knew.
Giyuu’s eyebrows furrowed, his face still cushioned and gently cradled in the hands of Uzui. “. . . So, it was fake?” Well. That was truly embarrassing if it wasn’t true. He sat there, cried so hard like some crybaby because he was ashamed and worried only for it to turn out fake. I mean, he should have known, right? Demons were cunning and liars and mischievous in their own way. But, at the back of Giyuu's mind, the part where it had been pining, yearning, and silently hoping for a love that he was sure he was not deserving of, he really, really hoped that it worked.
Uzui scoffed, noticing that Giyuu was thinking in a self-destructive way, again. His sweetness was so dense, wasn’t he?
“Sweetness, don’t frown so much now, hm? I mean- we tested it out, I looked into your eyes to see if I would combust in seizures and love for you. I might have expected rainbows to start shooting out in the open and some fairies to start singing us a marriage song- But nothing has happened- I am still me, I have not changed. Do you understand?” He explained.
“No. It just means that I am a fool and I am easily fooled and I am so gullible and stupid to have believed the notebook of a demon.” Giyuu replied in a solemn, pouty tone.
Ah, he is pouting. His so so soft and kissable looking lips are pouting. Uzui would do anything kiss his pout awa-
“You are one dense fool.” But you are my dense fool.
And well, Giyuu is not dense if he had figured out the reason why it wasn’t working, was it not? He pried his face away from Uzui’s hands and glared at him. “I figured why it isn’t working for you, I am not dense.”
“But I think- know you are, my love.” Uzui said, a smile on his face.
“I didn’t say that it wasn't working for me because it was fake or that you are stupid to have believed in a demon. I am quite sure that it worked, and I am very sure that it worked years ago even without the presence of a spell for your eyes to hypnotize me into loving you, Giyuu”
“I don’t understand- What?”
Uzui took a breath of courage, it was either now or never anyway. “I’m saying Giyuu,”
Giyuu was looking at him with intent and nervousness.
He took a shuddering breath again, “I am saying that the spell does not affect me now because I have been in love with you ever since I first laid my sights on you, Giyuu.”
.
.
.
What?
Had- had Giyuu heard that right? Tengen Uzui, the Sound Hashira, the man he had been in love with for a while now, loved him too?
“Wh-What?”
“This dense idiot- I love you so fucking much- I loved you ever since you joined the corpse and-”
Hands fly to cover his mouth and he shuts up with a muffled ‘hmph’. Unfortunately, the action caused both of them to be jostled, resulting in Uzui landing on top of Tomioka, his hands on the foam to stop himself from falling onto Giyuu entirely.
Uzui opened his eyes and he was met with the most angelic sight ever: Giyuu's cheeks pink and his lips in a wide smile,
“I love you too, you oaf.”
He giggled, hands cradling each side of the said oafs face.
Uzui gawked. Giyuu Tomoioka was even more beautiful smiling.
Giyuu waited for a reaction, and a few seconds later he was being smothered in kisses and cuddles to last him a lifetime.
Uzui carried him and held him by the waist, twirling him around while screaming “Giyuu Tomioka loves me too! I am the luckiest, most flamboyant man alive with the most gorgeous, most wonderful man of his dreams” with a grin so wide even Giyuu had aches on the side of his cheeks from laughing.
“I love you, my sweetness”
“And I, you, my dear”
Their faces were so near each other now. Their foreheads and noses touched, their lips one inch away like they were trying to merge in one, the thought of even a hair's distance was too much for them to bear. They stare at their eyes, and they know now that they would never leave each other— that they would spend their lives swimming in never ending oceans filled with love and running in the fields of forever and feeling the strong winds of the future in their faces as they hold and hold and hold and never let go.
That even the harshest tsunami, the boldest waves, the most cruel winds would never separate them, because they would be tied together by hand, by heart, by soul, by mind. That no matter where they go, they would hold on to each other through memories and a future brighter than it ever has.
.
.
.
“Should we say this to them?”
“To who?”
“The you know, the other pillars, and master?”
“Hm..”
“Hm?”
“Hmp.”
“Hey Uzui, answer me!”
“Hey- Ouch! Okay okay, what if we just- let them figure it out maybe? It’ll be too tiring to explain why and how it happened anyway.”
“Hm, well, that could be fun, I think”
“Yeah”
“We should bet on it”
“Bet on what?”
“How long it will take them to notice or to even speak up about it”
“Hm, I quite like this cunning side of you, sweetness”
“Yeah yeah, do you say yes?”
“I do, but what’s the winner's prize?”
“Anything we want”
“Do we say what we want now or-”
“Nope! We say it after the results. So that way, there will be more secrets, hence, more fun!”
“Okay okay, now, let’s sleep shall we, let’s continue this wonderful idea of yours tomorrow. Now, we, especially you, need rest.”
“Mhm”
“Good night, my dearest”
“Good night, my love”