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Officially, their first meeting goes like this: Oyataka-sama calls a Hashira meeting, and Giyuu goes. He goes, lingering on the edge as the new Wind Hashira is introduced. There is an anger that shrouds the newcomer, a more obvious drape over his shoulders than the white haori he has been given.
There are introductions, some warm and others stilted. They've all heard about some of the circumstances that led Shinazugawa Sanemi to stand among them, the recent death of Lower Moon One with the loss of a Kinoe-ranked slayer elevating the Wind Breather to the upper ranks of the Slayer Corps.
Shinazugawa Sanemi, to his credit, steps into his duty with his head held as high he can, though it's clear he's in pain and very much should not be upright in that moment. There are specks of blood seeping through the bandages he still wears.
When it's Giyuu's turn to greet the newest Hashira, he says next to nothing. It sparks something within the anger of the Wind Hashira, a grudge born in real time, thorns on a rose vine.
Unofficially, their first meeting is three days earlier, Giyuu sitting on the engawa of one of the buildings of the Butterfly Estate, Kocho Shinobu's small, deft hands changing out the bandages on his right upper arm after checking the stitches that had been placed there at a Wisteria House a few days before that.
It was healing well, she had told him, but the stitches wouldn't be able to come out for a few more days. There would be little scarring, the edges well approximated by the kakushi who had pierced the needle through his flesh.
Giyuu does not mind scars. Most of his, through fate or luck or blessing or whatever anyone wants to call it, are small. Barely noticeable against the milk-pale color of his skin. The largest are a set of claw marks, five sharp points in his right shoulder. They are red, bright and large and years old now.
He doesn’t understand exactly how the body works. How flesh can knit itself back together and leave scars in some places and slightly imperfect flesh in others. Regrowing and renewing, a tree growing new bark.
Unlike her older sister, Shinobu does not speak when she's doing her work. There's a distant warmth to her, as though she's seen the kindness in Kanae and is trying her best to emulate it without quite understanding it. Her kindness, Giyuu knows, is a different kind; it's teasing words, sharp edges, a smile to your face when she really just wants to put her small hands around your neck and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
When she is done replacing his bandages—neat, the linen the fresh white of fallen snow, the stitches holding the rend in his arm together hidden beneath their surface—she eyes her work for any imperfections before lightning patting him in the shoulder, her fingers icy against his bare skin.
“Come back in a few days,” she instructs him, putting her supplies back into the small bag she had brought with them onto the porch. Winter has mostly thawed, spring beginning to make itself more and more apparent with each day. Warm sun, cold wind. Green buds just starting to peek out on thin brown branches. Days slowly growing longer. Spring brings with it a signal that a reprieve, however small, is just around the corner for the Slayers. Shorter nights gives demons less opportunity to hunt, to kill.
Giyuu is just shrugging the undershirt of his uniform on when there's commotion near the gate to the Estate. Though he sits just out of sight of the gate, he sees the kaksuhi follow someone in; though their faces were hidden, it was clear from their body language that they were exasperated with the Slayer they followed.
The Slayer himself was not one Giyuu had seen before, though from a distance and covered in blood as the other man was, Giyuu couldn't have been sure. His uniform is cut in numerous places, matted with old blood, though Giyuu isn't quite sure if it's all his. Even from the distance, he can smell the iron from the dried blood, and something else underneath it: the decaying smell that often accompanies demon blood.
Arm still half-way into his undershirt, Giyuu watches as one of the kakushi that followed the slayer in reaches out, grabbing the bloodied man by the elbow.
Violent, jerky, clearly angry, the man wrenches his elbow free. His voice, raw and rough, carries through the crisp spring air: "I told you not to fucking touch me! I don't need your help!"
Next to him, Shinobu breathes out through her nose before rising up and off of the engawa to diffuse the situation unfolding before them. There is a steel to her spine that folds over and over on itself as she approaches the kakushi and the Slayer.
The man is all thorns and teeth as he continues to snarl at the kakushi, insisting that he doesn’t need to be there, that he needs no help, that he will never need help. Fresh drops of blood swell and drop from the hands he has fisted as his sides. But even from this distance, Giyuu can see the fine tremor in his hands: blood loss, rage, exhaustion, he isn’t sure. From what he’s seen in the last few moments, it could be a combination of all three.
Shinobu steps up to the frenzy unfolding just inside the Butterfly Estate. Giyuu is too far away to hear what she says, voice as soft as butterfly wings.
The Slayer turns to her after a moment, away from the kakushi with a hand going to the nichirin blade he wears at his hip. His upper lip is pulled back, and even from the distance Giyuu can see the blood in his mouth.
He is struck suddenly by the thought of a feral dog, long abused and grasping at anything for survival, lashing out at any kind hand that tries to help.
Giyuu watches closely; he knows that Shinobu can more than handle herself. Many underestimate her given her size, given her age, given the callouses on her hands mirror those of an apothecary more than a swordsman.
The newcomer towers over Shinobu, the look on his face morphing from anger to something Giyuu can't quite name. If he were closer, if he could see his eyes, Giyuu thinks he might—
He gets his wish, in a way. As if influenced by the thought, the bloodied man looks directly over Shinobu's head to stare at Giyuu.
Even from a distance, the lavender of his eyes is stark against the dried, crusting blood smeared on his face. Something shivers up Giyuu's spine; he thinks it might be the wind, the undershirt of his uniform only halfway on his torso and leaving his back partially exposed.
Giyuu stares back, realizing that the purple of Shinobu’s hair clip nearly matches the color of the man’s eyes and that there is a rage there, deeply seated, that Giyuu recognizes as something just as intense as what smolders in his own gut.
To see that kind of anger openly displayed and not kept in a box, swept under a rug, held tight and low where no one can see it? It makes Giyuu pause, just for a moment, to make sure the leash he keeps on his own anger is tight. It is not something he feels other people should see; anger, he thinks, is a private thing.
The wounded Slayer’s face morphs from that unrecognizable look into the rage Giyuu is already accustomed to seeing on his face, mouth opening in preparation to start yelling again.
Muscles tensing, Giyuu ready himself for a fight, instinct and self-preservation kicking in.
The fight doesn’t come.
The man collapses, and no one moves.
Blood loss, probably. He’s certainly wearing enough of it.
Giyuu averts his eyes; it’s not his problem anymore. Pulls his undershirt firmly back onto his body and finishes redressing himself.
He leaves the Butterfly Estate feeling slightly off-kilter.
In the end, the meeting that counts is this:
The smell of wisteria lingers beneath the smell of antiseptic still being used on his wounds, three months after he earned them. Late afternoon sunlight slants through the open window that lets in the crisp spring breeze. Warm sun, cold wind.
Where his bed is set, Giyuu cannot see out the window. He wonders if the trees are beginning to bud yet, if there are flowers blooming. The birds have slowly been getting louder the last few days, growing in number as the weather turns into something more palatable.
It appears he slept through the depth of winter, unaware of the coldest nights of the year.
He woke up yesterday in fits as starts just as the sunlight was receding from his room. He knew that he was in the Butterfly Estate and for the first time in many years, his body understood that there wasn't an immediate danger lurking in the night. He had gone back to sleep not long after he'd woken, having seen no one in the time he'd been awake.
This morning he had woken with the sound of the birds, feeling more rested than he had in years. Aoi had come in shortly after the sun had started leaving a line on the floor through his window, each of her actions appearing routine and practiced, as though she came in every morning.
She had nearly screamed when he greeted her good morning. That had been his fault, really; he hadn't thought the afternoon before about how long he might have been indisposed of.
Aoi had been back intermittently throughout the day, bringing him warm soup and rice in small, manageable amounts. There is a long road to recovery ahead of him, spooling out before him. He tries not to think about it, an uncomfortable, yawning gap opening up in his chest the moment he thinks about what his life will be like now. So much has changed and the options before him are nearly limitless.
The door to his room opens, and Giyuu doesn’t look away from the sliver of sunlight that has marked it's journey on the floor throughout the day. Golden rays highlight the scratches and scuffs in the wood of the floor, as well as a weird stain that looks like it's been there for years. Giyuu assumes it was likely blood, at some point, though now it lends itself to the personality of the wood well.
He assumes that Aoi has returned, another small bowl of food in her hands. He isn't hungry, though he knows he needs to eat.
He finally looks away from the sunlight when there's no movement but breathing in the doorway, confused. Throughout the day, Aoi had moved through the room comfortably, clearly in control, and always with a greeting.
Shinazugawa Sanemi looms in the doorway, uniform of a patient of the Butterfly Estate draped on his body, staring.
Giyuu stares back, the synapses in his brain not quite connecting to each other. He thinks: he looks better than the last time I saw him. He thinks: grief does not fit him. He thinks: he is different from before, but I still recognize the shape of him.
He says, "Good afternoon."
Polite. Demure. A stranger greeting a stranger.
Shinazugawa Sanemi looks at him for another half-heartbeat before his mouth curls into a smile. For the first time since they've known each other, there is no rage that fills his mouth when he does so.
He almost looks like a different person, and Giyuu feels like a different person just looking at him.
Sanemi says, "Hey," stilted, awkward, a little breathless, like he's not sure what to say.
And with a word, the options that had stretched out before him (limitless) collapse. Fold in on each other. It was silly of him to even consider an option for the rest of his life without Shinazugawa Sanemi in it.