Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The apartment smelled faintly of rain and cigarette smoke. Sanemi slumped against the doorframe, jacket half-off, shoes kicked somewhere near the wall. The night out with the other teachers had ended in the usual way—cheap beer, bad karaoke, and the long quiet walk back to his empty flat. He still had the taste of sake at the back of his throat.

He was halfway through wrestling with his tie when he realized something was off. The air inside his living room didn’t feel like it normally did—too still, too cold, like a winter wind had slipped through a crack.

And then he saw him.

A man stood near the window, framed by pale moonlight. His clothes looked like something out of an old period drama—a black uniform under a strange, half-and-half haori patterned with a design Sanemi didn’t recognize. A katana hung at his hip, the steel whispering as it shifted with his movement.

But it wasn’t the sword that rooted Sanemi to the spot. It was the man’s face—beautiful in a way that almost hurt. Pale skin kissed by silver light. Eyes the colour of deep water after a storm. A solemn expression that didn’t belong in this world.

Sanemi’s hand fumbled blindly along the counter until he found the nearest thing with weight: a mug. He lifted it like a weapon.

“What the hell—who are you?!” His voice cracked with drink and adrenaline.

The man’s eyes widened—not in malice, but in something like recognition. Surprise softened into something older, sadder.

“Sanemi…” he whispered, voice low but steady, full of an emotion Sanemi couldn’t name.

Sanemi froze. His name. This stranger had said his name like it was a prayer.

“What—how do you know me?” His grip tightened on the mug.

The man took a step forward, then stopped, almost wary, like one wrong move might shatter the moment. His fingers trembled slightly at his side. “I… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude.”

Something about the way he stood—the straightness of his back, the ache in his eyes—made Sanemi hesitate. This wasn’t a burglar. This wasn’t even someone who looked like he belonged in 2025.

“…Are you… a cosplayer or some shit?” he tried, sarcasm his only armour.

The man gave a faint, almost confused smile. “Cos…player?” The word sounded foreign in his mouth.

Sanemi’s stomach twisted. The air around the stranger shimmered faintly, like heat rising from asphalt. For a heartbeat Sanemi thought he could see light bleeding off his shoulders, soft blue, like fragments of water reflecting the moon.

And for the first time in years, Shinazugawa Sanemi felt genuinely, utterly confused.

For a long, suspended second, neither of them moved.

The clock on the wall kept ticking, loud and steady, like it didn’t care that something impossible was standing in the middle of the room.

Sanemi’s knuckles whitened around the mug. He could feel his pulse in his throat.

He blinked once. Twice.

The man was still there.

“Okay,” Sanemi muttered, half to himself, “either I’m still smashed outta my mind or I’ve officially gone off the deep end.”

He pressed a hand to his forehead, trying to remember how many drinks he’d had. Five? Seven? Rengoku had kept pouring.

When he looked again, the man hadn’t moved. He was watching Sanemi with that same quiet, almost reverent expression. The blue light around him flickered faintly, like candle flame fighting a draft.

Sanemi swallowed. “You real?”

The stranger’s eyes softened, a hint of a smile ghosting across his lips. “That depends,” he said gently, “on what you mean by ‘real.’”

“Don’t get philosophical on me,” Sanemi shot back automatically, the edge of his voice meant to cover the tremor underneath.

He took a step forward, slow, cautious. The man’s outline seemed to waver, but didn’t vanish.

“Alright then… let’s see how real you are.”

He reached out—just a quick, rough touch to a shoulder or sleeve, to prove something solid was there.

But his fingers met nothing.

They passed through the man’s sleeve, through his skin, through air that felt too cold.

For an instant, pale blue orbs scattered from the contact, like water droplets catching light. They drifted through Sanemi’s hand before fading into nothing.

Sanemi jerked back with a curse, heart hammering. “What the hell—”

“I’m sorry,” the man said quickly, voice full of something like guilt. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Sanemi stared at his own hand. It tingled faintly, numb and chilled.

“This is some freaky dream,” he muttered. “Has to be. I’m gonna wake up and kill my colleague for that last bottle.”

The man—Giyuu, though Sanemi didn’t know that yet—looked down at his hands. “A dream would be kinder,” he said quietly.

That tone—soft, lonely, final—made Sanemi’s chest tighten. He didn’t like it.

He didn’t like the way this stranger sounded like someone who’d already lost too much.

He dropped the mug onto the couch, rubbed both hands over his face, and groaned.

“Alright, fine. Let’s say I believe you’re… whatever you are. Ghost? Hallucination? You got a name?”

The man lifted his gaze. “Tomioka Giyuu.”

The syllables carried weight, like a memory from another life.

Sanemi blinked. “Tomioka, huh. Figures even ghosts have manners.”

He sank into the nearest chair and exhaled through his teeth.

“Well, Tomioka, congratulations. You picked the wrong damn apartment. I don’t do séances, and I don’t share my rent.”

For the faintest moment, something almost like amusement flickered in Giyuu’s eyes. “I didn’t choose to be here,” he murmured. “It… happened.”

The clock ticked again. Rain started up outside, tapping against the window.

Sanemi looked at him—really looked—and for the first time noticed the faint tear in his haori, the way his sword was half-drawn as if he’d been fighting moments before stepping into this world.

“…Right,” Sanemi said finally, voice rough. “Guess you and I both had a hell of a night.”

Giyuu’s lips parted, as if he wanted to answer, but instead he only nodded once.

And when Sanemi blinked again, the light around him dimmed to a soft glow, settling near the window like the reflection of the moon itself.

The rain outside thickened into a steady whisper.

Sanemi leaned back in his chair, eyes half-lidded but refusing to blink for too long, afraid the vision in front of him might vanish if he did.

Giyuu still stood near the window, the curtain’s edge fluttering through him as if even the fabric didn’t quite know he existed.

He looked lost. Not scared, not angry—just quietly misplaced, like a man who’d stepped off the train one stop too soon and never found his way back.

Sanemi cleared his throat.

“So. Tomioka, huh. You sure you’re not some weird cosplayer who broke in through my balcony?”

Giyuu glanced at him, puzzled. “I still don't know what a Cosplayer is…”

“Right.” Sanemi dragged a hand down his face. “You sound like you crawled straight outta a damn museum.”

“I’m not from here,” Giyuu admitted, eyes dropping to his hands. “From what I've seen here, it's... all different from my time.”

Something in the way he said it—flat, simple, like stating the weather—made Sanemi’s mouth go dry.

He barked a laugh that came out thinner than he meant. “You saying you’re some kind of time-traveling samurai ghost?”

Giyuu didn’t answer. He just looked at him, and the silence that filled the room felt heavier than any words could’ve been.

Sanemi exhaled through his nose. “Alright, prove it. Move something. Knock over a book. Do a ghost trick.”

Giyuu hesitated, then crouched by the low table. His hand brushed toward an old lighter Sanemi had left there. For a moment, the faint blue shimmer surrounded it—but when his fingers touched, the metal only quivered, like stirred water, and stayed where it was.

He drew back slowly. “I can’t,” he said.

Sanemi stared, a cold shiver creeping up his spine.

He wanted to scoff, to tell himself this was the booze talking—but the way that light had bent around Giyuu’s hand looked too real.

“…Hah.” He tried to sound steady. “Figures. Even the ghosts that haunt me are useless.”

To his surprise, Giyuu’s mouth curved in the smallest, softest almost-smile. “I’m sorry.”

That threw Sanemi off more than anything else tonight.

No spirit should look that human, that gentle.

The rain softened. A neon sign from the street outside blinked red through the glass, painting streaks of color over Giyuu’s face.

Sanemi rubbed the back of his neck. “So what, you just gonna stand there all night?”

“I… don’t know where else to go.”

The words settled between them like dust.

Sanemi opened his mouth, shut it again, swore under his breath.

“…Fine. Stay by the damn window if you’re gonna stay. But if you start floating over my bed or chanting weird crap, I’m tossing holy water at you, got it?”

“I won’t,” Giyuu said softly.

“Good.” Sanemi slumped deeper into the chair. His head throbbed; the room spun. “God, I need sleep.”

He closed his eyes for what felt like a heartbeat.

When he opened them again, the sky outside was paler, but not the usual time he gets up—it's too early, too cozy to do so. The rain had stopped—and the space by the window was empty, save for a faint pool of blue light lingering on the floorboards, rippling like water.

Sanemi stared at it for a long time, jaw tight.

“...Yeah,” he muttered to himself. “Definitely too much sake.”

But he didn’t throw away the empty mug.

He just left it on the table, facing the window, and went back to sleep.

The sunlight that crept into Sanemi’s apartment was merciless.

It cut through the blinds like knives, pooling over his coffee table, the couch, the forgotten mug he’d been clutching hours ago. His head pounded like a war drum.

He groaned, dragging himself upright from where he’d fallen asleep in the chair.

His neck ached. His tongue felt like sandpaper.

And the first thing he did was glance at the window.

Still empty.

Just light, the lazy flutter of curtains, and the hum of morning traffic below.

“Figures,” he muttered, rubbing his eyes. “Definitely knew it was the booze.”

Still, something didn’t sit right.

The air had that same faint chill.

And on the wooden floor where he swore that stranger—Tomioka—had been standing, a faint patch of moisture shimmered, like dew that hadn’t dried.

Sanemi crouched, touched it with two fingers. Cold.

Too cold for morning.

He straightened up fast, heartbeat quickening again. “No. Nope. Not doing this.”

He marched to the kitchen, turned on the tap, and splashed water on his face, muttering under his breath.

“Get it together, Shinazugawa. You imagined some weird samurai ghost ‘cause you drank yourself stupid. End of story.”

But as he leaned over the sink, a breeze threaded through the apartment.

No window was open.

The faint scent of rain drifted by—fresh, metallic, like night still clinging to the edges of dawn.

Sanemi froze.

For a moment, the sound of water droplets seemed to echo in the silence.

Then nothing.

Just the tick of the clock again.

He exhaled slowly, grabbed his jacket, and decided he needed the most scalding coffee the school faculty room could provide.

If he didn’t look too closely at the light by the window, maybe it’d stop looking like it rippled when he passed.

The day came and went.

Sanemi taught his classes like usual—snapping chalk, terrifying first-years with equations, barking at anyone who slouched.

No ghosts. No hallucinations.

He told himself that was good.

But when night fell and the rain returned, soft against the glass, the apartment felt different again.

Quieter. Expectant.

He left the light on this time, just in case.

And when he turned from the sink, drying his hands, the air shimmered faintly near the window.

Sanemi froze.

The light gathered like mist, glowing with soft blue-white hues. Then, slowly, it took shape—lines of shoulders, the fall of dark hair, the half-and-half haori settling like memory itself.

Giyuu stood there again, eyes downcast, rainlight catching on his lashes.

Sanemi set the towel down carefully. “You again.”

“I’m sorry,” Giyuu said quietly. “I didn’t mean to frighten you last night.”

Sanemi snorted, crossing his arms. “You break into my house, haunt me, and apologize? You got a real twisted idea of manners.”

“I didn’t choose where to go,” Giyuu said, voice soft. “I was… fighting. Then the light changed. I… woke up here.”

Sanemi frowned, studying him. There was no bravado, no deceit in that tone. Just confusion—and exhaustion that felt centuries old.

He sighed, sank onto the edge of the couch. “You said you’re not from this time.”

Giyuu nodded once. “No. My home was far from here. Long ago.”

For a while, the only sound was the rain and the faint hum of the fridge.

Sanemi rubbed the back of his neck. “So what are you now? Dead? Half-dead?”

Giyuu glanced at his translucent hands. “I don’t know. I only know that I’m… not gone. Not yet.”

Then, as if remembering something, he looked up. “What year is this?”

Sanemi blinked. “What?”

“The era. The year.”

Sanemi raised a brow. “It’s the Reiwa Era. Year’s two thousand twenty-five.”

He gave a small, faintly mocking huff. “Now it’s your turn, samurai ghost. What era are you from?”

Giyuu hesitated, eyes lowering to the floor as though the words themselves weighed too much.

“Taishō Era,” he said quietly. “Nineteen twenty-one.”

Sanemi froze.

The air seemed to still with him. Even the rain outside sounded distant.

He couldn’t bring himself to speak. He just stared, his breath caught somewhere between disbelief and something else—something heavier.

“…You’re kidding,” he managed finally, voice rough.

But Giyuu only looked at him with that same quiet sadness, and didn’t answer.

Something in Sanemi’s chest shifted, painfully slow.

He bit back the next question that rose and instead muttered, “Well, you better not wreck my place while you figure it out.”

“I’ll try not to.”

Sanemi huffed out a breath that was almost a laugh.

He gestured vaguely toward the couch. “Fine. You can stay by the window again. Seems like your thing.”

Giyuu nodded, moving to his usual spot, the faint shimmer around him casting ripples over the wall.

For a long while, they said nothing.

Sanemi turned on the small desk lamp, grading papers he could barely focus on.

But when he looked up again, Giyuu was still there, watching the rain with that same quiet sadness—like a man staring at a life he could no longer touch.

And for the first time, Sanemi didn’t feel completely alone in his apartment.

The next few nights followed an odd rhythm.

Sanemi would come home late, toss his keys on the table, mutter a half-hearted greeting to the window—and the blue shimmer would answer him.

Tomioka Giyuu. The ghost. The relic. The quiet constant that shouldn’t exist and yet somehow did.

Sanemi stopped pretending he couldn’t see him.

Stopped trying to reason the whole thing away as a hangover that lasted too long.

He wasn’t sure when it happened, but somewhere between midnight and the next sunrise, he’d gotten used to Giyuu being there—standing near the window, watching the rain, sometimes glancing at Sanemi’s laptop like it was witchcraft.

Tonight was no different.

Except that Sanemi, restless and too sober for sleep, finally asked the question he’d been avoiding.

“So. Those things you said.” He closed his grading folder, setting it aside. “The fighting. The sword. You called them ‘demons,’ right?”

Giyuu’s gaze lifted from the window. “Yes.”

Sanemi leaned back, arms crossed. “You’re saying demons were real. That’s what you fought.”

“Yes.”

His tone was so calm, so certain, that it almost made Sanemi angry.

He needed disbelief to keep the world stable. He needed something to laugh at.

“Demons,” he repeated, voice edged with sarcasm. “Yeah, sure. Fangs and claws and all that. Sounds like something my old man’s father used to ramble about when he got too deep into his cups.”

Giyuu tilted his head slightly. “Your… grandfather?”

Sanemi nodded, a humorless chuckle escaping him. “Yeah. Said the world used to have ‘slayers’ with breathing techniques. Whole secret corps hunting monsters. Told me that’s why our family had good lungs.”

He scoffed. “I figured he was just old and sentimental. You know how it is—ancient war stories and bedtime horror tales.”

Giyuu’s expression didn’t change. But something flickered behind his eyes—faint, aching recognition.

“…He wasn’t lying,” he said quietly.

Sanemi froze halfway through a smirk. “You telling me my grandpa wasn’t senile?”

“I’m telling you,” Giyuu murmured, “he remembered.”

The room seemed to shrink around those words.

Sanemi stared at him, the usual sharpness in his eyes giving way to something uncertain, unsteady.

He tried to laugh again but it came out thin. “Right. You expect me to believe my bloodline fought demons. That’s rich.”

Giyuu looked back toward the window, rainlight painting his face in fractured silver. “Believe what you wish,” he said softly. “I only know what I saw.”

Sanemi swallowed hard. He didn’t know why, but the quiet way Giyuu said it—without trying to convince him, without anger or defense—somehow made it harder to dismiss.

For a while, neither of them spoke. The rain filled the silence for them.

Finally, Sanemi muttered, “You really talk like a history book, you know that?”

“Then I’m exactly where I belong,” Giyuu said. There was a faint curve to his lips—not quite a smile, more like memory.

Sanemi stared at him for a long moment, then huffed, rubbing the back of his neck.

“…You’re a strange bastard, Tomioka.”

“Yes,” Giyuu agreed quietly. “So are you.”

And for the first time, Sanemi actually laughed.

Just once, low and rough—but real.

The ghost didn’t laugh with him. But the blue light by the window seemed to pulse a little brighter, like it was listening.

The nights grew longer.

Maybe it was the season, maybe it was the company — but Sanemi stopped dreading the dark.

Stopped leaving the TV on to fill the silence.

He’d come home, toss his keys somewhere near the couch, and mutter, “Evening, Tomioka,” like it was the most normal thing in the world.

Giyuu would always be there.

Sometimes faint, barely visible against the window’s reflection, sometimes sharper — almost solid — when the moonlight was strong.

It was strange, how normal it started to feel.

Tonight, Sanemi brought his laptop to the table and cracked open another can of beer.

He’d been trying to catch up on grading but his curiosity finally won.

“So, you said you were fighting,” Sanemi began, tapping his fingers on the can. “With swords. Against demons. There was… a whole organization?”

“Yes.” Giyuu’s voice was as even as ever, but his gaze drifted toward the window again, lost in rainlight.

“It was called the Demon Slayer Corps.”

Sanemi snorted softly. “Catchy.”

Giyuu didn’t rise to the sarcasm. “We were few. Hidden. We had no place in the records of your world, because by the time you were born, there were no demons left.”

Sanemi frowned, half because of the words, half because of how calmly they were spoken. “You talk like you actually cleaned house.”

Giyuu was quiet for a long time.

Then, softly: “We tried.”

The rain pressed harder against the glass.

Sanemi didn’t miss the shift in Giyuu’s tone — how it wasn’t pride or relief, but something heavier.

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “You were one of the soldiers. A ‘slayer,’ you said?”

Giyuu nodded once. “The Water Hashira.”

“Hashira?”

“Pillars,” Giyuu explained. “The highest rank among us. There were nine in my time.”

“Lemme guess, all nicknamed after elements or some other weird shit?”

“Flame. Sound. Serpent. Love. Mist. Stone. Insect. Wind.”

He paused just slightly.

Then added, “And Water.”

Sanemi blinked, the rhythm of those words oddly familiar.

“Wind, huh? Sounds like a family thing.”

For the briefest flicker of time, Giyuu’s expression changed. The tiniest breath caught — gone as quickly as it came.

“…Yes,” he said finally. “The Wind Pillar was… difficult. But brave.”

Sanemi smirked. “What, a rival?”

Giyuu didn’t answer, and that silence was louder than any response could’ve been.

So Sanemi filled it himself, half-joking, half-reaching. “You’re tellin’ me all this, and yet there’s not a damn record about it anywhere. No slayers, no monsters. Either history’s lazy, or you’re one hell of a ghost storyteller.”

Giyuu’s eyes lowered. “Perhaps both.”

Sanemi sighed, picked up his laptop.

“Alright, Water Ghost. Let’s test that.”

He opened the browser, fingers typing rough searches:

"Taisho Era demon slayer legends."

"Demon hunter folklore Japan 1920s."

The screen flooded with grainy scans and urban legends.

"Old reports of “sword-wielding vigilantes.”

Crude sketches of a crest — a wisteria flower — and the same kanji Giyuu had once muttered.

Even an archived note from an old scholar theorizing that “Hashira” referred to the spiritual guardians of that time.

Sanemi’s breath caught.

He looked up slowly.

“You gotta be kidding me,” he whispered. “This—this crap matches what you said.”

Giyuu didn’t answer. He was watching the screen with quiet recognition, like seeing a reflection of ghosts he’d already buried.

“How the hell…” Sanemi muttered, scrolling faster. “No, there’s no way. None of this should—”

“Some things,” Giyuu interrupted softly, “were meant to be forgotten.”

Sanemi looked up sharply, but Giyuu’s eyes were far away.

The rainlight caught the edge of his form again — flickering faintly, like a candle about to gutter out.

“Hey—” Sanemi started, his tone sharper than intended. “You fading or somethin’?”

Giyuu blinked slowly, the blue shimmer stabilizing. “Not yet.”

Sanemi stared at him, at that calm acceptance that made his chest ache.

“You talk like you already know how this ends.”

Giyuu’s gaze softened, lips curving into something that was almost — almost — a smile.

“Don’t you?”

Sanemi exhaled, ran a hand through his hair. “Tch. You’re a real pain in the ass, you know that?”

“Yes,” Giyuu said simply.

And this time, the faintest hint of humor touched his voice — so small that it startled Sanemi into a quiet laugh.

He leaned back, staring at the blue flicker by the window.

Maybe he was still dreaming. Maybe he’d finally lost it.

But for some reason, hearing the rain and seeing that faint light there — it didn’t feel so lonely anymore.

Chapter Text

For the first time since the ghost began haunting his apartment, Sanemi came home before ten.

He told himself it was because he’d finished grading early. It had nothing to do with the thought that maybe the quiet, blue shimmer would already be waiting.

It was.

Giyuu stood near the window again, calm as a painting. The city lights blinked beneath him—cars streaming, neon signs pulsing, rain beginning its nightly rhythm.

Sanemi kicked off his shoes. “You just stand there all day, huh?”

“I like the view,” Giyuu answered softly. “It moves.”

Sanemi snorted. “That’s called traffic.”

Giyuu blinked. “Does it attack people?”

“Only your patience.”

Later, Sanemi found himself watching the spirit explore like a bewildered cat.

Giyuu crouched beside the television, head tilted. The bright screen reflected across his faint outline.

“It’s a… box of moving portraits?” he asked.

“It’s TV,” Sanemi said. “Shows people pretending to live.”

“Pretending?” Giyuu murmured, frowning slightly. “Why not just live?”

That one actually made Sanemi laugh—loud, short, surprised. “You got me there, samurai.”

He didn’t miss how Giyuu’s expression softened at the sound, almost like he’d never heard someone laugh for him before.

When Giyuu discovered the refrigerator, he startled so badly that Sanemi nearly dropped his phone.

The hum kicked on and the ghost jumped back, hand on his sword out of pure habit.

“It growled at me,” he said, completely serious.

“It’s a fridge, not a demon,” Sanemi wheezed between laughs. “Keeps food cold.”

Giyuu leaned closer, curiosity overriding caution. He reached out—but his hand slipped through the door, scattering a shimmer of blue light that fizzled against the steel.

He stared at his hand for a moment. The smile that followed was small but real.

“I used to guard others from things that devoured. Now even food boxes frighten me.”

Sanemi tried to play it off, but his grin lingered longer than it should have. “You’re hopeless, Tomioka.”

“Perhaps,” Giyuu replied calmly. “But I’m learning.”

Each night became a rhythm of small discoveries.

The kettle startled him the first time it whistled; he bowed to it apologetically afterward.

He tried to mimic Sanemi’s coffee-making ritual, concentrating so hard that Sanemi had to bite his cheek not to laugh at a ghost earnestly studying a mug he couldn’t touch.

And once—God help him—Giyuu tried to follow the sound of music through Sanemi’s earphones, only to mutter, “There are people trapped inside these cords.”

Sanemi almost choked on his drink.

He didn’t say it out loud, but there was something—adorable—about watching the stoic warrior unravel at every modern marvel. The man looked like a lost relic, yes, but a strangely endearing one.

He didn’t say that either.

Then one night, the laughter died too quickly.

Giyuu was at the window again, tracing the city lights with distant eyes when the blue around him flickered—sharp, jagged, like static.

Sanemi’s brow furrowed. “Hey. You do that light trick on purpose?”

Giyuu blinked, steadying himself. “No. It happens sometimes.”

“You okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said—too quickly.

The shimmer stabilized, but for a moment his form had looked thinner, edges dissolving before pulling back together.

Sanemi wanted to ask again, but something in Giyuu’s face—calm, too calm—told him not to press.

So he just muttered, “Don’t short-circuit on me. I don’t know how to fix a ghost.”

A faint smile touched Giyuu’s lips. “I’ll manage.”

But when Sanemi turned away, Giyuu’s hand brushed his own chest, just where his heartbeat should’ve been.

Pain pulsed there—sharp, distant, as though carried from another world.

He closed his eyes, breath hitching.

Not yet, he thought. I can’t fade yet.

When he opened them, Sanemi was watching him again—pretending he wasn’t worried, pretending this wasn’t slowly getting under his skin.

“Hungry?” Sanemi asked gruffly. “I’ve got ramen. You can, uh, look at it.”

Giyuu chuckled—quiet, genuine—and the flicker steadied once more.

Days slipped into something resembling routine.

Sanemi woke, went to work, barked at teenagers, came home, and found a ghost waiting by the window.

It should’ve been insane.

But insanity, it seemed, was easier to live with than loneliness.

And somewhere in between, they started talking—really talking.

“Repeat after me,” Sanemi said one night, pointing at the TV. “That’s a remote control.”

“Re-mot con-trol,” Giyuu echoed carefully, as if reciting sacred text.

“Good. You use it to change channels.”

Giyuu frowned faintly. “Does it control the box people live in?”

Sanemi burst out laughing, nearly dropping his beer. “Nah, it just changes what idiot you’re watching.”

Giyuu’s brow knit, the confusion so genuine that it made Sanemi’s grin soften. “You really are hopeless,” he said, shaking his head.

Giyuu didn’t answer, but the corner of his mouth lifted. “Perhaps. But I learn fast.”

The progress began by accident.

Sanemi had been tossing a pen back and forth while explaining what a smartphone was. Giyuu, curious, reached out to trace the motion.

At first, the pen simply slipped through his hand in a shimmer of blue light—like always.

Then, on instinct, Giyuu tried again—slowly, focus narrowing to his fingertips, like steadying a breathing form.

The air thickened. The shimmer brightened.

And the pen stopped midair.

Balanced. Trembling. Real.

Sanemi’s jaw dropped. “Holy shit.”

Giyuu blinked, startled himself. The pen wobbled once, but didn’t fall. He stared at it like it was a living thing.

“Did you—” Sanemi started. “You just moved that. You—what the hell, you got telekinesis now?”

Giyuu tilted his head. “Tele… what?”

Sanemi huffed out a laugh, running a hand through his hair. “Never mind. You’re a freakin’ Jedi now, congratulations.”

Giyuu frowned, completely lost—but when he caught Sanemi’s grin, something warm flickered across his face. The faintest smile.

It stayed.

After that night, everything changed in small, beautiful ways.

Giyuu began learning to hold things. At first, just light touches—a spoon, a page corner, the switch of a lamp.

He’d tremble every time, terrified it would dissolve through his fingers again, but it didn’t. Not anymore.

One evening, Sanemi came home to find the refrigerator door open and Giyuu standing in front of it, utterly transfixed.

“You didn’t,” Sanemi said, half laughing.

“I did,” Giyuu said, sounding both proud and guilty. “It no longer growls.”

“You made peace with it, huh?”

“I apologized,” Giyuu admitted, straight-faced.

Sanemi grinned so wide his cheeks hurt. “You’re unbelievable.”

Soon he could even manage the washing machine. When it whirred to life, he startled again—but didn’t flinch this time.

Instead, he looked back at Sanemi with a quiet glow that was almost childlike.

“See? You’re a natural,” Sanemi said, watching him with a strange fondness he couldn’t name.

Then came the night that sealed it.

It had been a brutal day.

Students misbehaving, paperwork piling, the principal calling him “too harsh.” By the time Sanemi stumbled into his apartment, the weight of exhaustion sat heavy in his chest.

He unlocked the door, expecting darkness.

Instead, every light was on. The faint hum of the kettle filled the silence.

And on the table—two steaming mugs of coffee.

He blinked. “…What the hell?”

Giyuu stood by the counter, the glow around him soft, steady.

“I noticed that coffee calms you down,” he said simply. “So I made some.”

Sanemi’s throat tightened.

He didn’t remember the last time anyone had done something that gentle for him.

He walked over, staring at the two cups. “Why two?” he asked, voice rougher than he meant.

Giyuu froze. For a heartbeat, he looked as though he hadn’t realized it himself.

Then a small, shy smile touched his lips. “I forgot,” he said quietly. “That I can’t drink it.”

The words landed between them like a stone dropped into water.

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward—it was heavy, aching, full.

Sanemi swallowed hard, something burning in his chest.

He reached out, slow, unsure—until his fingers brushed against Giyuu’s hand.

And right before contact, the skin beneath his fingertips dissolved into light—tiny, trembling orbs of blue drifting up like fireflies before fading.

Sanemi froze, breath catching.

That familiar ache, the one he thought he’d buried years ago, cracked wide open.

“Damn it…” he whispered, barely audible.

Giyuu only looked at him with that same soft sadness—the kind that didn’t need words to be understood.

The second cup of coffee cooled untouched.

But Sanemi didn’t throw it away.

Everytime Giyuu forgets and makes cups for two, Sanemi leaves it there, every night after, beside his own.

It started quietly.

They’d been sitting together—the usual scene.

Sanemi grading papers at the table, muttering curses at messy handwriting, Giyuu quietly cleaning the counter for the fifth time that night, though he didn’t technically have to.

Outside, the rain sang its usual low lullaby against the glass.

Then Giyuu froze.

It was subtle at first—a hand tightening against the countertop, a tremor that made the cup he was holding rattle faintly.

Sanemi looked up just in time to see the light around him stutter.

“Oi,” he said, brows furrowing. “You okay?”

Giyuu opened his mouth to answer but couldn’t.

The air seemed to leave him all at once. His hand flew to his chest, breath hitching. His body folded forward, knees hitting the floor in silence.

“Tomioka!”

Sanemi was on his feet in an instant, chair scraping back violently.

He knelt beside him, instinct screaming to touch—to steady—to do something—but his hand stopped halfway, shaking.

He couldn’t touch him. Couldn’t ground him.

“Shit, shit—hey, breathe—hell, you can’t even—damn it!”

Sanemi’s voice cracked, rough with panic. He hovered uselessly, fingers twitching near Giyuu’s shoulder. Every time he got too close, the faint light sparked again, threatening to break him apart.

“C’mon, dammit, hold on—”

Giyuu couldn’t hear him anymore.

The room had blurred into white light, his vision swimming.

He wasn’t seeing Sanemi now—he was somewhere else.

Bright. Too bright.

The smell of antiseptic and iron.

The rhythmic beat of his heart thumping in his own chest, going faster as seconds pass by.

He was lying in what seemed like the beds he lied on to in the Butterfly Estate..

His real body.

There were bandages wrapped tight around his chest, the sheets stained faintly with red. His skin was pale, lips chapped. Wires snaking from his arm.

He could hear voices through the haze.

“Giyuu-san! Please—please, stay with us!”

Aoi’s voice, trembling and tight.

And another—

“Tomioka-san, hang on!”

…Tanjirou.

The boy’s voice cracked on his name.

His heart clenched again, a bolt of pain so sharp he almost blacked out completely. He could feel it—his pulse struggling, his lungs fighting for air back in the time he came from.

And then—

like the breath of wind after a storm—

it stopped.

The pain didn’t vanish; it simply dulled into stillness.

The white light dimmed.

And when he blinked, the cold was gone.

He was back.

Back in the apartment, the rain still falling.

Sanemi kneeling in front of him, eyes wide, jaw tight.

“Hey—hey, you with me?” Sanemi’s voice was rough, somewhere between anger and fear. “Don’t you—don’t you dare pull that disappearing act on me again.”

Giyuu blinked once, twice, trying to steady his breath.

“I’m—fine,” he managed, voice faint.

“The hell you are!” Sanemi barked, though the venom wasn’t there. “You scared the shit outta me!”

Giyuu flinched, straightened up slowly, still pale with the lingering echo of whatever pain had torn through him.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”

Sanemi opened his mouth to yell again, but the words died somewhere behind his teeth.

He exhaled sharply instead, raking a hand through his hair. “Tch. You’re gonna kill me before your damn demons do.”

Something in Giyuu’s expression shifted at that—a faint flicker of realization.

He looked down at his trembling hands, light pulsing faintly beneath the skin.

“…Sanemi,” he said quietly.

“What?”

“I don’t think I can stay here forever.”

Sanemi froze. The words hit harder than they should have, like someone had cut the ground from under him.

He didn’t answer—not immediately. Just stared at Giyuu, at the man made of light and rain and borrowed time.

Finally, he muttered, low and stubborn, “We’ll

figure it out later. You’re here now.”

Giyuu looked up, meeting his gaze.

That small, gentle smile returned—fragile, like glass, but full of warmth.

“Yes,” he said softly. “For now.”

The rain kept falling.

Sanemi didn’t move, afraid that if he blinked too long, the light in front of him would vanish again.