Chapter Text
It started as a passing thought.
Sanemi was standing outside of the Ubayashiki Mansion, snow piling up around the courtyard as he waited for the other Hashira to arrive for their annual meeting.
It was likely the last snowfall before the spring came swinging by. Some of the trees surrounding the mansion still stood standing in the harsh cold, white snow dusted on rich, deep green leaves. The gravel was powdered with enough snow to leave noticeable footprints, though Sanemi’s has already been covered up in the last few minutes he’d been sitting out here alone– he’d been the first to arrive, stationed on a scouting mission nearby while all the others had got sent to actually get some blood on their hands. Snow was already starting to settle and cling to his hair and eyelashes.
He crouched down, putting his arms around his knees. His uniform wasn’t exactly… practical, in these situations, but he refused to modify it. Still, he shucked the sleeve of his haori further up his shoulders for some warmth. The snow continued to bite at his skin, now slightly flushed by the cold. Wind whipped by his ears; he almost didn’t notice the soft crunching of footsteps on snow until they got to the border of the courtyard.
He turned his head to look over just as they started to turn the corner into the area directly in front of the mansion, their haori whipping in the wind to flutter ahead of them.
A flash of maroon– wisps of black, inky hair, blowing with the cold breeze.
Giyuu turned into the courtyard. His steps were gentle, light enough to barely mark his path; quiet enough to be disturbing, too. Creepy bastard. Sanemi was already halfway through turning his eyes back to the porch a few meters in front of him and opening his mouth to grunt out a “took you fuckin’ long enough”, before he proccessed the full picture–
Giyuu’s hair was down. For some reason.
It was flowing lightly in the wind, messier than usual. A noticeable amount of snowflakes were brushed on the inky mess, standing out against the darkness, a little reflective in the cold sunlight. Some of it had been blown over his shoulders, the rest tumbling down his back; it was heavily layered and choppy, like it’d been cut in battle– it probably had been. Wasn’t like he cut it himself, anyway. Tufts stuck out everywhere, curling over the slopes of his neck and just barely reaching his chin in the front.
His already fair complexion was made even lighter by the season’s scarce daylight hours; his face was slightly flushed in the cold, cheeks dusted a pale pink just dark enough to be noticeable at a passing glance. He was wearing his usual eye bags, permanent from a lack of sleep– from the angle that Sanemi was looking up at him from, his eyelashes cast a small shadow under his eyes, a deep blue peeking out from underneath. He looked kind of like a porcelain doll against the dark backdrop of his hair, with flushed cheeks and dark eyelashes. God, he was so fucking pretty.
…Wait.
Sanemi’s brain stalled.
Had he just thought that fucking Giyuu Tomioka, of all people, was… pretty?
He could feel his mouth still hanging slightly open over unfinished words, but he made no move to close it. He felt himself blink once. Slowly. His eyes were still stuck on Giyuu’s figure in the distance, walking into the courtyard.
Unfortunately for him, his previous thought was still swirling around in his head, ringing in his ears as loudly as the wind tearing past him. As much as it was absolutely infuriating that he was thinking this about Giyuu, out of every possible option, he could not stop thinking it. Fuck.
Just as he was trying to deal with his internal crisis, Giyuu walked over to stand directly next to him. From further up close, he could vaguely see a few snowflakes dusting over the tip of his nose, lightly resting over the pink skin and shining in the sunlight. The flush on his face still looked like blush, dusted onto perfectly smooth skin. Sanemi could still feel his mouth hanging a bit open, breath coming out in visible clouds in front of his face– the lack of reaction time, ability to think on his feet, ability to form a thought at all, should be very concerning for a Hashira.
The snow continued to fall around them, and Giyuu shifted slightly to turn his head down at him, a slightly concerned look in his eyes.
“Are you okay?”
Sanemi’s brows furrowed just a bit. His jaw was still hanging open and his eyes still hadn’t moved from Giyuu even a slight bit. He could feel himself blinking the snowflakes off of his eyelashes, like he was subconsciously trying to look at Giyuu as clearly as he could.
Giyuu blinked at him questioningly a few times before his brain could produce something other than, this is the prettiest man I have ever seen.
“Why the hell’s your hair down?”
Giyuuu lightly cocked his head to the side. His hair swayed with it, still floating gently with the wind; his pretty, pretty face looked a little condescendingly down at Sanemi.
“My hair tie broke during my mission, while I was fighting.”
They sat in silence for a few seconds, staring at each other.
“Really, are you okay? You’ve been staring at me for a while now. Your face is oddly flushed– do you have a cold?”
The comment snapped Sanemi out of his Giyuu-induced stupor, just enough for him to finally snap his jaw shut and turn it into a scowl instead. “Just shut up.”
“You asked me, Shinazugawa.”
“What did you just say to me–”
The beginnings of their fight– really, Sanemi yelling at Giyuu while the bastard stood there and looked down on him– were interrupted by more footsteps crunching through the snow.
Mitsuri trotted in with Obanai by her side, with way too much sunshine fucking bubbling out of her mouth with how cold she must be feeling with that uniform– that thing was worse than Sanemi’s, and he was shivering even curled up like he was. She pulled Obanai along with her as she spotted the other two Hashira and ran up to them, eagerly attempting to catch up with them both. Sanemi refused to even engage, propping his chin up onto his hand and looking in the completely opposite direction.
He could hear Mitsuri stop next to Giyuu and start to harass him about his hair. Obanai walked around and stood in front of Sanemi, blocking his sight so he’d be forced to look up at his friend’s questioning gaze.
“Are you okay?”
Sanemi scoffed at the muffled question, finding somewhere else to stare at in the distance and turning his head further downwards.
“Will everyone stop asking me that?”
“If everyone is asking you that, then something must be wrong.”
“Fuck off.”
“Defensive, today, then.”
Sanemi’s eye twitched. He didn’t look up at Obanai again, even if he could feel his eyes burning the top of his head where he was staring at him. He stayed crouching on the ground, hand covering most of his face, as the rest of the Hashira trickled into the courtyard; he apparently looked bothered enough, more so than usual, that they didn’t bother bothering him. He only got up and looked anywhere other than the tree he’d been staring at since Obanai started talking to him once they were called into the Ubayashiki Mansion for the meeting to begin.
He took his spot kneeling next to Giyuu. And if he was looking at him out of his peripheral vision the whole time, it was out of hatred.
That night, walking back to the Wind Estate, there was still something twirling around in the back of his mind– he was adamantly trying to ignore it, but his thoughts kept swirling around like a blizzard. He had seen Giyuu walking out of the courtyard on his way back to his own estate, without talking to anyone to give a farewell.
His hair was still down; he’s heard Mitsuri offer him something to tie it back with while they were waiting outside, but he refused– acting all fuckin’ high and mighty, like he usually did. If he didn’t find a hair tie, this thing was gonna start impeding on his work. Not that Sanemi cared at all; the fucker could make whatever bad decisions he wanted, turning down charity because he thought he was better than the rest of them. Not like he’d prefer if he kept his hair down. At all.
He kicked snow out of his way on the dirt path.
Giyuu’s hair had picked up enough snow while he was standing outside that once they walked into the slightly more heated area of the mansion, it got damp from the melting snow. It picked up a slight wave, curling around his chin and on his back. There was probably water dripping down his back– there were tiny droplets of water running down his face from his bangs, from where Sanemi could see. He had a little pout on his face, like he was annoyed by the water droplets rolling down his cheeks but he didn’t want to move to wipe it off. It was kind of cute.
Sanemi scowled and started taking heavier, angrier steps. The wind picked up.
He really couldn’t tell why his dumbass brain decided to suddenly get really stuck to the guy he hated most in his immediate circle. He had never once found Giyuu attractive before this— nothing about his inky, shiny mess of hair that circled just right to frame his face, or his eyes that were usually a dull, stormy blue, or the pink flushed skin on his knuckles from the cold or on his fingers from holding a sword, or the way his face lit up around that Kamado kid, or the passion raging like a river he used to swear he could see in him sometimes.
Definitely, definitely not that last one. Especially not that.
He could imagine Giyuu and his stupid, very pretty face walking over to the Water Estate— all solemn and shit like he usually was. Stupid and annoying and so pretty.
Sanemi could imagine him having some pretentious routine, where he got that annoyingly perfect skin from. He probably took baths with rose petals or something like that. Why was he imagining that.
Sanemi was a minor inconvenience away from hitting someone hard enough to put them in a coma. Especially if that person could be himself.
He finally made it to the gates of the Wind Estate, shoving them open impolitely. He saw a kakushi whip around their head to stare at him, a little shocked at his sudden appearance, then quickly turn the completely opposite direction to fake dust something when they saw the look on his face. He stomped down the path to his personal quarters, ripping open the screen and falling back onto his futon without even bothering to undo his shoes. He just let his sword clatter to the floor beside him, staring up at the ceiling.
He was so fucked.