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Tomioka Giyuu hadn’t really looked at his wife’s hands before, not until they were married. They were soft, petite, a little pinkish, and yet strangely lacking the calluses one would expect from someone whose main career used to be wielding swords. One would think she was truly noble-born, someone who had never once had to work hard a day in her entire life.
But he, who had spent countless nights lying still beneath her palms as they traveled across his abdomen, stitching shut open wounds, knew for certain that she was the most incredible woman he had ever met in his entire life.
But it’s really difficult to say all that to the woman herself, lest she laugh at his clumsy compliment and tell him he’d finally started talking like an actual human. So instead, he makes sure she knows through the way he holds her hands just a little bit longer when they fall into bed, and he adores the lovely, slightly abashed sounds she makes when she laughs as he presses a soft kiss to each of her fingertips.
Now, as a wife in a world without demons, Shinobu still works as hard as ever, refusing to let herself stay still. With all the fortune she earned from her demon-slaying work, she opens a small clinic right next to the Butterfly Estate, where she treats common illnesses for people at a low price – if it could even be called a price at all – almost as if it were entirely free. Her hands, which once tended to countless slayers like him, now bestow their gentleness on thousands of others too, her touch soft and careful, carrying a kind of magic that seems to make even the worst of pain fade away.
He knows how lucky he is, and the other patients make sure he knows they know it too, shooting him jealous looks as they head out the door after their visits. Shinobu only laughs kindly when he tells her about it later that night, pretending to make a sulky face at her (though some part of the sulk isn’t entirely pretend).
“They’re not jealous of you. Why would they be?” she says. “Tomioka-san keeps accusing them of things they didn’t do. That’s why people dislike you.”
“You’re a Tomioka now, too,” he reminds her again for the umpteenth time. “And no, I’m not disliked. You like me.”
“I only like you because you’re my husband. That doesn’t count.”
Nevertheless, he still gets a kiss on the lips before they both fall asleep.
And it’s not just her hands; there is something else entirely different about the way she is around him, too.
With him, she seems even softer, if that’s even possible; she always has that look in her eyes whenever she sees him tending the orchids in the garden or fixing the fence around the house. As if she can’t quite believe he’s real, and not some shattered fragment of her imagination.
Back then, he’d had an inkling that Kocho Shinobu held some place for him in her heart. Yet, the way she treated everyone the same, paired with his own profound lack of social awareness, made him think more than once that he’d simply woven his own wishfulness into the way she acted.
But now, she makes it clear as day that to her, he is the only one, and no one else.
He still struggles, even now, even to this day, to let himself accept that he could be loved by someone like Kocho Shinobu.
But she is an incredible woman, the smartest person he knows, and her judgment has never been wrong; he has never doubted that for a second. So if even she believes he is someone worth loving, then there must be some truth to it.
He clings to that belief like an anchor and reminds himself of it every day, to give himself courage, to be braver.