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Functioning as an adult was a trial Giyuu Tomioka was failing. It was harder than anyone had ever warned him, especially when the world no longer required his blade.
He was a Hashira, a man who had looked into the eyes of death a thousand times.. yet he couldn’t seem to master the simple art of filling a room. He sat in the center of his estate, a silent figure in a space that should have been teeming with the noise of family and the clutter of a life lived well. Instead, the floorboards were thick with dust, save for the small, lonely patch where he spent his days.
'I should be doing something,' he thought, his limbs feeling strangely heavy, as if his blood had turned to lead.
'I should make a list. Kyojuro used to help Muichiro with those... Kyojuro did everything for everyone.'
His gaze drifted to the only thing in the room that wasn't a necessity: a pair of glasses resting on a low table. He didn’t need them to see, but Kyojuro had once made a habit of stopping by, wearing them to perform ridiculous skits in an attempt to make Giyuu smile.
"I wish I had smiled for him," Giyuu whispered to the empty air. His voice sounded thin, brittle. "Maybe I wouldn't have been such a burden then. He wouldn't have felt so pressured to come by."
"Tomioka-san! I enjoyed your company immensely! You must not bring yourself down like that!"
The voice was like a physical blow. It was too clear, too resonant to be a mere trick of the memory.
Giyuu’s reaction was delayed by the sluggishness in his veins, but when he finally spun around, his heart hammered against his ribs as if he were facing an Upper Moon. There, standing in the doorway, bathed in a light that shouldn't exist in this dusty room, was Kyojuro Rengoku.
He was supposed to be dead. Giyuu had seen the grave; he had felt the hole left in the world when that fire went out.
"...I’m losing my mind," Giyuu breathed, his knuckles whitening as he clenched his fists. The silence of the house felt predatory now, closing in around him. There was nothing more terrifying than being trapped alone with a mind that was beginning to fracture.
He blinked, a sharp, stinging motion intended to clear the hallucination.
But when his eyes opened, the dust was gone. The cold, heavy ache in his chest had vanished, replaced by the savory, mouth-watering scent of grilled Salmon, and the golden glow of lanterns.
"Giyuu-san? Are you alright? You looked miles away!"
Giyuu looked down. He wasn't in his empty estate. He was sitting at a low table, a pair of chopsticks in his hand. To his left, Mitsuri Kanroji was leaning in with a look of pure concern, her eyes wide and kind. And across from him...
Across from him sat Kyojuro, his cape tucked neatly behind him, looking as vibrant and alive as the sun itself.
The nightmare of the empty house felt like the dream now—and this, the warmth and the noise and the man before him, felt like the only truth that mattered.
Despite the delayed reaction, after a few seconds Tomioka turned around as if someone was being eaten alive behind him, that was Rengoku. He was dead. How was that..
He stared at his chopsticks, his fingers trembling so minutely he wondered if the others could see it.
'Okay... I’m... losing it...'
His mind raced, a frantic bird trapped in a cage. Was that... a daydream? Everything? Nezuko becoming human, the Infinity Castle, Muzan being defeated... everyone dying?
A wave of nausea rolled through him. The disappointment hit Giyuu like a physical blow- a heavy, suffocating weight that made his lungs feel small. All that suffering, the jagged edge of the grief he had finally learned to carry, the hollow relief of the war’s end... was it all for nothing? Had his mind simply invented a nightmare to fill the silence of a quiet life?
'No', he thought, a desperate spark of his resolve flickering. If I know what’s coming... I can make sure it ends better. I can save them. I can—
"Tomioka-san? You’re staring at your daikon as if it’s an enemy combatant!"
Kyojuro’s voice, vibrant and full of life, shattered the spiraling thoughts. Giyuu looked up, and the sheer presence of the man. the way the lantern light caught the gold in his hair was enough to make the "future" feel like a fever dream. The empty, dusty estate felt miles away, a shadow that couldn't survive in this much light.
He took a breath, letting the warmth of the restaurant ground him. He didn't want the nightmare. He wanted this.
".. I’d like to do this more often," Giyuu said, his voice sounding surer than he felt. "If you don't mind."
"Kyaa! How sweet!" Mitsuri clapped her hands together, her eyes sparkling with genuine delight. "I’d love to go out for dinner with you guys more! It’s so nice to not be the only one eating so much food! It makes everything taste better, doesn't it?"
"I agree!" Kyojuro let out a hearty laugh, the sound vibrating through the table and into Giyuu’s very bones. "We swordsmen should enjoy these moments of peace while we can! Especially by deepening our bonds of friendship!"
Giyuu felt the tension bleed out of his shoulders. A small, rare smile crept onto his face, unbidden and soft.
thank goodness... thank goodness it was all a dream. He let the "memory" of the war slide away, burying it deep beneath the sound of Mitsuri’s laughter and the heat of Kyojuro’s presence. He would enjoy this moment, and every moment to come. He wouldn't let the shadow of a "future" that didn't exist ruin the beautiful reality of the man sitting right in front of him.
.
The cheerful energy of the restaurant faded behind them, replaced by the sound of their steps on the cobblestones. The night air was crisp, carrying the faint scent of wisteria and damp grass. When a messenger crow spiraled down to intercept them, Mitsuri offered a hurried, apologetic wave before disappearing into the shadows of the treeline.
Suddenly, the world felt much larger and much quieter.
Giyuu kept his gaze fixed on the path ahead. The silence between them wasn't empty; it was heavy with the heat radiating from the man walking just a half-step beside him.
"Thank you for inviting me today, Rengoku," Giyuu said, his voice barely rising above the sound of their footsteps. "It's nice to... socialize outside of work."
Kyojuro stopped. He didn’t just slow down; he halted completely, turning his torso toward Giyuu. The haori he wore flared slightly in the breeze, looking like guttering flames in the dark.
"It certainly is!" Kyojuro’s voice was bright, but he caught himself, lowering the volume until it was a resonant hum. He took a single step closer, closing the gap until Giyuu could feel the warmth of the Flame Hashira’s breath. "I'm just thankful it wasn't busy. I wanted to be sure I could hear your voice."
He chuckled then, a deep, rhythmic sound that vibrated in his chest. In the past, Giyuu had found Kyojuro’s volume a bit overwhelming, a side effect of the man’s damaged eardrums that made every conversation feel like a battlefield briefing. But here, under the canopy of stars, Kyojuro was practicing a rare, focused restraint.
The Flame Hashira reached out, his hand hovering near Giyuu’s arm before he pulled back, his fingers curling slightly.
"Tomioka..." Kyojuro began. His eyes searching Giyuu’s face with an intensity that made Giyuu’s heart stutter. "May I have permission to use your given name?"
Giyuu nearly flinched. The request was so quiet, so tenderly placed into the night air, that it felt more intimate than a touch. To hear a man as loyal and traditional as Kyojuro ask for such a thing, to discard the professional distance they had maintained for years.. it stripped away Giyuu’s usual icy defenses.
Giyuu finally looked up. He met a pair of fiery eyes that held no mockery, only a terrifyingly pure sense of admiration.
"...I think I'd like that," Giyuu whispered.
Kyojuro’s expression softened into something Giyuu had never seen before- a look of quiet triumph. He took another half step forward, his shadow now semi-overlapping Giyuu’s on the stone path.
"Then, Giyuu, Please... call me Kyojuro from now on."
Giyuu let the name settle in his throat, testing the weight of it.
"Of course... Kyojuro."
The silence that followed wasn't the heavy, suffocating kind Giyuu was used to. Instead, it felt like a warm blanket. Kyojuro didn't pull his gaze away immediately; he seemed to be committing the sound of his own name spoken in Giyuu’s low, steady breath to memory.
"The moon is quite bright tonight," Kyojuro remarked, his voice still maintaining that uncharacteristic, velvety softness. He didn't look at the sky, though. He remained focused on the man beside him.
Giyuu felt a stray breeze chill the back of his neck, causing a faint shiver to run through his shoulders.
"Are you cold, Giyuu?"
"I'm fine," Giyuu murmured, though he didn't pull away from Rengokus concern. In fact, he leaned imperceptibly closer towards him, letting his hand swing just near enough that his knuckles occasionally grazed Kyojuro's.
Kyojuro’s hand twitched, his fingers splaying out as if reaching for something invisible in the air between them. He slowed his pace, forcing the walk to last just a few minutes longer. As they reached the fork in the path where their ways would eventually part, Kyojuro stopped. He reached out, his hand hovering for a second before gently settling on Giyuu’s shoulder.
The heat from his palm was noticable through Giyuu’s haori, steady and grounding.
"I find," Kyojuro began, "that the world is much quieter when I am with you. It is a rare gift, Giyuu. One I find myself wanting to seek out more often."
Giyuu looked down at the hand on his shoulder, then back up into those fiery eyes. He didn't say I love you. He didn't say I want to stay with you. Instead, he reached up, briefly covering Kyojuro’s hand with his own, pressing the warmth deeper into his skin for one fleeting heartbeat.
"Then seek it," Giyuu replied, his voice barely a whisper. "I'll be waiting."
Kyojuro beamed.. not the blinding bright grin he gave to his comrades, but something smaller, private, and infinitely more precious. He squeezed Giyuu’s shoulder one last time before letting go, the ghost of the touch lingering long after he turned to walk away.
.
.
.
The warmth of Kyojuro’s hand on his shoulder began to flicker. The moonlight turned from silver to a harsh, medicinal white, and the scent of wisteria was replaced by the stinging, metallic tang of blood and disinfectant.
"AOI, QUICK! I CAN'T KEEP THIS UP MUCH LONGER!"
The voice wasn't Kyojuro’s. It was jagged, desperate, and cracking with a rare, terrifying panic.
Giyuu’s eyes didn’t open, but his body jolted. Each of Sanemi’s chest compressions felt like a mountain collapsing onto his ribs, a brutal rhythm trying to force a heart to beat that had simply given its all. The Butterfly Mansion was a blur of frantic footsteps and the clinking of glass. The girls moved like ghosts, their faces pale as they realized the truth they had all tried to ignore.
They had dared to hope that with Muzan’s passing, the sun would rise on a new era. They whispered that perhaps the curse of the Mark would fade, that they could live to see twenty-five, thirty, or old age....
It was a foolish thought. A fairy tale they told themselves to keep from insanity.
"Don't you dare!" Sanemi grunted, his breath coming in ragged hitches, his hands never stopping their frantic work. "Don't you dare leave me as the last one, Tomioka! Open your eyes!"
But Giyuu was no longer there. He was back on that moonlit path, where the air was sweet and the only sound was the voice of a man who had been waiting for him for a long time.
The frantic shouting of the mansion began to fade into a distant hum. The weight on his chest lightened until it felt like nothing at all. Within the half-hour, the room fell into a devastating, hollow silence. Sanemi’s hands finally stilled, trembling as they rested over Giyuu’s heart.
There was no saving him.
But as the girls gathered around, weeping softly into their sleeves, they noticed it. There was no pain left in the lines of his face. Instead, a faint, barely-there smile touched Giyuu’s lips.. the look of someone who had finally reached the end of a long walk and found exactly who he was looking for.
If anyone deserved a peaceful ending, it was him.