Work Text:
"Ne ne, Tomioka-san!"
Giyuu felt a light and phantom poke at his shoulder while the memory of a familiar presence flickered in the back of his mind. His gaze barely shifted away from the dimly lit room he was in because the shadows seemed to cling to every corner.
There was a simple wooden table and two stools along with various cabinets that stood as silent sentinels of a life once lived. All of it was neatly placed with a careful precision that mirrored the orderly mind of a practitioner. All of it was befitting of a doctor who had dedicated her life to healing others and fighting in the dark.
Papers were stacked neatly in piles with brightly colored notes attached to the corners while some were peeling away from years of wear. Empty vials stood in prearranged rows because they were organized by a hand that demanded order. Each one was neat and sterile. Even the air was still with faint traces of wisteria and citrus lingering in the heavy atmosphere...
"What are you doing here, Tomioka-san?"
The Water Hashira barely moved save for the slight slouch in his shoulders because the weight of the silence was becoming unbearable. Even then he didn't spare the woman a glance. It was his usual response to her teasing while he expected her to laugh at his stoicism. He knew it bothered her yet every time he did it never deterred her in the slightest. She would always come back with a sharper barb or a wider smile.
He took a step forward while his hand hovered over the wooden table. It never occurred to him to ask her about the various dips in the wood but now that he really looked they seemed to hold residue from past experiments.
There were burn marks or acid spills that he had assumed were simple accidents. As his hand drifted listlessly over each indent he found himself dismissing such a thought because the reality was much harsher.
The dips he originally glossed over seemed more jagged and far more intentional. They felt far angrier than simple accidents that might happen in a lab. There were many of these jagged marks along the table because they were forged from pure and unadulterated anger.
If he had to take a guess the marks were the aftermath from various medical tools that had been stabbed into the wood in moments where her smile wasn't enough to contain the rage.
"It's rude to go through people's stuff without asking!"
The male stilled in his tracks while the imaginary voice echoed in his ears. Yes he swallowed thickly because the guilt was rising in his throat. He knew that so he moved his hand away while his eyes then swept over the rest of the counters.
There were frames each leaning delicately against the walls. In them, there were held memories that were captured in black and white photos. They were memories snapped in singular moments of time because time was the one thing they'd never get back.
His hand reached towards the first photo while his fingers deftly brushed against the cool metal frame. In it he saw the familiar triplets. There was Sumi and Naho along with Kiyo. All three were as excited and energetic as other girls their age. He often noticed them lingering nearby because they were always watching him despite his own quiet nature.
In the next frame he saw two girls. The one on the right was the one who often informed him about the mansion because her name was Kanzaki Aoi. She had a temper and she would never fail to let him know it. 'She's a good person though', he thought. She cared deeply about the girls and about Shinobu and she had never once asked him why he kept coming back to the estate when he had no injuries to treat.
As for the girl on the left he knew her as the tsuguko who was Tsuyuri Kanao. She was quiet but her skill in battle had always been beyond her years because she had been trained by the best.
There were several more frames lined up on the shelf. Each of them was bearing photos of each of the Hashira who had served alongside them. Uzui, with his flashy smile and his hand on his hip. Rengoku, his hair bright, his eyes full of fire. Shinazugawa, scowling at the camera as if it had personally offended him. Iguro, his expression unreadable, his snake coiled around his shoulders. Tokito, looking lost and confused, as he always did. Himejima, his massive frame barely fitting in the frame, tears streaming down his face because the photographer had said something kind to him. Kanroji, her cheeks flushed, her hands pressed together in a gesture of delight.
There was even one with himself in it. He stared at the photo for a long moment, surprised. He didn't remember when this photo had been taken. He didn't remember standing with the other Hashira, didn't remember smiling or not smiling or anything about that day. But there he was, at the edge of the group, his face blank, his posture stiff. He looked like he didn't belong. He looked like he was waiting for permission to leave.
In the last frame he recognized the face of the girl who had joined the Hashiras before he had. She was one of his seniors who was named Kochou Kanae. She was smiling and ever joyful while acting as a ray of sunshine for everyone around her. He remembered how she always made attempts to push him closer to her sister. He never understood why but the gleam in her eye made it hard to say no because she had a way of making people feel seen.
Giyuu shifted slightly while the floorboards creaked beneath him.
He looked to the side of the last photo as if he was expecting to see another frame. Photos were hard to come by but for someone in the corps it wouldn't be difficult to produce another.
Yet as his gaze lingered a subtle dullness ached in his stomach because he realized there was no other photo of the woman who owned this room. There was no image of her standing among her family or her friends.
"Me? There's only space here for the people I admire!"
Giyuu felt his breath hitch in his chest. A drawer was partially opened because its contents were highlighted by the sliver of light shining through the window. Against his judgment he grabbed the handle. It was cold. It was hard and steely as he expected of a metal handle. He tugged on it while hearing the sound of paper jostling inside as the drawer slid open.
What he was doing was intrusive and he knew it. He would've turned away while leaving his actions to the mere whims of his sporadic outburst. He really really would have...
...only if that note hadn't slipped out of the crevice between the wood.
It fell to the floor while sliding effortlessly until it reached his foot. He made no move to reach it at first because he was frozen by the sight of it. But as the seconds ticked on he realized he was far too deep in his own metanoia to stop now. His own stomach twisted at the thought and he felt his heart beating a little faster because the ink on the paper looked familiar.
As the ravenette knelt down to reach the thin slip of paper he felt a cold shiver run down his back. She was glaring daggers at him he was sure. But he made no attempts at stopping until he felt the crisp note in his hand. He realized then that it was a letter that was held together by her distinctive butterfly emblem. It was a seal he had seen a thousand times on medical reports.
Giyuu felt his throat go dry because the air in the room felt thinner.
There on the front was a name. It was written in perfect calligraphy that was clear as night with dark black ink. There was no mistaking the hand that had guided the brush. It read:
Tomioka Giyuu
His finger brushed over the script while feeling the smoothness of the paper where his name had been left. The ink had long since dried because it had been sitting in the dark for a long time. The dust fell away as he moved to open the stamp. He could feel the knot in his stomach tighten until it was a physical pain.
A letter? For him?
She had written him a letter. She had sealed it with her emblem, placed it in her drawer and she had never given it to him. Why? When had she written it? What did it say?
The male held his breath as he carefully peeled away at the butterfly stamp. After a few moments of fidgeting with the letter he managed to get it open. Immediately he was hit with a strong and salty scent. It was so out of place in this clinical room that he nearly dropped the letter because it reminded him of a place he'd never been.
But he refrained from doing so.
With a shaky hand he lifted open the flap of the letter. And with that his deep blue eyes fell onto the writing below....
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"Tomioka Giyuu,"
The first line was formal, almost teasing. He could hear her voice in his head, the particular lilt she used when she was about to say something sharp.
"Ne ne, Tomioka-san! What are you doing here? Don't you know it's rude to go through people's stuff without asking? That's why no one likes you, you know!"
He almost smiled. Almost. The words were so her, so perfectly her, that for a moment he could pretend she was still here. That she was standing behind him, watching him read over her shoulder, laughing at the expression on his face.
"Heh, but if you're here then it probably means I'm not there. So return it before I catch you!"
There was a space. Then another. Then more words, written in a different ink, as if she had come back to the letter later.
"..but if you're still reading this, then I'm probably already gone."
His hands trembled. The paper shook in his grip and he had to steady himself against the desk. She'd known. She'd written this letter knowing that she won't survive. She had prepared for her own death, had left words behind for him to find.
"And if that's true, then I hope you can forgive me for not being there to patch you up again. I hope you aren't injured. If you are, please see Kanao or Aoi or one of the kakushi. Also, your sleeping pills are in the top drawer, back right. There's a section just for you, it shouldn't be hard to find. It's a month's supply. If you need more, there is an address on the bottle detailing where I buy them from."
He remembered the sleeping pills. She'd prescribed them to him years ago, after a particularly difficult mission. He had been unable to sleep, haunted by nightmares and memories and she had noticed. She had pressed the bottle into his hands and told him to take one before bed. She hadn't teased him about it. She hadn't made a joke. She had simply looked at him with those violet eyes and said, "You need to rest, Tomioka-san. Your body cannot fight if your mind is exhausted."
He had taken the pills. He had taken them every night and he had slept but he had never thanked her.
"You may have heard it from Kanao or one of the others, but I have thought about this day ever since Kanae's murder. I am planning to take down the demon who killed my sister. And the only way to do it is for me to trick the bastard."
His chest tightened. He knew. He had always known, in the back of his mind, that she was planning something. The way she worked, the way she pushed herself, the way she smiled when she talked about poison. He had seen the darkness in her, the same darkness that lived in him. But he had not sked. He had not pushed. He had let her carry her burden alone even tho he knew she looked pale sometimes for no apparent reason.
"I know I'm incapable of beheading him. I'm too short, my arms are too weak and poisons are a double edged sword. If it doesn't work, then I really don't know what to do. And it really, really fucking infuriates me."
The curse word surprised him. She rarely cursed, preferring sharp words and sharper smiles. But here, in the privacy of her letter, she had let her mask slip. She had let him see the anger beneath the surface. The frustration. The helplessness.
"That was why I decided to have one last safeguard. I trust Kanao with my life but I don't know if I'd be able to live knowing that I didn't put my all into killing that demon."
"So yes, I laced my own body with wisteria. It has had no lingering effects on me thus far. But it hasn't been tested by anyone but me so who knows the damage it could do? No one else is allowed to do it. I even told Kanao that she is forbidden."
He closed his eyes. The poison. She had poisoned herself. She had turned her own body into a weapon, had filled herself with wisteria so that the demon would die when he consumed her. She had sacrificed herself, piece by piece because she could not bear to let her sister's killer live.
And he had not known. He hadn't seen. He had stood beside her, fought beside her and he had not noticed that she was dying from the inside out.
"Now..why am I telling you all this? I don't really know either. I just thought.. you deserved to know. And maybe, I just wanted somebody to listen. I'm sorry for dumping this on you. Please don't think any of this is your fault. It's just something that I've decided to do on my own."
His eyes burned. The words blurred on the page and he blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision. It was not his fault, she said. But it was. It was his fault for not seeing. For not asking. For not reaching out when he should have.
"....so you're still here? I'm not even sure where this is going anymore. I'm sure I'll see you tomorrow and speak to you then. It's a little weird writing this way when I'm still very much alive. Wouldn't you say so, Tomioka-san?"
She had written this while she was still alive, acting like everything's fine. She had sat at this desk, in this room and she had written words that she never intended to give him. Words that she had hidden away, perhaps hoping he would never find them. Perhaps hoping he would.
"You know.. that one question you asked me about the pictures on my desk? About why I don't have any photos with myself in them? I never answered you because I was irritated with you that day. It's so silly. I simply don't have any there because...it's me? I only have space for the people I admire, you know."
His breath caught.
"And that includes you, Giyuu. We were never able to speak so freely and saying your name like this feels strangely uplifting. I hope you don't mind...it's just that I always wanted to call you that. But you're always so stoic, you know? ^^"
There was a small drawing next to the words. A smiley face. She had drawn a smiley face and he could almost hear her laugh.
"Haha.. you were always so far away, in a place unreachable for those like me. I hope that one day we'll cross that bridge. Am I being too unreasonable? I'm sorry. I know you like your peace and quiet. It's just that... when I see you standing so tall despite all your injuries, it twists a knife in my heart."
He read the words twice. Then a third time. She had seen him. She had really seen him. Not the mask, not the silence but the person underneath. The person who was tired and broken and holding himself together with nothing but willpower. And she had cared. She had cared enough that it hurt her.
"...who am I kidding? This is a letter that you probably won't ever see. So I guess I should just be honest, shouldn't I? Gosh, writing this is making me feel like such a sob story. I'll just come out and say it."
There was a space. Then a single line, written in darker ink, as if she had pressed harder on the page. A single line that destroyed and repaired him at the same time.
"Giyuu, I love you."
The world stopped. The room faded. There was nothing but the paper in his hands and the words written on it. She loved him. Kochou Shinobu loved him. She had loved him and yet she had never told him and now she was gone....it was too late.
"I don't even understand the feeling itself.. and since I'm too much of a coward to say it to your face, it's a secret I guess I'll be taking to the grave with me."
His hands were shaking. The paper trembled and he could hear the sound of it rattling but he could not stop. He had to keep reading. He had to know everything she had wanted to tell him.
"Whatever this 'love' is, I love all of it. I love our paired missions, I love listening to how you speak about Tanjirou and the other kids and I love being the one who patches you up. I also hate how you distance yourself from everyone, I hate how nonchalant you are about getting injured like your life doesn't matter and I just hate how you.. could never be mine. I want to be the one worthy of you but I know that it isn't possible."
What?
How could she think she was not worthy? She really thought she could not be his. But she was wrong. She was so wrong. She was the only one who had ever made him feel like he was not alone. She was the only one who had looked past his silence and seen the person beneath.
If anything, she could not be his because HE wasn't worthy.
"....So forgive me for being selfish. I know you don't feel the same. Please don't feel guilty for a dead woman and her ramblings. You can burn this letter if it burdens you... I just thought I'd tell you the truth. I love you so much more than you know and so many other people do too. You are loved, Tomioka Giyuu. And you are more than deserving of it."
He was crying. He didn't know when the tears had started but they were streaming down his face, falling onto the paper, smudging the ink. He didn't care. He couldn't bring himself to care. She had written him a letter and she had told him that he was loved and she had asked him not to feel guilty.
But he did feel guilty. Oh he felt so guilty for every moment he had wasted, every word he had left unspoken, every chance he had let slip through his fingers.
"You always said you wanted to see the ocean, didn't you? Despite being the Water Hashira, you told me you'd never seen it. Maybe in another life, I'll be able to take you there to see it for the first time. Or maybe if you all have managed to eradicate the demons, you'll have time to travel the seas."
He remembered that conversation. They had been sitting on the engawa, watching the sunset and he had mentioned, almost casually, that he had never seen the ocean. She had looked at him with surprise and then she had laughed, while saying, "The Water Hashira has never seen the ocean? That's absurd, Tomioka-san!"
She had remembered. She had remembered that small, insignificant detail and she had written it in her letter.
"I pray that you're healthy and living life to the fullest. Even if it doesn't seem like it, life goes by in the blink of an eye. Go out and enjoy yourself — even spoil yourself once in a while. Cherish your friends and family and don't ever forget that you are loved."
The letter was ending. He could see the bottom of the page, the final lines.
"Love,
Kochou Shinobu ★•••★"
There was a postscript.
"P.S. Here's a shell I'd collected from the sands on the beach during one of my missions. In our next life, let's see the ocean together, alright?"
Giyuu felt his hand shake, his eyes lowering to find a small scallop shell attached to the letter, held in place by a thin strip of paper. The salty scent he had smelled earlier...it was this shell. The ocean. She had brought him a piece of the ocean and she had hidden it in her letter and she had asked him to see it with her in another life.
His thumb brushed against the shell. It was smooth and cool, pale pink and white, the ridges delicate beneath his finger. She had held this shell. She had carried it back from her mission, and she had attached it to this letter and she had never given it to him directly.
He felt something warm against his cheek. He blinked. Then he blinked a few more times, until he finally was not able to see. His vision blurred and the tears fell faster. He couldn't stop them anymore.
They fell onto the crumpled letter in his hand. His chest hurt and he felt the pit in his stomach twist uncontrollably. Before he knew it, he had fallen to his knees with the partially crumpled letter in his arms. He held it tightly against his chest and he sat alone with the sound of his labored breathing.
The room was empty because the soul of it had been carved out by the hands of fate. The mansion was empty because the laughter had been replaced by the hollow ticking of a clock that did not matter anymore. The world was empty. She was gone and she had left him this letter as if a piece of paper could ever fill the void of her absence. And he had never gotten the chance to tell her that he....
Why had he never told her that he loved her too?
Why had he never told her that she made this hellish and cruel world feel so beautiful?
The thought hurt him so much because it was a jagged blade that he couldn't pull out of his chest. It was a wound that would never heal while the blood on his lips was the only answer he had left to give her.
He wondered why he had been so silent when she was the only music he had ever cared to hear. She was the flicker of a butterfly's wing in the middle of a storm while acting as the only light that did not burn him. She was the sharp and stinging poison that was somehow the only cure for his frozen heart. He had been a man made of still and stagnant water while she was the air he needed to breathe.
He had spent his life staring at the surface of a deep and dark lake because he was afraid to drown but she was the ocean he had not known he was looking for.
Now he was standing on the shore of a life that was ending while her words were the only thing keeping him from sinking into the dark.
Why had he never told her that she was the bloom of a wisteria in the middle of a graveyard? Why had he never reached across the distance of their pride to say that she was the only reason he had stayed alive for so long?
He had been a soldier who knew only how to kill yet she had taught him that even a ghost could feel the warmth of the sun.
He felt the cold of the room pressing against his skin while he clutched the paper. He was a master of water but he was drowning in the things he had not said. He was a man of the sword but he had been cut down by a simple letter.
And as the darkness closed in he realized that the beauty she had brought into his life was a light he had been too afraid to name until she was no longer there to hear it.
His voice finally came out in a whisper, raw and broken.
"Kochou... no... Shinobu."
He gripped the letter tighter. His fingers curled into the paper, and he felt the edges dig into his palms.
"I.. I'll never burn this letter. Never."
Amidst the salty tears staining his face and the quiet sobs, he could feel the blood creeping up his throat. He coughed. Then he coughed some more. Blood. It had been this way for the past week. He knew what it meant. His body was failing, the mark claiming him at last. It was imminent.
His twenty-fifth birthday was today. All the words left unspoken had seemingly bubbled up to the surface. Otherwise, how else was he to explain his appearance in the empty Butterfly Mansion?
He had left after his celebration with Tanjirou and the others. He had promised to return home and sleep peacefully after taking his sleeping pills but something had churned whenever he said those words. Something had pulled him here. Something had guided his feet to this room, to this drawer, to this letter.
Now, as he read the butterfly's last words, he finally felt at peace.
He pressed the letter to his chest. His heart beat against the paper, against the words she had written, against the love she had confessed.
"You never gave us a chance," he whispered bitterly. "You never gave... yourself a chance."
Blood kept dripping from his lips. He wiped it away with the back of his hand.
"I'm...sorry that I... never noticed your pain. I was just so absorbed in my own world..."
He lurched forward. More blood spilled from his lips, splattering onto the floor. The pain in his chest was sharp now, insistent but he didn't care. He had the letter. He had her words. He had the shell she had given him. He had everything that someone like him could ask for.
He coughed again. His body shook with the effort and he felt himself growing weaker.
"Your death... It must have been painful," he exhaled sharply. "I-I'm sorry I wasn't there. I... wonder....if you saw me now, would you still say these words to me?"
He smiled. It was a bitter smile, twisted with pain and regret and something that might have been hope.
He sank to his side. The floor was cold beneath him and the wood creaked under his weight. His hands grew weak and the letter slipped from his fingers, landing on the floor beside him. He reached for it, his fingers trembling and he pulled it back to his chest.
"I... would tell you that I love you," he mumbled. "I always have. You could tell me all your problems... I would listen. Forever."
His eyes flitted down to the shell. It had fallen to the ground, right beside him, resting on the dark wood like a small, pale star.
He picked it up. His fingers curled around it, and he held it against his heart, next to the letter.
"And maybe in another life...," he whispered softly, "...we'll finally see the ocean together. You and I."
The blood dribbled down his lips. He didn't wipe it away. He let it fall and he smiled. It was a serene smile, peaceful and calm, the smile of a man who had finally found something he had been searching for.
His eyes closed because the exhaustion was finally too much to bear. The room grew darker while the light faded from the window and he felt himself slipping away into the quiet of the night.
But he wasn't afraid. He wasn't sad. He was holding her letter tightly against his chest because it was the only thing that mattered now. He was holding her shell and he was holding the words she had written along with the love sh had finally confessed. He was holding onto a promise that had been made in the ink of a dead woman's heart.
The shadows of his life began to flicker before his failing sight. He saw his sister,Tsutako-neesan, who was standing in the sunlight of a memory that had been buried for years. She looked just as she did on that final night because she was still wearing that gentle smile that had once been his whole world. He felt the phantom warmth of her hand on his head and he wanted to tell her that he had tried his best to live.
Then there was Sabito who was leaning against a peach tree with his wooden sword resting against his shoulder. His friend looked at him with those familiar and fierce eyes because he was waiting for him to finish the journey. There was no more disappointment in his gaze. There was only a quiet and brotherly pride that seemed to say that the duty was finally done.
He thought of Urokodaki-sensei who was back at the mountain while probably carving another mask or waiting for a letter that would never arrive. He hoped the old man would forgive him for leaving so soon because he had been the father Giyuu didn't deserve.
And then there were the children. Tanjirou along with Nezuko... the boy who had pulled him out of the darkness and the girl who had shown him that even demons could have hearts. They were the future. They were the light that would continue to burn long after his own flame had flickered out because they were the legacy of everyone who had fallen.
In another life, he would make all of them proud because he would be a man who didn't carry the weight of a thousand ghosts.
Kochou...Shinobu...
Her name was a prayer in his mind. He saw her as she was in the garden with the purple butterflies dancing around her hair. She wasn't wearing that fake and jagged smile anymore because she looked peaceful. She looked like she was waiting for him at the edge of a great and endless blue.
His lips moved one last time while his breath hitched in his throat.
"I love you too, Shinobu..."
The room was silent. The mansion was empty because the life that had once filled it had long since moved on. The world went on indifferent and uncaring while the seasons prepared to change.
But in that small and sterile office on the cold wooden floor Tomioka Giyuu lay still. His hand was curled around a letter and his fingers held a shell so tightly that not even death could pry them away. His face was so peaceful.
The lines of worry or pain and the burden of the Water Hashira’s mantle had finally smoothed away. He had found her words. He had read her confession and he had answered in the only way he could. The blood on his lips was a dark contrast to the serene smile he wore because he was finally going to a place where the pain couldn't reach him.
In another life... maybe... just maybe... they could see the ocean together. They would stand on the warm sand while the waves washed away the scars of their past and she would call his name again... and he would never let her go.