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Sabito didn’t often stop and look at the demons he was facing. Most of them were unsightly, at best, and more commonly stomach-churning to maintain eye contact with. This demon was a little more easy to view. It resembled a human woman, though it had dark green, grass-like skin, and it was covered in sunflowers. It blew dense waves of pollen at Sabito more than once, which was taking up much of Sabito’s stamina. He alternated between jumping away from the pollen and using the seventh form of his breathing style, twirling water explosion, to push the pollen back at the creature. It was the most strenuous stage of storm breathing, but he didn’t want to find out what the side effect of getting caught up in that demon’s pollen would be.
The demon also liked to talk. Its voice also resembled that of a human woman, though one with a gravelly tone — that of an aged woman who had smoked cigarettes for a long time and used to project her voice at work.
“Storm breather,” it growled. “Are you out of breath yet? You can’t dodge my attacks forever!”
Sabito sprinted away from another pollen blast, using the advantage of the woods to duck behind a tree. He steadied his uneven breathing to prepare for his next attack.
“Storm breathing, third form,” he whispered. He jumped into view again, and he raised his voice as high as his sword. “Frosted sight elimination!”
It had taken a lot of effort for Sabito to come up with this stage of his personal breathing style, but it was well worth the hours and hours of training. The result of his breath pattern was a blizzard-like breeze that essentially blocked the demons’ sight. It allowed Sabito to navigate the space hidden in his blizzard storm and remain undetected, stealthy as he planned his next move.
“Storm breathing, fourth form,” Sabito whispered as he closed in on the demon. “Flowing water rush!”
A flood of water surrounded Sabito as he slashed his sword through the air, aiming for the demon’s neck. Perhaps it was his whisper, or the sound of his sword whizzing through the air—either way, something caught the demon’s attention, and it whipped around to face Sabito. His sword was closing in on its throat, seconds away from slashing through. The demon opened its mouth, bellowing out a horrendous scream and sending a wave of pollen in Sabito’s direction.
Sabito flew back from the force of the scream and the velocity of the pollen cloud that exploded in his face. Sabito felt the resistance of his sword cutting through something, and he heard the moment the demon stopped screaming. He was successful, but at what cost? He’d been hit with its pollen, after all.
Sabito scrambled to his feet. The pollen didn’t sting or burn. The most it did to him, physically, was make him cough and sneeze — quite violently, but that made sense, with the sheer amount of pollen he was covered in. He sheathed his sword and began to wipe the particles off of his skin as quickly as possible. He spat to get the fuzzy particles off of his tongue. He blew his nose into the open air and swiped the sleeve of his haori over his face until he was sure it was all off.
Nothing else happened. He watched the demon’s body disintegrate, then watched all the pollen disappear as it faded into nothing.
And he felt no side effects.
Sabito dragged himself all the way to the Butterfly Mansion without so much as another cough or sneeze. He was exhausted, sure, but that was to be expected after fighting and defeating a Lower Moon.
“Pollen,” Shinobu muttered to herself. She was inspecting Sabito, looking for any of the leftover substance, but it seemed to all have faded away with the demon.
“It didn’t sting or anything,” Sabito said. “It just made me cough.”
Shinobu hummed. She traced her gloved fingers over Sabito’s back, checking for whatever it was she always checked for. There wasn’t much clean-up or bandaging for her to do, given Sabito’s commitment to never getting hit by a demon again. He’d already lost an eye. He’d be damned if a demon took his life or his ability to fight before he saw the defeat of Muzan.
The door to Sabito’s room slid open slowly.
“Not now,” Shinobu said.
It was Giyuu, who carefully peeked his head in and smiled when he saw Sabito. He ignored Shinobu, and Shinobu let him get away with that. She always let Sabito and Giyuu get away with visiting each other in her mansion, even if she was actively fixing them up.
“Are you okay?” Giyuu stopped in front of Sabito, leaving only a couple short feet of distance between them. Sabito wished the distance didn’t exist. If only he could reach out and pull Giyuu closer, tuck Giyuu’s head against his shoulder and feel his heartbeat, cure the discomfort of missing him even when he wasn’t that far away.
Maybe it was a side effect of Final Selection, seeing Giyuu injured, and nearly getting himself killed. Maybe it was love, the thing Sabito had felt, in varying, increasing degrees for Giyuu since they were both 12 years old. Either way, Sabito wanted Giyuu close to him, always, so long as he wasn’t in danger’s path.
“I’m fine. No damage,” Sabito said, even though he wasn’t certain of the effect(s) of that pollen yet. If Shinobu wasn’t freaking out, he was probably safe. “Did you eat?”
“I was waiting for you,” Giyuu answered. He looked at Shinobu. “Is he okay?”
“Probably.” Shinobu stepped away from Sabito and discarded her gloves. “If something weird happens, come to me right away. I think the pollen might’ve just been a defense mechanism, or a method to mess up your breathing style.”
“What happened?” Giyuu stepped a little closer, sparing just enough room for Sabito to put his shirt back on—a complex yellow and green pattern of squares and triangles that Giyuu always made fun of him for. Giyuu held Sabito’s white haori for him, keeping the fabric steady and open for Sabito to easily slip his arms into.
Sabito told him the story as they ate lunch together in their shared estate. He didn’t expect this mission to feature one of the 12 Kizuki, but he wasn’t exactly unprepared. If anything, he was just a bit thrown for a loop thanks to its blood demon art—but the slayers would always be caught off guard by a demon’s abilities. They were all unique, dangerous, and designed to kill.
“But this one just made you cough?” Giyuu asked through a mouthful of food. It was certainly strange, which wasn’t lost on Sabito as he casually scooped a slice of ginger into his mouth. But he didn’t dwell on it. He would simply count his blessings, and he would be grateful he got to live another day to see Giyuu, to slay more demons, to get 24 hours closer to the defeat of Muzan.
“I guess,” Sabito said with a shrug, hoping to calm Giyuu’s shot nerves. “Shinobu didn’t see anything, so.”
Giyuu hummed. He was frowning, still concerned, but he expressed it calmly, “You should monitor yourself carefully. Just in case.”
“I will,” Sabito promised. He grinned. “You’ll tell me if I start sprouting flowers, right?”
“Not funny,” Giyuu mumbled. “But, yes, I’ll tell you if you start sprouting flowers.”
It was a total joke, on Sabito’s part. He didn’t even begin to seriously think that he was going to start growing flowers just because a demon sprayed him with pollen. He accepted Shinobu’s theory: it was a defense mechanism, maybe something to mess up the pattern of his breathing, and nothing more.
Then he woke up from his afternoon nap, on the cusp of dusk, to a fit of violent coughing, at the end of which he had a handful of yellow flower petals that he’d coughed right out of his chest.
Despite sharing a rather large home, Sabito and Giyuu chose to sleep in neighboring rooms. (If anyone asked, they shared an estate to save the Ubuyashiki family money, and they slept in neighboring rooms so they could be close in case something attacked them. The truth was, Sabito carefully suggested both things to Giyuu because he just couldn’t bring himself to be far away from his childhood friend, and Giyuu always followed Sabito’s lead — just like he did when they were kids.)
It was no surprise, then, that Giyuu sleepily nudged his way into Sabito’s room after hearing him cough.
“Are you okay?”
Almost immediately, Giyuu spotted the flower petals in Sabito’s palm, sticky and globbed together with Sabito’s phlegm. He pointed, his sleepy eyes growing wide and alert. “Were those on you?”
“In me.”
“In you?”
Sabito nodded slowly. “In me.”
They were back at Shinobu’s estate in record timing.
She listened carefully to Sabito’s explanation about what happened. There really wasn’t much to the story. He had lunch with Giyuu, felt fine. He cleaned up, felt fine. He fell asleep quickly because he was exhausted, but that wasn’t any different than any other mission he went on. Then, he woke up coughing, so much that his throat still hurt, and he spit up three flower petals in the process.
“I see.” Shinobu walked over to her desk, five yards away. She picked up a notebook and started scribbling something on it. “What you have is called Hanahaki disease. The bearer of this disease coughs up flower petals because they’re in love with someone, and they haven’t confessed yet.”
Shinobu looked up, glanced at Giyuu, who was still looking at Sabito, and then flipped her notebook around. She’d written down a question for Sabito: Are you in love with Tomioka?
Sabito would have to grill her about how the fuck she knew that later. In the meantime, he just nodded.
“Yep.” Shinobu ripped the piece of notebook paper and crumpled it, all in the time it took for Giyuu to turn around and look at her. She didn’t even throw the paper away in Giyuu’s line of sight, just hid it in her fist until she could slip it into her pocket while they were both distracted by her words. “Lucky for you, it’s an easy fix. Confess. If they feel the same, you’re all good. If not, then you come back and talk to me, and we figure something else out. I can probably create a poison that will kill it, but not you, pretty quickly. But it’ll mess with your dopamine levels, and you’re already cranky enough. Not ideal.”
“Ouch,” Sabito muttered. “I’m not as bad as Shinazugawa.”
“You’re not. But if I had to choose a pillar to send on a customer service mission, you’re easily bottom three.” Shinobu was behind Sabito now, opening up a cabinet of various, colorful liquids in tubes. It was very intimidating-looking, so Sabito sat forward and looked at Giyuu instead.
“Who are the other two?” Sabito asked, just to keep his mind off of the fact that Shinobu knew he was in love with Giyuu, and he needed to confess in order to save himself. Those were the craziest circumstances under which he ever imagined confessing to Giyuu.
“Shinazugawa, obviously. And Uzui. He’s too arrogant.” Shinobu returned to Sabito’s side holding two vials — one with green liquid, one with yellow. She looked at Giyuu. “Or you. You have no social skills.”
Shinobu gave Sabito a knowing look as she handed him the vials. “Good luck.”
She walked back to her cabinet to shut it, giving him instructions all the while, “Drink one of those now, the green one. Drink the yellow one the next time you eat. Come see me after you confess, but make it quick. I don’t know how quickly that disease is going to kill you.”
“It could kill him?” Giyuu asked in a frantic rush.
“Yes, Tomioka, there’s a flower growing in his chest. It could break his ribs, pierce his heart, squeeze his lungs, who knows?” Shinobu pointed at the vials. “This will slow it down. But, seriously, make it quick.”
❀
‘Quick’ was subjective, right?
That night, Sabito agreed to take on a mission because there was nothing — yet — stopping him from doing so. Plus, it was barely five miles away from the demon slayer corps’ territory.
And yet, “I’m coming with you.”
“I’m fine,” Sabito insisted. He’d diligently taken Shinobu’s temporary remedy as instructed, and he needed a little bit of alone time to think or talk to himself about how the hell he was going to confess to Giyuu. He had other plans, like confessing when they retired, when they defeated Muzan, or, ideally, never.
Sabito had never planned on falling in love—not with Giyuu, and not with anyone. Things really shifted after Final Selection, though. Being with Giyuu during a life or death situation had woken him up to how he really felt about his best friend, even though they’d barely known each other for a year, at that point. At first, they were nothing more than young friends who were growing up in a world that was way too big for both of them. Then, they were battling together, trying to survive, and though Sabito was committed to saving every child on that mountain, his priority was always Giyuu. He never wanted to see Giyuu that scared again. He never wanted to see Giyuu injured again. God forbid he ever witnessed Giyuu’s death.
But Giyuu had shaped himself into one of the strongest demon slayers, even one of the strongest among the pillars. And, as a result of growing up together, training together, always trying to save each other’s lives, Sabito and Giyuu were unstoppable as a duo.
“We can make it quick,” Giyuu pushed back. He was already dressed, only missing his late sister’s haori, which was hanging on the wall next to Sabito’s. He even had his sword on his hip.
“Fine,” Sabito agreed. Maybe it would be easier, with Giyuu by his side, to figure out how he was going to confess. Maybe he would just man up and do it on the way there. He was brave, he’d proven that much before he was even a teenager. Surely, love was something he could manage.
Sabito’s crow, Koushin, flew up ahead, leading them to their mission site. Giyuu’s crow, Kanzaburo, also tagged along, though he was resting on Giyuu’s shoulder.
“You need to retire, old man,” Sabito said to Kanzaburo. The old thing stretched its neck and pecked at a piece of Sabito’s hair, an affectionate move. Kanzaburo used to belong to Urokodaki when he served the demon slayer corps as the Water Pillar — yet the bird refused to retire, which Urokodaki theorized was because he wanted to look out for Giyuu and Sabito.
“You can go home,” Giyuu said gently, petting Kanzaburo’s head. “Koushin will guide us.”
Kanzaburo squawked, and he didn’t budge.
“Stubborn,” Giyuu muttered fondly. He looked at Sabito. “You, too.”
“Me too, what? I’m stubborn?”
“Very.” It wasn’t a mean comment; Giyuu was smiling, for a moment, until it faded into worry. “Why haven’t you confessed?”
For a terrifying moment, Sabito thought Giyuu knew. Of course he knew about the Hanahaki, and he knew Sabito was in love with someone—but did he know? Sabito’s heart skipped a beat so violently, he felt it at the base of his throat.
“Who is it, anyway?” Giyuu asked, relieving the immense pressure that overtook Sabito’s body in that split second.
“I don’t think I should say.” Sabito tried to laugh. It came out shaky and uncertain. “What if I start coughing up flower petals again?”
“Don’t say that,” Giyuu muttered. He carefully punched Sabito’s arm, though he disturbed Kanzaburo in the process. The bird pecked at his hair and ended up holding onto a strand of his bangs.
“I’m kidding.” Sabito carefully reached over and pulled Giyuu’s hair out of Kanzaburo’s beak. He let Kanzaburo hold onto his finger instead.
“Why haven’t you done it yet?” Giyuu asked again. “It’s one of the pillars, right?”
“. . . Right,” Sabito admitted, a little too close to home, to the truth.
“It’s not Mitsuri, right?” Giyuu asked. “Iguro would kill you.”
“It’s not. And he couldn’t kill me. I’m stronger than him.”
“You are,” Giyuu agreed easily. “Is it Shinobu?”
Sabito should say yes. Shinobu was the only person who made sense, in the traditional sense. She was the only other woman, after all. But maybe, just maybe, this was the opportunity Sabito needed to test the waters, to be strategic about his confession.
“It’s not Shinobu.”
“Oh.” The moment Giyuu took to process that stretched on for what felt like an eternity. Sabito tugged his finger out of Kanzaburo’s beak just in case. Giyuu might want the distance. Giyuu might—
“So it’s one of the guys,” Giyuu said, without any shock in his voice. “Is it Uzui?”
Very anti-climactic — and jarring at the same time. “Uzui? Why is Uzui your first guess?”
“I don’t know. He’s tall. He has three wives, so he’d be a good partner.”
“Sounds like you have a crush on him,” Sabito said lightheartedly. He glanced at Giyuu’s face, searching for a reaction.
Giyuu just shook his head. “He’s too loud.”
Sabito thought, I’m loud. But not as loud as Uzui. He thought, Is that possible? Could Giyuu have a crush on a man, too?
“What if he wasn’t?”
“What if . . . what?”
“If he wasn’t loud. Would you have a crush on him?” Sabito monitored Giyuu’s reaction out of the corner of his eye again. He was aiming a little too close to the ground, the kind of swing and miss that would get him killed in battle. He knew it, too. But he had no time to strategize when Giyuu was right next to him, tapping his fingers against the end of his sword the way he had in Final Selection, when he was nervous.
“Maybe. I don’t know.” Giyuu looked up, at Koushin, who was still diligently flying along, getting them closer and closer to their destination. Moonlight was nothing like sunlight, as far as highlighting the parts of Giyuu’s face that Sabito loved the most, but he still looked beautiful washed in the white light of their moon.
“I think I would like Rengoku more,” Giyuu said. “If I had a crush on anyone.”
If.
“Why?” Sabito asked. He didn’t want to know. He’d rather die than know, and he didn’t want to die, because he wanted to protect Giyuu, and he wanted to defeat Muzan.
“He’s kind. I think he would look out for me.”
“I look out for you,” Sabito blurted. Giyuu looked at him. There was no shock on his face, no revelation. Sabito waited for it to dawn on Giyuu, what he meant — what all of this meant.
But one thing about Giyuu, one thing Sabito knew very well about Giyuu, he didn’t pick up on context clues.
Giyuu smiled. “You do.”
Sabito was happy to have narrowly avoided outing himself as being in love with Giyuu. He was also very happy when Koushin announced that they were close, just a few minutes away from where the demon was last spotted. Giyuu and Sabito both put their hands on their swords, and they stopped talking, at a point in the mission where any distractions could be deadly.
They found the demon in a family’s house. It, luckily, hadn’t killed any of the four children yet. Three of them were huddled in the corner behind their mother. The fourth — the oldest, by the looks of it — was pinned to the wall by thick, green vines.
The demon was a tall, ugly thing. It had a very strange, boxy shape; it looked like a wall, more than anything, that was covered in thick vines. It reminded Sabito of the demon that gave him Hanahaki disease, explained rather quickly by its deep, angry growl.
“Storm breather,” it said. It had an ominous echo to its voice, a whisper-like tone. “You killed my sister.”
Sabito turned his sword, getting ready to strike. He hesitated, only because he finally noticed the mark in the demon’s eye. 12 — the lowest of the 12 Kizuki, but a Kizuki nonetheless. This demon replaced its sister.
“Giyuu,” Sabito said without taking his eyes off of the demon. “Get them out of here.”
Giyuu didn’t hesitate to gather the women and children. The demon flicked its big, red eyes in Giyuu’s direction, and it lunged. “They’re mine! Mine!”
Sabito slashed almost completely through the demon vertically, right next to its left eye. It was too rushed to do any real damage, and Sabito didn’t even use a breathing technique to do it, but it was enough to stop the demon in its tracks for a moment, for it to regenerate. By then, Giyuu was ushering the mother and her three children out of the house.
“Hiroto!” The mother screamed, and the boy pinned to the wall responded with his own, muffled cry.
“Hiroto! Hiroto!” Her voice faded behind Sabito, likely as Giyuu dragged her out of the house and into safety.
I’ll save him, Sabito thought. Don’t worry.
“Storm breather,” the demon said again. Sabito’s eyes flicked to the boy. The vines were stagnant; it seemed they were no longer attached to or controlled by the demon. He also wasn’t suffocating. He was scared, of course, and he was crying his eyes out, but he wouldn’t die.
A vine shot out at Sabito from the right, catching him off guard. It wrapped around his ankle, but Sabito had no problem slashing through it. He jumped away from the demon, in case it sent any more vines his way. It didn’t. It just laughed at him, a horrible, gravelly laugh.
“Is that your love? Water breather and storm breather. . . .”
Sabito wasted no more time. Ideally, he would have liked to save the boy before he killed the demon, just so the boy didn’t have to see it, but he couldn’t risk getting distracted enough to be grabbed again, nor could he wait for Giyuu to return.
Sabito launched his fourth form on the demon, aiming where he thought, perhaps, its neck would be, about a foot beneath its eyes. Another vine shot out and grabbed at Sabito’s arm, but he slashed through it. It cut short the momentum of his attack, though, and he only got halfway through the demon’s neck before it jerked itself away.
Sabito readied to launch another attack, but, this time, three vines shot out at him. He slashed through each one, then the fourth and fifth and sixth ones that tried to sneak up on him. The demon was trying to overwhelm him, but it wasn’t going to work. He would never be caught off guard by a demon.
He could, however, be caught off guard by the side effects of his disease.
Shinobu warned him that he might have coughing fits. Perhaps he should have asked for a little more information, since he didn’t expect those coughing fits to happen at random, in the middle of a fight, when he needed to have strong control over his breath. Sabito choked on the sunflower petals crawling up his throat, his slashes turning desperate as his vision blurred. He relied on the sound of the vines bursting out of the ground and whizzing through the air toward him.
No way. No way was Sabito going to be defeated by the weakest of Muzan’s little army.
Sabito miscalculated one of his slashes, and a vine managed to wrap itself around his right wrist. It pulled, hard, slamming Sabito into the ground and knocking his sword out of his hand. He didn’t let it get far; he would not be defeated by this demon, nor would he be overwhelmed by Hanahaki. He wouldn’t. He had innocent lives to protect. He had Giyuu to protect.
In a split second, the vines stopped pulling his limbs. Sabito was able to grab his sword, but it wasn’t necessary anymore. Giyuu was standing over him, right behind the fading demon.
“Sabito.” Giyuu dropped to his knees in front of Sabito, who was still coughing. He pulled Sabito closer to him, laid his head on his thighs. “Are you okay? Did you get hit?”
“Hana—” Sabito coughed violently, sitting up slightly just to cough a few petals into his hand. Giyuu gasped, and he recoiled slightly, but only for a moment. He leaned in to studied the petals in awe.
“Wow,” he whispered.
“Mama!” The little boy, Hiroto, was wriggling against the slowly-fading vines. Giyuu sprung to his feet, running to catch the boy before he could fall the good 10 feet he was suspended in the air.
“Mama’s outside,” Giyuu said, holding the boy tightly as he cried. “She’s okay. It’s okay.”
Giyuu looked at Sabito, who waved him off. He was fine—shaken, but fine. Giyuu saved his life again.
Sabito met Giyuu outside once he’d recovered from his coughing fit. Giyuu was sitting in the grass, talking to the other boy, while the mother stood by holding the rest of her children, crying and thanking Giyuu for his bravery. She cried even harder when she saw Sabito.
“Thank you!” She sobbed. “Thank you for saving my children!”
“It’s our pleasure, and our duty,” Sabito said, bowing his head to her. She threw herself to the ground with gratitude, but Sabito helped her back to her feet a moment later. “Please, don’t thank us. It was nothing.”
Still, she hugged him and Giyuu, and then she took her shaken children inside—after they asked Sabito and Giyuu a dozen questions. The two of them even put on a little show for the kids, at a distance, who were curious about their swords and wanted to see them battle. It was just something to make the kids laugh, to calm them down, to help them forget about everything they’d just experienced. Sabito and Giyuu engaged in a mock battle, and it helped both of them smile, too. They’d sparred like this for years. Granted, they usually fought each other with wooden swords, but they were in sync enough not to slash or hit each other, even accidentally.
Kanzaburo and Koushin returned to Sabito and Giyuu’s sides about a mile into their journey back to their estate. This time, Koushin didn’t have to lead them, since they knew the way back, so he settled on Sabito’s shoulder.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Giyuu asked, looking Sabito up and down.
“I’m fine,” Sabito promised. “I only went down because I was coughing. I couldn’t use my breathing techniques.”
Giyuu sighed. “You have to confess soon. Okay? You have to.”
“I will. I’ll do it tonight.” Sabito said it to calm Giyuu down, but it was a commitment as much as it was an impulse statement. He never lied to Giyuu. He never broke a promise. He’d committed himself to confessing that night.
He didn’t do it on the journey home, nor did he do it the moment they arrived at their estate. He sent Giyuu off to clean up, and he promised, for the hundredth time, that he didn’t need to go see Shinobu. He hadn’t been hurt. He didn’t feel strange after coughing up the petals. He was going to confess that night. Giyuu didn’t need to worry, and Shinobu didn’t need to check on him.
It was a good thing he had no injuries — for obvious reasons, of course, but also because he knew, if he walked into Shinobu’s estate and he hadn’t confessed to Giyuu, she would hurt him very badly, and probably physically. She may not have the strength to cut off a demon’s head, but she had the strength and the speed to land a very efficient and brutal punch right to the middle of someone’s throat. (Sabito had witnessed her take Tengen to his knees before. Safe to say, Tengen did not talk back to her ever again. No one dared.)
Sabito would very much prefer not to be punched in the throat when he had a growing flower to worry about, so he came up with a game plan while he washed up. He was going to cook dinner for himself and Giyuu, and he was just going to be honest. He was going to say something simple, something like: I love you, and I understand if you don’t feel the same. I’ll still always look out for you, no matter what.
That was simple enough. Sabito’s heart might be about to beat right out of his chest, but, at the end of the day, it was just a conversation with his best friend, someone he loved and someone who loved him, even if their love didn’t quite line up. Sabito slayed demons for a living. He risked his life every day. He’d just walked away from a near death experience. Surely, he could do this.
In order to get to the kitchen, Sabito had to pass by Giyuu’s room, which he did slowly as he dried his hair and tried not to tilt off balance in the process. Just as he stepped past Giyuu’s door, though, he heard a little hiccup, followed by a pained sound—a whimper, or a sob, something a little muffled thanks to Sabito’s moving towel. He paused, and he listened until he heard a sniffle.
“Giyuu?” Sabito called. He shouldered Giyuu’s door open. Giyuu was sitting, legs crossed, hair wet, in the middle of his bed. He looked up at Sabito, and he had tears streaming down his face.
He tried to smile through it, “Hi.”
“Are you okay?” Sabito immediately assumed the worst. Giyuu hid an injury from him. Kanzaburo had suddenly passed away. He’d gotten terrible news in the time it took for Sabito to take a bath.
It was none of that. In fact, “No one’s dead. Or injured. Just . . .”
“Just what?” Sabito tossed his towel aside, and he sat in front of Giyuu. He sat with his legs folded beneath him just in case Giyuu wanted to fall into him for a hug. “What’s wrong?”
Giyuu stared at the blanket between them. “You’re confessing to the person you love tonight, right?”
Sabito’s stomach churned. “I am.”
“Okay,” Giyuu mumbled. He chewed on his bottom lip for a moment, and he looked down at his hands, his sheets, Sabito’s knees—everything but Sabito’s face. Sabito was dying to know what was going on, but he waited patiently for Giyuu to be ready to say it. It was almost impossible to get Giyuu to share a secret or a worry if his momentum was interrupted.
“This is really selfish of me,” Giyuu started. “But I really love you, Sabito. I’ve had a crush on you ever since we were kids.”
Giyuu glanced up at Sabito and looked back down just as quickly. He sat up a little straighter, but he made himself smaller, somehow. “I’ve been thinking, since your diagnosis, I don’t want to die without telling you that, even if I know you don’t feel the same. So, um, now you know. And I hope it works out with whoever you love.”
Sabito had moments of intense relief all throughout his life; it was in the nature of someone who saved people for a living, and someone who could say, with conviction, that they had saved the love of their life at one point in time. None of his relief had ever been as low-stakes as this—which was saying something, because Sabito’s life was, technically, on the line here. But the relief he felt in that moment was the kind that made him feel like he only weighed five pounds, like he was about to float up into the clouds and live on the safety of that softness forever.
“I think it’ll work out,” Sabito said. Giyuu looked up, confused and maybe a little hurt, at first, but the tension in his shoulders visibly bled out when he looked at Sabito, who was smiling so wide it probably looked concerning. Yet, Giyuu smiled back.
“I love you,” Sabito said. He leaned in, eager, but didn’t kiss Giyuu yet—too busy confessing. “I love you so much. I’ve loved you for years.”
Giyuu reached out to touch Sabito’s face, but he also didn’t kiss Sabito yet. “It’s me? You love me?”
Sabito braced his hand against the sheets to keep his balance. Giyuu followed the movement of his body, laying back against his mattress until Sabito was on top of him, and their lips were inches from touching.
Instead of verbally responding to Giyuu’s question, Sabito kissed him. He took it slow, as if the two had all the time in the world together. And maybe, in a way, they did. If Sabito died tomorrow, he would die happy, because he got a few hours of loving Giyuu, and being loved in return. In this line of business, in a world of risking his life every single day, that was enough.
❀
“I’m happy for you.” Shinobu was very satisfied with the turn of events. She gave Sabito and Giyuu a wisteria bracelet each, crafted by her butterfly girls, in celebration of their “. . . union?”
“We’re not married,” Sabito said. He looked at Giyuu fondly. “Yet.”
“If we defeat Muzan, I’ll marry you,” Giyuu said. “Otherwise, you’ll just have to find me in our next lifetime.”
Sabito kissed his knuckles. “Deal.”
“Don’t do that in my office,” Shinobu said. Giyuu and Sabito separated immediately.
Shinobu handed Sabito a pink vial. “Your flower should have stopped growing, but it’s still inside you. Drink that, and go to the bathroom. You’re going to throw up. And you’re going to come back and do that twice a day until you stop puking up flower parts. Got it?”
Sanemi was not looking forward to that. But, “Got it.”