Work Text:
Good evening, Yushirō.
Today, I had my first pharmacology class. The lecture was very long, and while the teacher was explaining the introduction to pharmacokinetics (which is the action that the body performs on a drug), I nearly fell asleep. It seems there will be an enormous amount for us to memorize in this class. Even so, I am very excited. I have been fascinated by medicine for a long time, haven't I? Do you remember? Back when I was a sickly child? I was so frail that I could barely do anything other than sit in your study and watch you paint. Your room was always so dark. I used to tease you, saying, "You're just like a demon or a vampire who can't stand the sunlight." You’d always reply bluntly, "You hit the nail on the head," and tell me, "Just sit still and take your medicine. Otherwise, I might just eat you up." So cruel for a boy my age to say— though I did listen to you all the same.
You used to tell me the same thing every time I took the medicine: "Get better quickly, and invent a medicine that lets me go outside." I think it was precisely because I wanted to cure your illness— more than I wanted to get well myself— that I was able to devote myself so desperately to my studies after I recovered.
And look at me now—I’m studying pharmacology at university.
Sometimes, I get scared— wondering if everything up until now has just been a dream. I’m terrified that if I wake up, I’ll be dragged right back to that bed in that room at my parents' house.
Oh, right! A new friend joined my group during lunch break today. He's a boy in the same year as me, and during the lecture, he sat three seats to my left. His name is Asami Hisato. When he smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkle gently, and he has a snaggletooth. He’s lively, cheerful, and a really kind person. Earlier today, I was walking down the hall, carrying several heavy textbooks, when he said, "You won't be able to see where you're going carrying all of those," and took half of them for me. I told him he didn't need to. He only smiled at me, the one with those gentle eyes and his snaggletooth. My heart was pounding so hard I thought it might burst... It’s honestly ridiculous, isn't it? Usually, you’d think crooked teeth mean a trip to the dentist is in order, but somehow, his actually look kind of cute.
I’m honestly so embarrassed to be writing something like this to you... And yet, I find myself wanting to tell you all about my day— everything: the things that made me happy, the things that made me angry, and even those moments when my heart was pounding so loudly I was certain he could hear it.
How was your day today, Yushirō? Did you eat properly? I hope you haven't been staying up late, painting until the early hours of the morning again. You’re always telling me how important sleep is for the body, so it’s unfair for you to act so inconsistently yourself. You make me worry so often, so every now and then, please write me and reassure me that you are well. The time I spend exchanging letters with you is still incredibly precious to me. Especially now. I love seeing my name written in your hand—even if your handwriting looks like it belongs to someone born in the Meiji era. I love reading those old-fashioned letters of yours. I love it all.
So, please write back again. It doesn't have to be a long letter. It could be something as simple as what you had for dinner, or the constellations you saw on the night you wrote the letter— I do not care what the content is; I will be happy simply because the words are yours.
May tonight be a peaceful one for you.
With love,
Kiyo
The letter rests open on a low table beside his paint palette, the cream-colored paper standing out brightly against the dark wood, despite the low lighting in the room from the single candle on the opposite corner.
Yushirō has read it six times.
He counted.
The first time was when he broke the envelope's seal and unfurled the papers, reading the letter where he stood next to his studio's front door, while the rest of his mail rested at his feet. Nothing mattered more than whatever the girl wrote to him.
The second time, he was seated at his table, not even twenty minutes after the first read-through.
The third time was when he was tidying up his library, where he found some of Lady Tamayo's journals from over a century ago, and he remembered (as if he could ever truly forget) that a letter was resting on his desk, written to him from a girl with the same dark eyes.
The fourth was right after the third, because he started crying at the end.
The fifth was when he tried to write back, wondering what to say. That he had type O- blood for dinner? That he cannot see the stars tonight because it is too cloudy outside? That he always paints because that's the only way to keep Lady Tamayo alive— even though you are here, proving her soul managed to escape hell and rejoin the cycle of reincarnations?
The sixth was when he sat before his easel, reflecting on her face: her eyes, her nose, her lips, her facial structure, her brows, the serious expression she must have been born with because it always returns to her cheeks as an exact copy of Lady Tamayo's.
He set the letter down after the sixth time rereading it and picked up his paintbrush.
The blank canvas slowly gains color— purples, browns, reds, pinks, greens.
Painting No. 1,141: "My Lady Tamayo".
Or so he thought.
He pulls back slightly, staring at the unfinished portrait. The same eyes stare back at him as he has always seen in his dreams on the rare night he actually manages to truly sleep. But maybe... more alive. More youthful. Less sorrowful.
It's not Lady Tamayo.
Lady Tamayo never had a single dimple that he had clearly painted. Lady Tamayo's face was narrower in some spots, and her chin was sharper. This girl here had an asymmetrical smile and clearer eyes— eyes not haunted by a crime she never intended to commit.
But they were the same purple.
Not Lady Tamayo.
"Kiyo," he corrects aloud.
He could almost laugh at the similarities between the two— not that they hadn't been pointed out to him already.
Years ago, when Kiyo was still sick and young, around eleven or twelve, perhaps, she followed him to his studio one night after finding him buying paints from a night market. He kicked her out, but she was persistent and found her way back to him a few nights later after sneaking out of her home. He didn't kick her out that night. He tells himself it's because she was clearly a sick kid, and that it was raining out, and that once he knew he wouldn't be liable for her dying, then he'd get rid of her. But her eyes haunted him.
The same shade as Lady Tamayo's eyes.
Eyes he truly started to forget, much to his silent devastation.
Eyes that now stared up at him from his studio room, surrounded by paintings with a similar face to hers.
She told him that she liked that the paintings of the woman looked like her. He commented that the woman and the paintings were much older than her, so they couldn't look like her. She told him that she must be the one to look like the woman then.
Then she asked for the woman's name.
Lady Tamayo.
She tried spelling her name incorrectly four times. He corrected her on her fifth attempt: 珠世
She was delighted by the spelling and revealed her own name to him: Kiyo.
帰世
When she left after the weather cleared up, she promised to be back to play with him, incorrectly assuming he was her age, if not a few years older than her.
Over one-hundred years is not the same as a few, but he never corrected her on the matter.
How amusing for him now, to be painting the girl instead of his precious Lady Tamayo.
He sighs, lowering the brush in his hand to the table where the palette lies, waiting to be used. A bead of lavender paint swells at the tip of the brush and falls to the letter that still rested beside the palette.
He watches as it lands upon the letter, the droplet striking just beneath Kiyo's description of Asami Hisato and his snaggletooth smile, momentarily resembling a bruise.
Yushirō stares at it.
Ah, how fitting.
The pigment spreads, blooming out to resemble a flower more than an injury as it soaks into the paper.
He should be irritated. The stationery was expensive, and he would know as it was a gift from him to her, his congratulations for her on her high school graduation. Instead, his mouth almost moves.
Almost.
He closes his eyes with a sigh and leans back slightly on his stool, thinking of the blotch of paint on Kiyo's letter. She would love that; she always hated perfection. Paint on a letter, a snaggletooth...
His mouth moves.
" Usually, you’d think crooked teeth mean a trip to the dentist is in order, but somehow, his actually look kind of cute. "
All six times Yushirō read her letter, he'd pause at that sentence. Not because it mattered. It didn't matter. She can admire whoever she wants— she's an adult now. She's a university student. She's her own person with friends, dozens of them by her own accounts, though Yushirō suspected she was generous with the designation. She had classmates who invited her to cafés, girls who borrowed her notes, boys who offered to carry boxes, professors who praised her, professors who frustrated her. Her world had widened exactly as it should.
This boy was merely another person entering it.
Good.
Yushirō opens his eyes.
Good.
He is glad.
He is glad that a boy made her heart race. He's glad she noticed the boy's eyes, his imperfect tooth that adds to his smile. He's glad she has something so ordinary to be embarrassed about.
He's glad she's no longer sick— for a while, she was truly too weak for anything beyond the short walk from her home to his studio, but even then that took her far longer to achieve, and she was stuck under quilts while watching him paint, as the walk took all her energy.
He looks back at the painting on his easel.
Kiyo looks back at him.
He thinks back to Lady Tamayo again— to the life she never got to truly live. She once had a husband. She once had children. Muzan Kibutsuji ripped that away from her. She spent hundreds of years trying to kill him after that. She never got a chance to live... not truly.
Kiyo gets that chance.
And Yushirō is so very glad that her soul gets to rest in a regular human life.
But regular humans have no need for demon pen pals.
He will not answer this letter. He will not answer any more of her letters.
He looks over to the stained stationery and rises from his stool, reaching over and grabbing the paper, before crossing to the dying candle that was his only source of light now. The flame bends as he approaches, disturbed by the movement of air. He holds the corner of the letter above it. For several seconds, nothing happens. The flame licks the underside of the paper but fails to catch. The edge yellows. Curls. Then a tiny orange point appears. The corner blackens. Fire runs along the paper’s edge with quiet hunger.
He watches Kiyo’s greeting disappear first.
Good evening, Yushirō.
The flame consumes his name.
He lowers the burning page into the metal bin beside the table. It lands upon old sketches and crumpled paper. Fire spreads across the lower corner, catching on the other papers, darkening the smoke rising from the bin as it burns through the rest of the contents.
Good.
Burn.
He stands there watching for a few moments before returning to his easel.
He lifts the brush from the table, swirling the tip in more paint from his palette, before he finishes the painting of Kiyo.
Painting No. 1,141: "Returned to the World".