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Iki Hiyori gets the diagnosis two months after her 45th birthday.
They celebrated in Shibuya Tower, her father – finally retired – renting out an entire restaurant just to congratulate her and the opening of a second Iki family hospital. She’d been wine drunk when she returned to her house, startled but not surprised when Yato exploded out from behind her couch as she put down her purse. There’d been a banner, covered in glitter, telling her that she was old now.
Yukine promptly kicked Yato’s shin when he saw what was written on it.
They had partied into the early hours of the morning even though her body wasn’t as young as it once was. Everyone showed up. Bishamon undressed at one point while standing on the couch table, Kofuko and Tenjin throwing 1000 yen bills at her dancing body. Ebisu kept taking bets on who would crack first, Kazuma or Take, never one to be outshined. Mayu made a lot of money that night.
At the end of the night, when the others had already left, Yato gifted her a locket with a picture of the three of them at Meiji temple. They took the photo last year, during summer.
She looks at it now, sitting in the office of some other doctor her brother recommended to her. The last few years have made her wary of pictures. She used to love them as a teenager. Like her classmates, she photographed everything. Memories to hold onto. And she appreciates these mementos, she does, it’s just…
When she looks at their smiling faces, smushed together to fit into the tiny shrine shaped locket, hers is the only one that’s changed.
Yato will forever look like a man in his early twenties, give or take a couple of years, no matter how silly his grimace is or how much ice cream sticks to his nose. Crueler even, Yukine is forever fourteen. Blessed with a different kind of immortality than his god, Yukine isn’t a timeless being like Yato. He is a human spirit, frozen in the moment of his death.
And then there’s her. Brown hair in a fashionable bob, tasteful makeup on to hide the ever growing lines around her mouth and eyes, mascara sticking to the cracks in her eyelids, she is undeniably a woman in her forties.
She can no longer high kick ayakashis while running away from an angry god.
No, these days she gets winded when she has to walk up three flights of stairs.
Which is in part why she is here.
The smell of antiseptic is comforting to her. The uncomfortable plastic chairs in the waiting area feel like home. The only thing that’s different is that usually, she’s the doctor not the patient. She has four different theories, of course, on what might be wrong with her, but doctors tend to catastrophize–some call it a professional ailment, even. That’s why she’s here.
She needs a second opinion.
Someone to tell her she’s imagining things.
(the shortness of breath, the tightness in her chest, the dizzy spells, and high blood pressure)
Turns out, she’s not just imagining things. Bathed in the unflattering pale glow of a neon light fixture, staring at the cardiologist opposite her, Hiyori is faced – not for the first time – with her own mortality. This time, it feels a lot more imminent. Permanent.
There is no evil sorcerer pulling the strings of the heavens like a puppet master. There is no strained life line being pushed beyond the limits of what it can take. There is no sword severing everything that makes her human, damning her to the Far Shore.
There is only harsh reality, accentuated by the plastic fern in the corner of the office.
Cardiomyopathy.
The doctor frowns when he adds, “The symptoms are quite far along. It’s a wonder you’re functioning as well as you do, Iki-san. Usually, if I get patients in your stages of heart disease, they have a history of heart attacks or hypertension.”
Well, what can she say? She’s always been a medical marvel.
The doctor tells her she needs to reduce stress in her life, do more sports, eat healthier, and avoid strenuous activity. Then, he tells her she’ll probably still require a VOD. Potentially a heart transplant in a few years time if her symptoms don’t become more manageable.
She responds that she is the head of a hospital, she cannot avoid stress if she wants to save lives, she does weight training and goes running before her shift starts, her personal chef has an eye on her nutrition, and she’s never overly indulged in alcohol or cigarettes in her life.
They look at each other. They are both doctors. They know what that means: a death sentence.
More than a quarter of all people in need of a heart transplant die before getting one.
As a woman in her late 40s, Hiyori isn’t on top of the list. Children and young adults get prioritized. Only 39% of people on that damned list even get a successful transplant at all.
She walks out of the cardiologist’s office in a daze. Before she left, they created a “battle plan”, something to make naive women feel better about the inevitability of death. Hiyori always thought she would be okay with it.
After all, she’d spent her entire life surrounded by it.
Her professional life as an oncologist makes her touch death on the daily. More often than not, she is the one on the other side of the oak desk, carefully telling parents or spouses or best friends that Patient X has leukemia. Melanoma. Glioblastoma. She is the bearer of bad news.
One would think that’d make her better at receiving some herself.
She’s numb when she gets into the train back towards her house in Minato. The steady clunk, clunk, clunk of the wheels against the tracks is soothing, the sway familiar after years of taking the same route day in and out. All around her, people are laughing. School just let out. Girls are pulling up their skirts to make them shorter before joining their friends at karaoke; boys are pulling at their ties so they can finally breathe; a few moms are rolling their eyes at the ruckus, pulling their own (smaller) children closer so as not to get in the way.
Hiyori is not a part of that crowd. She is separate.
Staring out the window, she’s not surprised to see a storm brewing in the distance. Even just the ayakashi here in the train are agitated, glancing her way with their big unblinking eyeballs. It makes sense. Upset as she is, they are feeding on her inner turmoil.
Death waits for her when she gets home in the form of Yukine. He’s solving math problems at the table, dressed in summerly shorts and a Capyper t-shirt. He moved to high school level stuff some years ago, though he keeps struggling with integrals. His real interests lie in business, something Ebisu-sama has taken great joy in.
“You’re home.” His smile is cheerful. It’s a good day then, not one haunted by his own horror. “Yato’s up in Takamagahara sorting out some bullshit with Bishamon.”
“You know you guys don’t actually live here.” Her entire body feels brittle when she places her bag on the table next to Yukine’s notebooks, as if it could break at even the slightest provocation. Still, she pulls her mouth in an approximation of a smile.
“We kinda do, though.” He winks. His amber eyes are bright as they take in her clothes, the joy on his face slowly bleeding away. “Unless you want us to go? I can tell Yato that we’ve overstayed our welcome. I’m sure Kofuku and Daikoku would be happy to have us again. Our house in Takamagahara is almost done as well, so we could move—”
“No, it’s fine, Yukine. I love to have you here.”
And she means it.
Her house is too big for her on her own. Too many rooms filled with nothing but promises to her parents she never fulfilled. It gets livelier with Yukine collecting figurines in his room, Yato crafting ornaments for the (bigger) shrine she’d built next to her mom’s altar. It helps that Kofuku and Daikoku are never far away, even Kazuma (Kazu*ne* as Yato likes to point out) has taken to visiting once every few weeks, in honor of his second master.
It’s not a lonely life, just one filled with the residence of the Far Shore.
Tenjin’s disappointed frown at her continued choice to remain with the dead rather than the living is a well-acknowledged part of her life by now.
“Then what is it?” Yukine breaks her out of her thoughts, bringing her back to the present.
He might be eternally fourteen, but the wisdom in his eyes betrays all that he— well, survived.
“You’re a good guidepost, you know that, right?” She ruffles his hair, the strands soft and freshly washed as they glide through her fingers. To think that when they met, she was only a few months older than him. Considering the state of her tits, it’s wild to think that he once stung Yato over accidentally catching a glance of her cleavage.
Yukine blushes furiously. “I know! I mean— you’re changing the subject again, Hiyori.”
“I’m just a bit tired today. That’s all.”
His eyes follow her out of the room. He knows she’s lying. She can’t tell him the truth.
Yato finds her late at night. She’s in bed already, a flowery comforter pulled high. Her brother responded to her diagnosis with a demand for a second opinion. When she dies, she hopes he is strong enough to remember Yato for her.
The TV on the wall plays the highlights of this year's wrestling world cup, the sound on low. She’s already seen it half a dozen times. Still, even now, the sight of sweaty muscular men beating the shit out of each other fills her with glee. Some things, it turns out, you just don’t grow out of.
Yato is wearing a white t-shirt, sweats riding low on his hips. He is nothing like the men she found attractive as a teenager. Comparatively short, with a lean build, he is all poised grace. He can’t hold a candle to the physical perfection of Tomo-sama or Shingo Takagi-sama.
He narrows his eyes at her. “Are you thinking about other gods again?”
Hiyori laughs. “I wouldn’t dare hurt the esteemed Yatogami like that. I was just contemplating how you’ve turned me into a cougar.”
To call them lovers would be a simplification of everything they are for each other.
He is her God. She is his Follower.
She is the reason he is alive. He saved her more than once.
He looks as if he could be her son. He was born over a thousand years ago.
She is nearing half a century.
Her heart pangs, the fluttering heartbeat more than just a symptom of her failing health. She can’t die. Not if it means leaving Yato and Yukine behind.
“Pah, I heard that’s all the rage these days. Beautiful middle aged women with their adorable arm candies.” Yato aims for suave, misses by a mile, and ends up with the tips of his ears a deep shade of red. “Whatever.”
The laughter escaping her eases the weight on her soul. Even if he likes to vanish, go on his little adventures where time doesn’t matter, he always comes back to her. The only thing she has to do in return is remember his name.
She’s forgotten twice.
She can’t imagine doing it a third time.
(death will cut their connection either way)
He climbs into bed next to her with drawn out languish movements that make his white shirt ride up. The skin on his back is smooth, perfect, otherworldly. When he lies down, he resembles a cat more than a human. In the low light, his pupils are split. “How are you? I missed you.”
“I heard you had business with Bishamon?” It’s a deflection.
Yato allows it. “Oh yeah. The skank was going on and on about some new projects between us war gods. Ignored me when I said I exclusively focused on fortune these days. She even got Take involved. I think Kiun hopes it will keep his meathead master entertained for a little while.”
“How’s Kazuma?”
“Kazune is as hopelessly smitten with the skank as always.” Yato scurries closer to her until his face is only inches away from hers. He’s never learned what personal space means. She has long ago stopped caring. “The bastard is weirdly happy about being a Nora. I expect he’ll kidnap Yukine one of these days so they can do another one of their training trips. From guidepost to guidepost—”
“Hafuri to hafuri—”
“And Nora to Nora.” Yato finishes. By now, they’ve all heard the speech about a dozen times. “I’m just glad the two of them made up.”
“Yukine needs someone in his corner,” Hiyori agrees.
“Hey! I’m literally right here!”
“And you’re about as mature as moldy bread.” Her breathy laugh ghosts over the slope of Yato’s cheek, tantalizingly close. The blue of his eyes has captivated her once more. She’s missed this – she loves this. The ease with which they joke, the closeness of their bodies, the trust shared only between them. “Why Kazuma thinks you’re cool is still beyond me.”
“I’m older than him.”
“You cradle robber.” With that, she kisses him. In her chest, her heart tumbles, trips, catches itself in the last possible moment. It is a short pain, but a damning promise. Her days are numbers. How many more nights like these will she have?
The look on Yato’s face is pure adoration. The eyes of a killer softened into a lover’s gaze. How can she break his heart by dying? How can she tell him that their limited time together has been cut even shorter?
She can’t. She won’t.
Instead, she raises her hand until she can tangle it in the soft strands of his hair. And then she pulls. He follows easily. In bed, she’s the goddess, and he’s her adoring follower.
She’s mostly asleep by the time Yato pushes his face into her neck, his words soft and unbelievably earnest. “Happy almost thirty years of knowing each other, Hiyori…”
Their anniversary is in six weeks.
She drifts off with tears in her eyes and a heavy weight nestling deep in her chest.
She’s sitting on a park bench in Shinjuku Gyoen when Kazuma finds her a month later.
The park is mostly empty. It is known for its almost otherworldly cherry blossoms; now, in late autumn, the trees are barren. Hiyori came here on purpose. The dull green of the grass and the emptiness of the Zen garden reflect her inner turmoil well.
“So,” she asks once Kazuma has taken a seat, dressed in an impeccably pressed uniform as always. “Who blabbed?”
“They are all worried for you,” is his non-answer.
“Don’t play me for a fool.”
“Yato.” Kazuma shrugs. He doesn’t fidget, the practiced move to push his glasses back up his nose infuriatingly calm. “Though once Yato started talking about how weird you’ve acted, Yukine was quick to offer his own evidence.”
She tried to act normal around them. Cooked dinner, burned it, and allowed Yato to show off his pizza making skills. Helped Yukine order merchandise and printed the new “Let’s Get Yato Famous” plan on her work printer when the one at home broke. She even went with them when Yato decided to kill ayakashi during a baseball game as a publicity stunt.
But each day, her chest felt tighter.
She got that second opinion her brother wanted. Somehow in just two weeks, her heart deteriorated even further. It doesn’t make any sense.
“And why you? Why not send… Kofuku?”
“Ebisu has banned Kofuku from leaving her house until he’s successfully stabilized the Japanese economy for the year.”
“Daikoku?”
“He’s on damage control.”
“Mayu?”
“She would have come, but you really don’t want her comforting you. She is an amazing woman and an even greater shinki, but her skills do not lie in emotional support.”
She turns to look at him. “And you had no excuse to say no?”
“I care for you, Iki Hiyori, and I owe you a life debt.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I said some very cruel things to you when you were just a child, and I don’t think I ever apologized for them.” Kazuma’s lips twitch. It is a careful approximation of a smile. Hiyori is familiar with the self-deprication clinging to it. “I was not in a good place back then, and you were just trying to help.”
“It’s okay. You were right. I was in love with Yato.”
“You still are.”
“Yes.” It’s not much of a confession. Still, it escapes her with a gust of air. The thrum of her heartbeat has long ago stopped being steady. Now, she feels every uneven thump, every struggling beat. “Yes, I am.”
“In that case, I am happy for you.” The sheen in Kazuma’s eyes tells her that he means it.
“I take that means you and Bishamon—”
“She is a god. I have long ago accepted that some things aren’t meant to be.” Kazuma stops, a small laugh breaking free as he really considers her. “You know, we have forever, so what if it takes us a few more centuries to get where you and Yato are? We have time.”
Ah, there it is.
The hit straight to her fragile, dying heart.
“Well, I don’t.” She shrugs, her eyes finding a few ducks as they glide across the small pond in front of their bench. “Have time, that is.”
Thankfully, Kazuma is quick on the uptake. “You’re dying.”
“Yes.”
“Right now?”
“Eventually.” She takes a deep breath. It catches. “We all do. We humans, I mean. Die. I am just— I thought I’d have a few more decades, at least.”
The statement hangs between them like a physical weight. Hiyori lets it breathe.
It grows. Until now, she hasn’t acknowledged it out loud. For the first time, she lets it swallow her.
She won’t grow old like her father did. Or her grandmother. She will die like her mother, middle aged and still somehow too young. There won’t be any children to grieve for her, though she isn’t contrite enough to think that nobody will mourn her. She has friends after all. Patients who survived and came back to thank her. People in her social clubs who will miss her quick wit. The members of the Wrestling Fan Club she joined in university.
There will be the residents of the Far Shore.
It is cruel to think that, in her death, she will be further removed from them than ever before.
“You haven’t told Yato. Or Yukine.” It’s not a question.
Hiyori sighs and puts her head down to rest on Kazuma’s shoulder. He is a good size for that, solidly built and not too tall. “How could I? It will break their hearts.”
“It will break even more if they wake up one day and you are gone. What will Yato do—?” Of course Kazuma’s most immediate worry isn’t just for Hiyori; it is for his (second) master. They are best friends after all, drinking buddies for literal centuries. Kazuma might be stuck in the body of a 19-year-old, but he’s outlived Hiyori many times over. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to–”
“I have a plan for that.” Hiyori doesn’t move from her spot on his shoulder. “My brother remembers Yato. He might not be a true believer, since he prides himself in being an atheist, but they have met many times by now. His kids can see the Far Shore just as we can. I taught them how to pray at Yato’s shrine.”
“Oh.”
“I built one, ah, a shrine at my hospital. When I tell people that they can go home, I usually advise them to pray to this hospital's god of good fortune. I even paid a craftsman to engrave Yato’s name on a little plaque so people know who to pray to.”
Kazuma puts his arm over her shoulder. He’s warm – it will never stop surprising her just how alive the souls of the god’s blessed weapons feel. He cannot be starved or drowned or asphyxiated, and yet he breathes and eats and swims. Because he is human. Even in his death.
“You are the best follower any god could ever ask for.”
“Thank you.” Hiyori means it. “I’ve had some years to think about it. There has to be some benefit to maturing naturally.”
Together, they watch the park, the clouds moving across the sky reflected back at them in the soft water of the pond. It is Kazuma who breaks the quiet. “What… I cannot lie to Yato about this. What do you want?”
“You remember your death, right?” He is one of maybe three shinki she can ask this question to. She is not cruel enough to ever ask Yukine. She knows enough to avoid that question beyond all doubt. “What was it like?”
His body flinches away from her touch on reflex. She lets him. He has to pull in a deep breath before he can settle back down again. The look he shoots her is calculating. “What a dangerous question.”
“I’m scared,” Hiyori admits. “I just want to know.”
“It was painful and gruesome and only my love for Veena has kept me pure enough to retain my soul after remembering it. I don’t think there is anything else I can tell you. Death is lonely, even if you die surrounded by people. But it is also peaceful because the fight is finally over.”
“Thank you.”
Kazuma relaxes. “Would you want to become a shinki?”
“I don’t think that is something I get to choose.”
“But if you could…?”
The sun moves across the sky, chased by a wall of dark gray clouds. The wind is icy, promising an early winter. A harsh one. Hiyori welcomes it. After the year they had, it will do the earth some good to be frozen solid. For everything to stop as they take a deep breath and wait for life to return.
“I don’t know.” She remembers little of that day many years ago when her heart stopped and Father forced Yato to turn her into his weapon. Mostly she recalls the cold. The horror on Yato’s face. Her absolute devotion when her lifeline was cut. “It would be cruel, wouldn’t it?”
“How so?”
“To force my lover to take me on as his weapon? He’d know all of my secrets and yet never be allowed to call me by my name.” A single drop of rain lands on her cheek. Her fashionable wool coat isn’t made for a day like this. They should get moving, yet the sun hasn’t given up its fight for the sky. “It would be the easy solution for me. I just have to die and be cleansed as a pure soul. But Yato? Yukine? They would be forced to live with a ghost for all of eternity. In more ways than one.”
“So you’d rather go to Yomi?”
Hiyori smiles, "I am a terribly selfish person.”
Kazuma shakes his head. When she stands up, he follows her. There are no tourists taking pictures on the way out, just an old couple in their eighties. They both have the same frown, obvious by the lines drawn deep in between their impressive eyebrows, the years together clearly etched into loving old faces.
For just a moment, Hiyori allows herself to feel envious.
She will never have this with Yato. With Yukine. No matter how old she gets.
“I guess it is a choice Yato will have to make for me,” she finally admits just as they are stepping back out of the garden into the bustle of Tokyo.
“That’s cruel.”
“You shinki always act as if cruelty is divine, but I think it’s us humans who taught gods how to hurt.” When she shoots a look in his direction, his smile is long gone. Instead, his glasses reflect the gray sky back at her, his true intent impossible to tell.
“So, you’ll tell him?”
“Yes.”
And she will. Probably. Kazuma is right: It would be incredibly cruel to keep this from him any longer than absolutely necessary. There are other secrets she can keep instead.
A big ayakashi floats across the sky, shaped like a half rotten whale. It is followed by a small army of eyeballs, all of them on the look out for souls like hers, things to corrupt. Hiyori averts her gaze. After a while, they usually stop noticing her.
She might have to break Yato’s heart (Yukine’s joy) by admitting to her failing health, but no god or shinki or demon can ever make her confess the rest.
She knows why she is dying, or at least she suspects.
Turns out Tenjin was right: humans aren’t made to wander this far into the Far Shore without consequences.
If anything, she’s living on borrowed time.
Iki Hiyori died 29 years ago.
Seems as if fate has finally caught up with her.
The dying sun grants her some of its last rays of light. When she turns around, Kazuma is long gone.