#mochi aoi

[scarnemo]

wondering when she got that kommo-o

[peachdues]

Tell Me to Stop: Part 2 (NSFW Kyojuro Rengoku x F!Ice Pillar)

A/N: oh man, it’s here. This took a lot out of me, so I hope that you all like it.

Part One can be found here: post-Mugen AU where Kyojuro lives; events take place post-Entertainment District.

Multiple POVs (Y/N, Shinobu, and Kyojuro). There are several flashbacks, which are in all italics and separated from the main text.

Massive TW: trauma/PTSD, anger, nightmares, descriptions of corpses, violence and violence between characters (shoving, grabbing/shaking). One character triggers another and it’s dubious whether it’s intentional or not.

CW: 16.7k words; explicit sexual content. Unprotected sex/oral (F!receiving), creampies, cursing, light scar worship, intimacy, angst.

For the song that inspired this, listen here.

Without further ado!

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

(Y/N’s POV)

Y/N began her rehabilitation training within one week of awakening from her coma.

For those seven days of rest, Y/N had fielded all sorts of visitors — the Master, escorted by his two daughters; the Love Pillar, who had wasted no time throwing her arms around Y/N’s shoulders and sobbing in relief; and three of the Mansion’s youngest girls, all of whom crawled up on her bed and cried while hugging her.

Uzui had sent her a note by crow telling her he would be by to see her as soon as his wives finished making her favorite treat — red bean mochi — and said they could compare battle wounds in celebration of their feat.

Y/N had neither seen nor heard as much of a whisper from the Flame Pillar.

The Ice Pillar resolved to distract herself from the glaring absence of the man who embodied fire, though every day that passed without word from him only seemed to make that absence more pronounced.

Y/N had thrown herself into her rehabilitation training, as supervised by Shinobu. Because she was a Hashira, her recovery was vastly different from that of lower-ranked slayers, and she worked with the Insect Pillar directly, rather than with the haughty Aoi and other younger Mansion girls.

That particular morning, the Love Pillar had joined them in an effort to recuperate Y/N’s loss of flexibility as the result of the nearly two months she’d spent sedentary. Y/N cherished the one-on-one time she had with the other two women Hashira; the three of them had formed a tight bond with one another since ascending as Pillars, united amidst the predominance of male demon slayers.  

“Good! Now just bend this way-“ Mitsuri Kanroji kept a steady hand at the small of Y/N’s back as Y/N arched over backward, teeth grinding as her stiff spine resisted her movement.

“Almost there! Just touch your other hand to the floor and hold it!” The Love Hashira said encouragingly.

Y/N stretched her left arm over her head as hard as she could. Her fingers had just graced the wooden grain of the training room floor when her body seized, and her legs gave out from under her.

“Oh!” Mitsuri caught Y/N effortlessly before she could crumple to the floor, gently helping her to sit while blushing at the stream of colorful curses that poured from the Ice Pillar’s mouth.  

“This damn wound,” Y/N moaned, her hand pressing against the angry red mark that curved from below her belly button to her right hip. “You would think it would have healed by now.”

Shinobu frowned as she crouched next to the Ice Pillar, fingers lightly prodding at the scar left behind by Upper Moon Six. “It has healed; if it hadn’t, it wouldn’t have scarred already.” Shinobu pursed her lips. “Though, I suppose it could just be a residual effect of the Upper Rank’s blood demon art – after all, it was no ordinary blade that he pierced you with, was it?”

Y/N shook her head, though she tried to suppress the memory of the demon’s cursed flesh blade ramming through her back and into her stomach. “The blade was his conduit for his blood demon art – but I think it was made from him.”

“How often does it hurt, Y/N?” Mitsuri asked, rubbing soothing circles on her friend’s upper back. Mitsuri was one of the few people Y/N knew who preferred to give physical comfort, and Y/N was grateful for it.

Y/N furrowed her brows in thought. “In a way, there’s always just this dull ache I feel, though it becomes sharper whenever I move a particular way.” Y/N pulled at the band of her uniform bottoms in discomfort. “And, it doesn’t help that these damn pants chafe and rub against it. I’ve even foregone the belt, and it still feels like they’re cutting into me.”

Mitsuri hummed in thought. “Have you considered one of the uniform skirts? They sit a little higher on the waist, so they’re less likely to aggravate it.”

Y/N scowled. “I would rather be stabbed by Upper Six again than request a skirt from that pervert tailor,” she said severely, “Sorry,” she added when she saw the Love Pillar flush with embarrassment.

“Lecherous Corps tailors aside, you may have a good point, Mitsuri.” Shinobu said, eyeing Y/N’s uniform pants in thought. “Y/N, do you mind if I brainstorm some designs for you? I can’t promise whatever I come up with will be suitable for public appearances or assignments, but I might be able to come up with something that will at least keep you comfortable while you heal and build back your strength.”

Y/N smiled as she stretched her legs out, bringing herself into a pose meant to flex her hips. “I’d be grateful for anything you could do, Shinobu.”

The Insect Pillar nodded. “Mitsuri, you know how to sew quite well, do you not? I’m afraid my proficiency with the needle is limited to sewing up wounds.”

The pinkette glowed with enthusiasm. “Yes! I have an entire room dedicated to sewing at my Estate – if you bring by your designs, I’m sure I could put something together!”

Shinobu smiled. “Then it’s settled. I’ll see what I can come up with tonight, and I’ll bring it by in the morning.”

Y/N’s heart swelled at the dedication her two friends showed towards her comfort and recovery. “Thank you both, from the bottom of my heart.”

Shinobu’s smile turned wicked. “Don’t thank us yet, Y/N. You have agility training next.”

Y/N groaned and pulled on her uniform top, buttoning it over her bindings. As a Hashira, agility training meant that she was to meet the Wind Pillar outside of Kocho’s estate where she would endure two hours of having to dodge his relentless attacks. Y/N got along just fine with Shinazugawa – he’d even welcomed her back, and gruffly complimented her work in the Entertainment District – but that did not mean he eased up in his ruthless training.  

By the time the Wind Pillar had dismissed her with a satisfied nod, Y/N had all but limped back to her room, wondering whether she could even summon the strength to bathe after such an arduous day. She almost decided against it, but when her newest scar began to pulse and throb once more, she knew nothing else would soothe it better than the hot water in Kocho’s private hot spring.

Y/N greeted the bowing Kakushi who guarded the entrance to the northernmost wing of the Butterfly Mansion’s hospital as she passed by, and she hoped that Aoi had remembered to restock her room with fresh towels so she could go straight to her bath from her room.

She drew short at the sight of a familiar figure which stood outside of Kocho’s office, leaning against the wall of the small hallway.

“Rengoku!” Y/N was startled, taking a step back in surprise at the sight of the Flame Pillar.

“Y/L/N.” The man who reminded her of the sun nodded in greeting, but his familiar, sunny disposition was noticeably absent, his face impassive and his voice detached.

“I am happy to see you in good health.” Rengoku spoke with unnatural formality; he’d never used that cold, detached manner of speaking to her, not once since she’d caught him staring at her right before the commencement of Final Selection all those years ago.

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“Ice Pillar Y/L/N!” His sunny voice boomed, and Y/N groaned. She’d just gotten her migraine to calm down.

“Rengoku,” she nodded politely, as her comrade came to stand beside her, all smiles and warmth. 

“It’s been a while, Y/L/N! I was beginning to forget what you look like when you roll your eyes at me.” He laughed, and Y/N scowled.

“Perhaps I’ll pay to have my photograph taken, Rengoku. That way, you can carry it with you wherever you go.”

Rengoku turned to her, an eyebrow raised in surprise at her willingness to engage with his banter so quickly. “If that’s the case, Y/N, I’d prefer to have one of you smiling. It would do well to keep me warm on those cold nights away from home.”

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“I heard you were called away on another mission— some train?” Y/N asked him as they strolled through the Master’s garden following their meeting.

“Yes, we’ve unfortunately lost a number of slayers. Perhaps it’s an upper rank!” The Flame Pillar responded jovially, but he stopped in front of Y/N when he saw her frown.

“What is it?” His voice was gentle, and Y/N shook her head, focusing her eyes on the blooming wisteria saplings that had been planted.

A warm finger curled under her chin and tilted her face up until her eyes clashed with pools of golden ore. “My dear Ice Pillar, are you worried for me?” He was smirking, and his thumb lightly caressed the underside of her jaw.

Y/N gingerly took his hand and removed it from her face, though she did not let it go right away. “You are the Flame Hashira, Rengoku. If anyone is capable of defeating an Upper Rank, it most certainly is you.” 

Rengoku smiled broadly at her, his hand nearly grazing her own. “For someone whose prowess lies in ice breathing, Y/L/N, you sure know how to start fires.”

Under any other circumstance, she would have changed the subject, or not said anything at all. But Y/N couldn’t help her sudden desire to flirt back, just to see if she could knock him off his feet as he so often tried to do to her.

“Yours is the only one I’m interested in stoking, Rengoku.” She said sweetly.

She’d laughed at the Flame Pillar’s beet-red face for the rest of the day.

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“And I, you.” Y/N responded, her eyes still wide with surprise as she came to a stop before him, maintaining a cautious distance between them.

A pregnant pause followed, and Y/N made to speak once more, but she was cut off by another deep throb from the wound on her lower abdomen, her hand unconsciously flying to press against it as she swallowed the gasp that threatened to leave her.   

“You’re in pain.” It wasn’t a question.

Y/N shrugged in a feeble attempt at nonchalance. “I suppose it’s to be expected for a while yet. At least until I recover.”

Rengoku said nothing, and the silence felt suffocating.

“Would you-“ Y/N hesitated, and inwardly she’d never felt more embarrassed, or more uncertain than she did then as she stood before the uncharacteristically stoic Flame Pillar. “Would you like to sit down?”

Rengoku’s face remained impassive, and he turned away from her, dismissively.

“I cannot. I came only to retrieve a salve from Kocho.” His voice was just as cold, just as unfamiliar as the rest of him had been.

“Rengoku, is everything all right?” She stretched out a hand to touch his shoulder but was alarmed at how quickly he flinched away from her as if her touch could burn him.

“Everything is fine, Y/L/N. I need to be on my way.” Rengoku’s voice was flat, monotone, and wholly foreign to her.

“I’m sorry for not thanking you sooner — for everything you did to help me that night.” Y/N blurted, and to her relief, Rengoku froze mid-step, though he did not turn towards her. “I owe you my life.”

She did not miss the way Rengoku’s fists clenched at his side. “You owe me nothing. I would have done the same for any other comrade.” He replied, voice tight. “I must get going now. Farewell, Y/L/N.

She was so stunned that she’d not bidden him farewell back. Rather, she’d stood helplessly in her doorway, even long after the edge of his haori had disappeared around the corner of the Butterfly Mansion’s hall.

He had not looked at her once.

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(Kyojuro’s POV)

Kyojuro’s fists remained clenched the entire journey back to his estate.

He felt disgusted with himself. He felt like a coward.

It had nearly knocked him to his knees to see Y/L/N up and standing and talking because for so long, he had feared he would never again see the way she crinkled her nose when she laughed, or how she tucked that one loose strand of hair behind her ear whenever she was concentrating — the one that never stayed put in her braid.

But he had not been able to meet her eyes; couldn’t bear to bring himself to try, because he had been terrified of what he would see.

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Every night for the last two months, he has dreamed of her.

They were not pretty dreams, not like those he had before when he’d wrap her in his arms and kiss her until she laughed, the two of them living in a monster-free world and at peace.

Now, he dreamt of vacant eyes-tinged blue, unseeing and unblinking and frozen, just like the rest of her. He dreams of iced skin and blood and poison pouring from her mouth and her nose until she chokes, her chest rising once with a final rattle before it falls still.

He dreams of Upper Three, smiling deviously as he aims his fist to deal his final blow, and Kyojuro wrenches his blade down, desperate to finally win.

Only, his blade decapitates Y/N, not the Upper Rank demon and he is helpless to watch her head bounce pathetically to the ground. His hands are covered in her blood, and instead of disintegrating, her body falls uselessly to the side. Human.

As quickly as he kills her, the dream changes. He is in a lively street, filled to the brim with street vendors and women and men offering their services. It is night but the lights of the shops and gambling dens and pleasure houses are so bright that it looks like daytime.

He recognizes her by the back of her haori, and his feet move towards her, relieved to see her amidst the hustle and bustle of the city. He reaches out to touch her shoulder, her name whispering on his lips. But she turns before he can make contact, and though she looks healthy, her eyes — her eyes are white and unseeing.

I don’t understand, she pleads with him, it doesn’t make sense.

Kyojuro looks around in alarm and they are no longer standing amongst eager entertainment seekers, but among flame and wreckage, the once-ornately decorated stalls now smashed to splinters as fire slowly consumes the skeletal remains of the entertainment district.

He turns back to her right as a blade pierces through her gut, lifting her from the ground before letting her drop.

His hands shake as he reaches for her, desperate to check her wounds, but when she looks up at him, he stumbles back.

She is all wrong. Her skin is mottled and rotting from her face, and her hair is gray and matted. In place of her eyes are black holes, empty and cold.

Why can’t I come with you? Why can’t I go home, Kyojuro?

Please take me home.

Every night for the last two months, he awoke screaming.

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Y/L/N was alive; he knew that. He knew that if he looked at her, he would not see a corpse; but terrifying visuals aside, Kyojuro had not been able to look at her because he knew what his nightmares were telling him.

He’d been responsible for her near death.

If the Kakushi had returned with a box rather than a Pillar, it would have been his fault.

The thought that Y/L/N — his Y/L/N -- had almost obtained her own headstone in the Master’s graveyard had rocked him to his very core, for that had almost become a reality. She had actually died – for the briefest moment – in his arms; and it had been his fault.

Why can't I go home, Kyojuro?

And though Y/N had awoken from her slumber, her corpse still haunted Kyojuro’s dreams.

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(Y/N’s POV)

Y/N was sprawled on her infirmary floor, preparing her limbs for another day of rigorous recuperation training at the hands of her fellow Hashira.

She stood to stretch her arms and lower back, wincing slightly at the pull of her scar. “Don’t you start,” she warned her body, willing total concentration breathing to dull the persistent ache that threatened to derail her entire day.

Y/N sensed movement near her doorway and knew, without looking, who watched her as she warmed up her aching muscles.

“Uzui retired. It’s time for you to do the same.”

Y/N who had been in mid-stretch, righted herself and blinked at the Flame Pillar. “Pardon?” Both the news of Uzui’s retirement and Rengoku’s words were a shock to her.

“Retire, Y/LN.” Rengoku repeated in that detached manner of his that she hardly recognized. “You helped take down an Upper Rank. You’ve done enough. Let someone else shoulder the burden, now.”

“I see no reason to retire, Rengoku.” Y/N retorted, voice hardening. “And unless and until the Master requests it or I perish, I see no reason to do so.”

Rengoku exhaled harshly through his nose. “You were injured — seriously so.”

“As were you, and yet you seem to have no intention of slowing down.” Y/N said, coolly.

Rengoku’s attention stayed fixed on the garden outside her window. “And I was only unconscious for three weeks. You were out for nearly two months, Y/L/N. That is unheard of and frankly, unacceptable for a Hashira.”

“What is your problem?” Y/N was growing more irritated the longer this inane conversation dragged on, and it wasn’t helping that Rengoku still refused to so much as look her direction, let alone meet her eyes. “Is this about what happened after you brought me here? Kocho told me everything — I’m not mad.”

Rengoku’s shoulders tensed. “It was necessary. Again, I would have done it for any one of my comrades.”

Y/N felt like she’d been slapped.

“You keep saying that, yet you won’t look at me— why?” Her confusion and hurt were beginning to melt into anger. “If I am just another comrade, then you should be able to meet my eyes.”

Rengoku said nothing.

“What Uzui did for me— that was what comrades do,” Y/N continued, her voice growing stronger as her blood grew hotter. “But you? You and I both know you were under no obligation to bring me back from the brink of death the way you did.”

“I’m not sure what you want me to say, Y/L/N,” Rengoku answered after a long moment.

Y/N took a step towards him. “I want to know why.”

“It was necessary.”

Y/N felt like throttling him.

How long had they danced around each other? How many times had they caught themselves staring at the other for a breath longer than normal, had allowed an otherwise friendly touch during a spar linger?

How could he have held her, half nude for hours, putting himself on the brink of death all for the sake of keeping her alive — and then tell her she was the same as any other comrade?

“What are we doing Rengoku -- is this to be our destiny?” Y/N demanded, exasperatedly, her voice hard. “We continue to pretend like we don’t care about one another until one of us dies?”

Rengoku remained silent, back still turned away from her.

“We’ve each had a near-death experience in a matter of months,” Y/N continued, throat working hard to keep her voice steady despite the telling burn of angry tears in her eyes. “By all accounts, one if not both of us should be dead.”

“And yet, somehow, you expect me to act as though the fact you carried me back here— that you put yourself on death’s door to keep my heart beating — doesn’t mean anything?”

It didn’t make sense. It didn’t make sense for him to fight so hard for her, to make her believe that someone valued her life that much, only to cast her aside.

She hadn’t wanted to wake up, initially; she’d felt relief for the hair’s breadth she’d thought she’d finally met her end. He was the one who dragged her back, and now he wouldn’t even look at her.

It didn’t make sense.

Y/N’s fists shook beside her, and she felt the venomous words fly from her mouth before she could stop them.

“You should’ve let me die.”

No sooner had she let the poison drip from her mouth had she felt herself flying backward, back slamming against the nearest wall of her temporary room.

“Never,” Rengoku snarled at her, his arm pressing firmly against her shoulders to hold her in place against the wood. “Never say those words to me again.”

Y/N’s chest was heaving, and she trembled beneath him, her fury threatening to explode out of her.

“There is no place on this earth where you could be in peril and I would not find you,” he said quietly, his eyes a simmering, fiery orange. “Where I wouldn’t find a way to bring you back home.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Y/N said softly, breath still coming hard from her nose but no longer from her anger.

“Doesn’t it?” Rengoku was close, dangerously close.

Y/N wanted nothing more than to lean in, to close the distance that barely existed between Rengoku’s face and hers and finally be done with all the nonsense. But he had spent so much time avoiding her gaze until that moment, and Y/N felt more lost than ever, set adrift by the look of heat and longing that was mixed with the burning rage in his eyes.

Something tugged incessantly at her gut and it would not allow her to move from her place against her recovery room’s wall.

Instead, her arms came up to rest against Rengoku’s chest before gently, but firmly, pushing him away.

“No, it doesn’t.” She repeated. “And I am tired, Rengoku.”

The Flame Pillar allowed himself to be pushed away, but he looked at her with a small, cruel smile.

“Then you’re right; it doesn’t mean anything at all.”

She flinched against the ugly slap of his words. Y/N had expected him to hit back, but she hadn’t anticipated his venom to sting as much as it did.

She felt all of the fight within her gutter out, leaving her with nothing but a heavy weight in her chest that she wished she couldn’t feel.

“Y/L/N, I-“ the Flame Pillar almost sounded remorseful.

“Thank you, for your clarification, Lord Rengoku,” she said numbly, formally, parroting his earlier tone with her. “And thank you for your assistance that night. Please, next time — don’t trouble yourself.”

Rengoku hesitated for a moment, his hand twitching as though he wanted to reach for her. He swallowed hard, and turned away, shutting the door to Y/N’s infirmary.

The moment the door at clicked shut, Y/N exhaled harshly, stumbling back against her bed as she hugged her arms around herself, and she tried to keep herself from falling apart.

It shouldn’t have hurt this bad. They were both in the Demon Slayer Corps; they saved strangers all the time without it ever meaning anything other than good will and a desire to exterminate all demons.

So why did his insistence that she was no different hurt so badly?

Because she wasn’t a stranger.

Because, while she’d always known she wasn’t his, she’d still thought she’d been something.

As Y/N curled against her blanket, an unsettling numbness began to spread from her heart, quieting even the dull ache from the scar across her belly, Y/N realized that she’d meant nothing to the Flame Pillar all along.

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(Kyojuro’s POV)

He hated himself.

He utterly and truly despised himself.

He’d been hurt by her insistence that she did not know his feelings even though he was the one who’d opened the door, yet somehow, it still felt like a rejection.

So he’d hit back, only for her to visibly recoil at the sharp blow of his words.

He would not forgive himself, for as long as he lived, for the way the light in her eyes had winked out.

He did not know what bothered him more: the fact that she’d assumed that he regretted keeping her alive, or that she’d said “next time” he needn’t bother. As though she were counting on there being a next time.

He knew he should turn around; knew that he should barge back into her hospital room, drop to his knees, and beg her to forgive his cruelty.

He knew that he should explain to her why he found it so difficult to admit his feelings for her — that he had watched his father turn into a shell of a man and abandon his children in the wake of their mother’s death, leaving them to raise themselves. That he had vowed, as he’d watched his father drink his days away, that he would never be like him, would never abandon those who relied on him most.

He’d promised that he would never be a coward, even if, in all honesty, the idea that he, Kyojuro, could ever love someone that fiercely only to have them ripped from his grasp terrified him to no end.

As he forced his legs to carry him to back to his estate, Kyojuro wondered if perhaps, in his desperation not to turn into his father, he’d become the old man after all.

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(Shinobu’s POV)

Shinobu felt the Flame Pillar’s presence in her office before she saw him, though she was in no rush to give him his salve, especially not after what she’d overheard him spit at her friend.

“If you do not mind, I would like to send my crow to collect this from here on,” Rengoku said tightly, and Shinobu could sense his failing attempt to keep his fury in check.

“Very well then,” the Insect Pillar responded just as tersely, turning away from the papers and books on her desk to pull out the small tin containing the salve the Flame Pillar used to soothe the ache of the scar he now bore across his pectoral and shoulder. Rather than handing it to him, she tossed it through the air, the Flame Hashira catching it swiftly in his hand.

Rengoku nodded his thanks and turned to leave.

“I didn’t realize it was against Corps’ rules to care about our comrades,” Shinobu said icily, if not to signal to him that there had been spectators to his ugly outburst.

He couldn’t resist taking her bait. “Maybe it should be. It would be easier that way — for everyone.”

“Is that so?” Kocho sneered, no hint of familiarity or kindness in her features; nothing but that poisonous, deadly smile. “Well, if that was the case, then you would’ve preferred Uzui to leave Y/L/N for dead among the rubble in Yoshiwara, correct?

“You would rather us be searching to fill the newest Hashira vacancy, with her corpse barely cold in the ground-“

“Do not say another word, Kocho.” Rengoku warned, quietly.

But for Shinobu, anger was her vice, and so his warning only spurred her on.

“Tell me, Rengoku, if the new Pillar had been a woman, would you have held her the way you held Y/N?”

Shinobu’s smile was chilling as she relished the way the Flame Pillar began to tremble. “Or perhaps, would you finally confess to her, having learned your lesson from the missed opportunity with Y/N? Would you live out your days with her, while Y/N rotted below the earth, having never known someone loved her?”

“ENOUGH.” Rengoku roared, and for a moment, Shinobu thought the Flame Pillar might put his clenched fist through her wall. The silence that followed was tense and long as Rengoku struggled to calm his breathing.

“What do you want from me, Kocho?” Rengoku finally snapped, wheeling around to glower at the Insect Pillar, eyes half-crazed in his frustration.

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(Two months earlier)

Dawn was still far off, but the hall of her estate was a mess.

Shinobu knew that at any moment, another group of Kakushi would be coming through the hole Rengoku had left in her wall bearing the unconscious body of the Sound Pillar, and if they did so, they’d be stumbling upon the chaotic scene that had unfolded before.

Rengoku was still on the floor, legs on either side of Y/N, who was slumped against his chest and fully exposed from the waist up.

With some satisfaction, Shinobu noted that the dark purple bruising around Y/N’s chest was clearing, a sure sign that she had chosen the correct antidote for the Flame Hashira to slam into her heart.

But her hypothermia persisted.

Rengoku, on the other hand, was beginning to breathe rather loudly, no doubt as he continued to maintain his high fever for the sake of the unmoving woman braced between his thighs.

“Rengoku,” Shinobu crouched down next to the Flame Pillar, her hand coming to a rest on his shoulder, which burned beneath her palm. “Rengoku, we need to move.”

The man lifted his head up to meet her eyes, his own glassy and unfocused. Shinobu clamped down on the swear building on her tongue — he had fever fog.

Rengoku grunted at her before his head slumped back down, chin nearly touching his chest.

Shinobu tried again. “Rengoku, we are in the open hallway of the Butterfly Mansion. Others will be arriving soon. Y/N is completed exposed.”

That seemed to get his attention. Rengoku’s head lifted, his eyes narrowed slits, but nonetheless open. He grunted in some sort of acknowledgement and began to shift Y/N in his lap.

He turned the unconscious Ice Pillar so that her back rested against one arm that curled around her bare waist. His free arm slid to grip beneath her knees, shifting her into a bridal-style position to carry her.

Two of the Butterfly Mansion’s staff moved to help him stand, but Rengoku shrugged them off, surprising Shinobu as he managed to rise steadily to his feet, Y/N secured against his chest.

He looked at Shinobu expectantly and she began ushering him towards a secluded wing of the Manor, towards her private hall. Across from her personal office was a special infirmary room, walled off from the rest of the recovery ward.

Shinobu withdrew a ring of keys from her pocket and unlocked the heavy, wooden door.

“You two can stay in here until her body temperature returns to normal,” She said, as Rengoku made his way towards the recovery bed.

Shinobu watched as Rengoku, still wearing his zori and uniform pants, ever so gently lowered himself and Y/N down on the bed, repeating his earlier positioning of her between his thighs. He propped up one leg slightly to keep the Ice Pillar from slumping over, her back pressed to his bare chest. Rengoku leaned against the headboard so that Y/N’s head could rest against his clavicle, though it slumped instead towards her left shoulder.

Shinobu made to grab a blanket to throw over the two topless Hashira but stopped short as Rengoku made to move again.

He seemed to realize that Y/N, while also still in her torn uniform pants and zori, was still bare from the waist up, her body positioned towards the door. He frowned, his hand coming up to graze the side of her arm. He flinched slightly, no doubt at the persistent chill that lingered on her skin, and he moved both of his large hands down over the back of hers as they lay limply on either side of her thighs, intertwining their fingers.

Awestruck, Shinobu watched as Rengoku brought Y/N’s arms up to cross them over her chest, locking them in place by covering her arms with his own, as though wrapping her in a sweet embrace. Shinobu knew that he’d done so to avoid touching her bare breasts himself, or at least to do so as minimally as possible, while still providing her cover. And, due to the breadth of Rengoku’s muscled forearms, Y/N’s sensitive area was almost entirely obscured from view.

Rengoku had barely been clinging to consciousness himself, and once she was sufficiently hidden in his arms, his head dropped forward until his forehead came to a rest on Y/N’s shoulder, opposite of where she’d rolled her head.

To the unassuming eye, it would have appeared as though the pair of Hashira were simply engaged in an intimate moment, rather than one desperately trying to anchor the other to life.

Shinobu moved to place the blanket over the Pillars’ laps, before quietly exiting the private room.

“Seal this wing off entirely,” she murmured to Aoi, who had been waiting dutifully outside. “No one comes down here without my explicit permission.”

Aoi bowed to her before she ushered the other Kakushi out. Faintly, Shinobu heard the arriving shouts of the group bearing the Sound Pillar. She took a single deep breath, steeling herself once more, before moving to check on her incoming patient.

-------------------------------------------------------

Shinobu raised her chin, looking down her nose at him in disgust. “I’m waiting for the man who would have set the world ablaze to save Y/N to reappear.”

She cocked her head, narrowing her eyes at him. “I’m waiting for the man who used his own body as her lifeline, and who tried to smash open the infirmary door when he was delirious with fever because he thought that she had died while he was asleep.”

The Insect Pillar’s masked smile finally slipped from her face and her true rage towards the Flame Pillar shone through. “It is cruel to make her feel as though she’s done something wrong,” Shinobu’s arms folded across her chest. “And it is cruel to you both for you to pretend as though she does not mean anything to you. Haven’t you both been through enough? Are you not exhausted as well?”

A tortured look passed over Rengoku’s face. “It is better this way, Kocho. I do not want to be the cause of her pain, and I cannot survive going through what happened to her again.

“For all your talk about either of you dying, I’ve yet to hear you mention the equal alternative,” Shinobu sighed, gathering her papers and books. “The one where we win and you both live. What do you suppose happens then?”

Rengoku said nothing and so, Shinobu continued. “Suppose we emerge victorious – would you truly prefer for you and Y/N to go your separate ways – to never see one another again, or never acknowledge the bond the two of you share?”

“There is no guarantee that either of us survives, Kocho,” Rengoku said quietly, his eyes falling to his feet.

Shinobu smiled but it was no longer cruel or bitter; it was wistful. “And there is no guarantee that either of you die. That’s the fickle nature of humanity, is it not? The very reason we fight?”

The Insect Pillar gathered her papers and stacked them neatly on her shelf. “For the possibilities of it all.”

--------------------------------------------------------

The sun was high in the sky by the time Shinobu had a moment to check on the two unconscious pillars in the back room.

Uzui had required quite a bit of attention in order to stop the poison from becoming deadly, though the fact that her combination of the wisteria antidote with the amphetamine had been so effective on Y/N meant that Shinobu was able to administer the same to the Sound Pillar in half the time.

She was exhausted; the strain of the night’s events weighed heavily on her, but she had to check on Y/N’s temperature — if the Ice Pillar still had not recovered, she feared that hope was lost.

She pushed the door to the private infirmary room open and saw the two Hashira, still in the same position she’d left them in. Rengoku was deeply asleep, no doubt from the exhaustion wrought by his high fever.

Enclosed within his arms, Y/N remained unconscious but pink.

Shinobu felt the relief course through her, but she did not allow herself to relax until she reached out a hand to lightly pinch the Ice Pillar’s cheek.

It bloomed red beneath her fingers, and it was warm to the touch.

He’d done it. The Flame Pillar had staved off her hypothermia. Their only obstacle now lay in getting her to reawaken.

Shinobu laid her hand across Rengoku’s forehead, frowning at the scorching heat of his brow; his fever had worsened more than she’d anticipated, and he would need intervention soon. She turned to nod at the Kakushi who waited by the door to the recovery room, and the three of them moved to separate the Flame and Ice Pillars.

“Put him in one of the other single-recovery rooms. Tell Aoi to administer the fever medication I keep in my cabinet – it should dispel his fever within a few hours.” Shinobu ordered, as the Kakushi, with great effort, lifted the Flame Pillar from his position behind Y/N. Shinobu gently eased her friend down against the bed and pulled a blanket over her exposed torso. “I will also need a fresh hospital gown for Lady Y/L/N.”

The Kakushi nodded their assent and got to work, heaving the unconscious Flame Pillar towards the door when he awoke. At first, his eyes were dazed, and confused as they darted around him, but as he took in his surroundings, he began to struggle against the grip of the Kakushi.

“Please, Lord Rengoku, your fever is dangerously high! Allow us to help!” One of them cried, though his efforts to tug the Pillar away were futile. Shinobu supposed the only reason he had not yet succeeded in completely throwing them off was the fact that his fever had severely weakened him.

“Rengoku,” Shinobu said sternly, coming around from her position by Y/N to meet his eyes, though he only thrashed harder against the Kakushi as he began to mutter incoherently under his breath. “Rengoku, that’s enough. You’re safe. You’re in the Butterfly Mansion, and you have a high fever. Please, let the Kakushi do their job.”

But the Insect Pillar’s words fell on deaf ears as Rengoku began to hyperventilate, his muscles straining as he tried desperately to break free from the Kakushi’s hold. Shinobu was at a loss; her comrade did not merely look frantic – he looked terrified, desperate, and utterly beyond reproach or reason. His heart rate had spiked considerably, and his breath was jerky and uneven, as though he could not fully understand where he was or that he was amongst friends.

As she strained to make out what the Flame Pillar repeated, over and over, under his breath, Shinobu realized that his eyes were not unfocused at all; they were locked on the unconscious Ice Pillar in the bed behind her.

“I can still save her!” he roared.

It all made sense then.

Shinobu realized that he thought they were moving him not because he’d successfully thwarted her hypothermia, but because he had failed — and that she was now dead.

“Rengoku,” Shinobu said sharply, trying to force the irate and delirious Flame Pillar to meet her eyes. “Rengoku, Y/N is alive. Her body temperature has returned to normal. She is safe.”

But the Flame Pillar seemed not to hear her, as he only struggled harder against the Kakushi desperately trying to usher him out of Y/N’s room.

Rengoku was becoming more violent, even as the Kakushi finally managed to shove him through the doorway of Y/N’s room. Just before they’d managed to slam the door shut, Shinobu caught Aoi’s eye and nodded, the younger girl quickly disappeared into the Pillar’s office.

Shinobu watched in stunned silence as the Flame Pillar broke free from the Kakushi and began hurtling his body against the door, Y/N’s name falling from his lips in an anguished chant.

Rengoku was so delirious in his fevered panic that he did not notice Aoi slip behind him and plunge a syringe into his neck, depositing a thick stream of the clear liquid that Shinobu knew would have a near-instantaneous effect on his consciousness.

The Insect Pillar felt a strange sense of pity and remorse as she watched her friend slump to the floor outside of the infirmary room, a final cry out for the Ice Pillar falling from his lips before the sedative lulled him back to sleep.

-------------------------------------------------------

(Kyojuro’s POV – three days later)

He didn’t know why he’d returned to the Butterfly Mansion.

Kyojuro tried to convince himself that it was because he didn’t want to wait for his crow to return with Kocho’s salve, but he knew it was a pathetic excuse. He’d sworn to himself that he would leave Y/L/N alone after their last argument. He’d vowed that the door between them had been closed for good, and they would only ever be colleagues. Nothing more.

But he couldn’t stay away. Perhaps it was because he’d spent the last few days stewing over their last argument, and somewhere, amidst his endless supply of self-hatred, he’d also grown angry with the Ice Pillar.

Angry, because she had put herself in harm’s way when he’d specifically told her not to.

Angry because she’d nearly died, and she’d threatened to take the last vestiges of his sanity with her to the afterlife.

Angry that she insisted on remaining in the Demon Slayer Corps despite having given more than enough of herself to their cause; angry that she didn’t understand why he couldn’t yet do the same.

Angry because she didn’t seem to understand his feelings at all.

Perhaps in another life, they could have had each other. Had they both been born into a world without demons, then maybe they would have still found each other and maybe, just maybe, he would have been able to love her the way she deserved.

But for Kyojuro, their relationship would always be defined by a series of maybes, and nothing more.

--------------------------------------------------------

It would have been a lie for Kyojuro to say he’d not been struck dumb by her.

She was stretched out on the steps of Kocho’s engawa, legs dangling off the edge of the porch as she leaned back on her elbows, eyes closed dreamily as she kept her face tilted up towards the cooling night air.

Long, lean, bare legs, he realized, an uncomfortable heat creeping up his collar. He couldn’t help running his eyes up their length, fixating hard on the supple curves of her thighs.

Why were her legs bare?

She looked…so unguarded this way. Her haori was draped around her shoulders, one of its sleeves hanging loosely to the side and exposing her bare shoulder – how exposed was she, the idiot – and her hair was completely unbound, falling in a silken river to her waist.

It was a stark contrast to the braided crown she wore at the base of her neck. It hit him that, not counting the night she’d nearly died, he had not otherwise seen her with her hair down.

He liked it. A lot.

“I finally rid myself of one migraine only for another to appear,” Y/N’s lofty voice snapped him out of his reverence, as the Ice Pillar opened her eyes to glare at him. 

“If you’ve come for Shinobu, she is not here. She’s on an errand and will not be back until early morning.” Y/N turned her attention away from him and back towards the garden, her voice stony.

At that moment, there were a million things Kyojuro could have said to the Ice Pillar.  

How are you?

I missed the way you glare at me.

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

Any of those options would have been far better than what came tumbling out of his mouth.

“I hadn’t realized you were indecent. My apologies.”

Y/N’s head snapped back to him, her eyes chips of ice. “Indecent?” She rose from her seat on the engawa and faced him fully, and Rengoku nearly groaned.

Indecent, indeed.

Y/N was showing more skin than Kanroji did on a regular day. As she stood, Rengoku saw that she was hardly wearing any clothing at all, save for the haori draped loosely around her frame.

The Ice Pillar wore no top but the bindings around her chest, leaving a sizeable swath of her midriff exposed to the summer air. Whatever she wore as bottoms could hardly be labeled as “pants,” given that their hem ended just short of the middle of her thigh, leaving the vast majority of her legs exposed to anyone who would happen to walk by.  

The Flame Pillar felt as though he were overheating, and he tugged uselessly at the collar of his uniform shirt. As he looked over the scowling Ice Pillar, Rengoku found himself unable to remember why he had come to the Mansion at all.  

------------------------------------------------------

(Y/N’s POV)

(Earlier that day)

“Ta-da!” Mitsuri sang as she pulled the small bundle from behind her, a grin wide on her face. “A gift from Shinobu and myself!”

Y/N peered down quizzically at the small, folded bunch of cloth in the Love Pillar’s hands. “What is it?”

“A new take on the Corps’ uniform,” Shinobu replied crisply, sitting down on the tatami floor of her office. “I designed it myself, and Mitsuri sewed it.”

“But what is it?” Y/N pressed.

Mitsuri joined Shinobu on the floor. “Your new training pants. Altered, so that you have more flexibility and less irritation against your wound.”

Y/N held up the tiny scrap of fabric between her index finger and thumb. “Are you telling me these are pants?”

Mitsuri and Shinobu nodded, smiling.

Y/N looked incredulously at the two women. “But where are the pants?”

Mitsuri laughed. “Think of it as a cross between the uniform skirt and pants, but more modified.”

Shinobu nodded. “I used the same material that our uniform is made out of but designed it in a way to be more flexible – it will mold to your body rather than require you to use a belt to keep it up.” Y/N unfurled the cloth and gaped down at it. “They likely aren’t suitable for public, but around here and during your training, they should be perfectly adequate.”

“Perfectly adequate?” Y/N repeated, turning the garment over in her hands. “Shinobu, these are underclothes! Not pants!” The Ice Pillar could not stop herself from giggling. “My legs will be entirely exposed!”

“Try them on!” Mitsuri urged. “Shinobu and I estimated they would hit around mid-thigh, so you’ll still have some coverage.” Mitsuri looked down at her own skirt in consideration. “Slightly more so than I do.”

Y/N groaned but removed her uniform pants and slid into her friends’ gift. She was surprised at how comfortable they felt; they had a similar feel to the chest bindings most of the women in the Corps wore, in terms of fit. The black bottoms had no true waistband, but fit snuggly at the dip of her waist, before hugging her hips and thighs until the hem cut right above the middle of her thigh.

“How do they feel?” Shinobu asked as Y/N inspected the new garment.

Y/N turned from side to side, testing their flexibility. “Good. They don’t seem to rub against the scar at all.” Y/N smiled devilishly at her friends. “Even if they do leave little to the imagination.”

MItsuri giggled. “I hadn’t noticed Y/N, but you have – oh, what did Uzui call it?” She scrunched her eyebrows in thought. “Oh! An ‘easy and deliverable type of butt!’” The three girls laughed, carefree as Y/N wiggled her hips suggestively in front of her friends, her heart warm at the care and consideration they had put into their gift.

------------------------------------------------------

Y/N mused that Mitsuri’s assessment of how she looked in the undershorts had been correct as Rengoku’s eyes raked over her as she stood tall before him, an unmistakable glint of hunger glowing in his amber pools.

Until they snagged on the thick, curved gash that extended from the band of her bottoms to just over her belly button.

In an instant, simmering fire of the Flame Pillar’s gaze had been snuffed out, something harder and colder taking over as he glared at where Upper Moon Six had buried his poisoned sickle within her.

Under any other circumstance, Y/N might have felt self-conscious at the mixture of frigid contempt that pulled on Rengoku’s face as he ran his eyes over her scar, but at that moment, it only made her blood boil.

“You should return to your room. You shouldn’t be out here exposed like this.” Rengoku said after a moment, his eyes moving away from her to stare over her shoulder, resolutely avoiding her gaze.

Y/N wondered briefly if it were possible to make someone combust with the fire of their stare. She was so tired and so angry at the way in which he demanded she stay at arm’s length yet felt utterly entitled to boss her around.

She decided then that she would not comply. Instead, Y/N took one step and then another, and again until she pushed past him, marching intently up the path she knew led away from the Butterfly Estate and to a secluded, grassy, hilled clifftop.

“Stop — Y/L/N” Rengoku growled, lunging after her, but Y/N, despite her injured state, was still faster than he, and she twisted out of his grasp before he could grab her and haul her back to the Mansion.

She probably looked insane, and maybe she was -- barely dressed, hair unbound, and striding towards that grassy hill up the winding path from Shinobu’s estate like she had any idea what she was doing.

The Flame Pillar followed.

—————————————————————--------

Apart from her close friendship with the Insect Pillar, there was another reason Y/N spent so much time in and around the Butterfly Mansion — its view.

Though she supposed this secret area she’d discovered couldn’t really be counted as part of Shinobu’s Estate — it was, after all, up a rather steep and twisting climb from the western-most point of her friend’s manor, and one could scarcely see the lights of the house once they ascended the small cliff.

Her thighs ached after nearly two months of disuse as she stormed up the steep incline, narrowly avoiding the sharp, twisting branches of the ancient trees that had concaved over the beaten path, forming a tunnel of gnarled wood that forced her to duck her head to navigate.

Y/N’s chest tightened as she neared the end of the path, the steady beat of the Flame Pillar’s footsteps trailing closely behind her.

When she finally emerged from the thicket of branches, she felt as though she could breathe again.

The path had given way to a cliff-top clearing. Soft, emerald grass covered the earthen floor, peppered with various wildflowers in vibrant hues of periwinkle, white, and pink. Towards the center was a thick, ancient oak tree, with a trunk as wide as a small hut, Its leaves ruffled lazily in the slight summer breeze. Fat hotaru floated idly above the grass while the crickets hummed.

The clearing extended to a point before dropping into a rocky cliff. Had it been a night of a new moon, Y/N would never risk coming out here for fear of stumbling too close to the cliff’s edge. But that night, the moon was full and its silver light was so bright that Y/N could see all the way to the opposite of the clearing, down to the summer irises swaying in the warm night air.

It was a pity that instead of feeling the warm serenity she normally had when she came out to her little hideaway, she felt nothing but boiling anger and a growing headache.

“You need to go back inside,” Rengoku said from behind her. Y/N ground her teeth, turning sharply on her heel to face him.

“Why do you care — I thought you only did that when I’m unconscious.” She bit back, and it felt good to see him be the one who flinched for once. “Or maybe it’s when you think I’m dying?”

She laughed, derisively. “You’ll have to forgive me, I’ve long since forgotten the rules of your game. You change them so often, you see.”

“Go back to the Butterfly Mansion, Y/L/N. You shouldn’t be out here. Not in your current state.” He said, voice as hard and unforgiving as stone.

“I’ve told you already that you are not in a position to order me around!” Y/N snapped, her words and her eyes chips of ice as she glared at him.

He was so infuriating — he had told her, in so many ways, that she meant nothing to him, and yet here he was, glowering at her as though her very existence incensed him.

“You’ve been nothing but unkind to me since I awoke, and you’ve given me no explanation!” She took a step towards him.

“Stop,” the Flame Pillar bit out, barely concealing the way he trembled with rage. “Do not take another step. Turn around and go back inside.”

If Y/N had looked pissed before, she looked downright furious now.

“Why did you come to see me while I was unconscious?” Y/N demanded, shaking. “You came every day, yet the second I wake up, you stop?”

His refusal to answer her, to even look at her, only made her seethe.

“You’re a coward, Rengoku.”

Rengoku’s teeth gnashed together, his fists balling tightly by his sides as he drew upon every ounce last shred of sanity, of restraint, left within him.

“Go. In. Side.” He ground out dangerously, his voice dropping into a growl on the last syllable.

But the Ice Pillar took another step towards him, her eyes blazing with a fire that could outburn his own.

“No.”

Rengoku’s jaw flexed. “Y/L/N-“

“I said no, Rengoku.” She was now within arm’s reach of the rigid Flame Pillar.

His eyes met hers, cold and hard, but she did not balk. She went in for the kill. “You have no say over my choices when my life is meaningless to you.”

Y/N watched the blow land, and land hard.

“Meaningless?” Rengoku looked at her and there was a new fire in his gaze, a hot, angry fire that threatened to burn the grassy overlook around them to cinders. “You believe I think your life is meaningless?”

This time, it was Rengoku who advanced towards her, bringing her within an arm’s length, and forcing her to tilt her head up to hold his raging stare.

“Do you have any idea — any at all — what it was like to see you, half dead in Uzui’s arms?” Rengoku’s voice dark, and harsh as he narrowed his eyes at her. “Or what it was like to have to carry you to Kocho, not knowing whether your heart would give out before I could get you there?”

Y/N refused to cower beneath the intensity of his gaze, her chin lifting defiantly. “Do I know what it was like?” She hissed; hackles raised.

“Thank you Rengoku, truly — thank you.” Y/N laughed, but it was devoid of any humor. “I am so glad that you’ve finally given me something to work with — so those are your rules, are they?”  She was toe to toe with the Flame Hashira, glowering down at her.

“Well since we’re keeping score, Rengoku, do you know what it was like to see you broken and bleeding out on Kocho’s table after the incident on the train?”

“That’s not the same thing,” Rengoku shot back bitterly.

“How the fuck is it not-?”

“Because it wasn’t your mission to take!” Rengoku finally broke, his voice rising to a shout. He could not stop himself as his hands shot out and gripped Y/N’s shoulders, shaking her lightly in his torment.

“You have no idea how it felt to know that you had died — no matter how briefly — because you went on a mission in my place!”

“To know that — that you could still die because I had been too weak on that fucking train. Your death would have been my fault, Y/N!”

----------------------------------------------------

(Kyojuro’s POV)

And there it was: the truth that he had tried so hard to suppress, laid flat out in the open.

Everything that had happened to Y/N, the whole entire mess — had been entirely his fault.

His fault because he had been too weak to finish off Upper Moon Three, too weak to do anything but let the demon’s punch a hole through his chest like it was nothing.

Y/L/N and Uzui had saved themselves in the end; they’d completed their mission, defeating not just one, but two upper ranks. They hadn’t succumbed to their injuries until after they’d fulfilled their duties.

But him? He’d only been saved by the grace of the sun and the tireless efforts of the Kakushi.

He’d nearly lost his life and he had nothing to show for it. Rather than do anything to further the Corp’s ultimate goals, he’d only set them back, and nearly cost them something priceless in return — their Ice Pillar.

The woman he loved.

He had no right to love her, of course — not when his reprehensible weakness had forced her to be offered up to two upper moon demons on a silver platter.

She’d been there, the morning he awoke from his three-week-long coma. She’d been right by his bedside, a sob choking from her throat as she’d called for Kocho to come quick!

At first, he’d been confused, because he hadn’t understood why she was crying. He’d tried to reach for her, to wipe the tears spilling down her cheeks when the pain had slammed into him, causing him to seize, arm suspended in mid-air.

Never before had he not been in control of his body; it had sent him into a panic.

“No, Kyojuro, please don’t move!” Y/N had cried, calling him, for the first time, by his given name. a warm hand wrapping around the one he’d stretched out towards her, lowering it gently down to the bed. “Your injuries are too grave!”

He didn’t remember much after that, only what Kocho had filled him in on later — namely, that he’d begun to panic, his breathing flaring out of control as he’d tried to fight off Y/L/N, a Kakushi, and the Insect Pillar.

His recovery had been long and slow. His wounds from the Upper Three demon had resulted in significant muscle damage that had required weeks of intensive care and training in order to build it back up again.

Those long days spent at the Butterfly Mansion had given him time to stew; to rage against himself. He’d been frustrated, so unbelievably frustrated over his inability to swing his own sword for more than five minutes that he almost considered giving in and retiring.

And then Uzui arrived, and he’d mentioned an upcoming mission to the Entertainment District, that they had discussed prior to Kyojuro leaving for the damned train, and the Sound Pillar revealed that his intel suggested the possible presence of an Upper Rank.

Kyojuro had promised to accompany him, and then he’d woken up in Kocho’s hospital, and that mission had been taken off the table and given to her.

The panic he had felt had been indescribable; he had narrowly survived an encounter with an Upper Rank, but then he was forced to watch the woman he loved walk straight into the wolf's den, and he had been incapable of convincing her to stay behind.

While she had been gone, he had railed against and prayed to and cursed at the gods, begging them to bring her home, to let her come back to him alive and whole.

Instead, they’d sent her back as a near-corpse and had laughed at his pitiful attempts to save her.

And then, she had straddled that narrow divide between life and death for nearly two months, and he had been as helpless as a cat chasing a string — his desire forever in sight yet somehow always just beyond his reach.

After his brush with death, he’d made a commitment to himself not to think of his battle with the Upper Three demon, to not waste his skill and energy on the past, but rather focus his fury on ensuring that when they did meet again, he would emerge victorious. He’d certainly not given any thought to the demon’s slime-tongued words.

He’d been disgusted when the demon had propositioned turning him into its like — and outright offended that those creatures could ever compare to the beautiful transience of humanity.

But then he’d cradled Y/N, broken and dying in his arms, and for the first time, Kyojuro had understood the appeal of the Upper Three’s offer.

Because he would rather have lived in a world in which Y/N had been turned into his enemy than in one in which she did not exist at all.

The very thought had shaken him to his core; because it meant he was not fully dedicated to their cause. He had no right to call himself a Hashira; nor did he have any right to claim to love Y/L/N. Not when he’d so easily damn her out of his own selfishness. So he had run.

A coward, after all.

--------------------------------------------------------

(Y/N’s POV)

Y/N was panting, her fury rippling off her in near-tangible waves.

“So, this whole thing,” she seethed, her voice shaking. “Your whole fucking attitude — has been because you’ve had your head so far up your ass, that you thought my injuries were your fault?”

It was unbelievable. It was ridiculous. And yet it was so Rengoku that it made her ears ring, made her see red as she tried to keep herself from imploding.

Rengoku said nothing, but she could see the way his eyes shuttered closed, his walls flying back up as he remained intent on keeping her out. He turned and began walking back towards the path back to the Estates.

“I was right — you ARE a coward!” She shrieked after him.

He froze. She stood there, heaving, daring him to turn around, to face her.

“Do not call me a coward again,” he said quietly, his back still to her, but his shoulders tensed, his fists balling once more at his sides.

Y/N smiled ruefully. “Then exactly what would you call what you’re doing now?.” Her lip curled into a sneer. “Run away, Rengoku. It’s what you do best.”

A flash of orange and white clouded her vision as Rengoku turned on his heel and closed the distance between them before she could draw another breath.

Y/N did not have time to react before his hands gripped either side of her jaw as he slammed his mouth down against hers, furious and heated.

It was not gentle; it was an angry clash of lips and teeth, but it also stoked a fire so hot in Y/N’s belly that she did not care, and she fully gave herself over to the bruising press of his lips against hers. She gladly opened up to him so that his tongue could slide into her mouth as one of his hands snaked behind her head to press her harder to him, demanding that she let him take and take until he was sated.

As quickly as it had begun, it was over. They broke apart with a gasp, leaping back from one another as though burned. Their chests heaved as they stared at one another.

There was a line drawn in the sand between them. If either of them crossed it, there would be no going back.

He was a coward, but she wasn’t. And she’d grown tired of this tedious dance of theirs.

Yet it surprised her all the same that he reached for her at the same time she moved for him, the two of them colliding like magnets as their mouths clashed together once more.

Rengoku kissed her like he was drowning, and she was his lifeline.

Y/N threw her arms around his neck and tugged him down closer to her, determined to take from him as much as he wanted to take from her.

The pair of them stumbled back against the ancient oak tree that sat back from the grassy cliff, Y/N caged against its bark by the Flame Pillar.

His hands gripped fistfuls of her haori as though he couldn’t decide whether to pull her closer or tug her away. His lips devoured each breathy moan he pulled from her as one hand tangled in her hair and pulled, allowing him to deepen the kiss.

She ran her hands through the fiery strands of his hair, gripping and tugging it as he explored her mouth was his demanding tongue. Y/N, emboldened by the way his fingers dug into her haori, let her hands roam from his hair and to his neck, and then to the rocky planes of his broad chest before settling on his hips as she tugged him flush against her. 

His control was slipping, and fast. “Y/L/N, I can’t- I won’t be able to hold back.” Rengoku moaned into her mouth, his hands scrunching the fabric of her haori, his fingers desperately seeking to hold her closer to him. “Tell me to stop, Y/L/N.”

Y/N’s hands only buried deeper into his hair, tugging him harder against her as she slid her tongue into his waiting mouth.

“Don’t stop,” she whispered against his mouth between breaks for oxygen. “Never stop, Rengoku.”

Y/N pulled back from him, just enough to unlatch his hands from where they were buried in the back of her haori, and moved them inside its folds, right on her bare waist.

The burning weight of his hands felt exquisite.

Rengoku shuddered as he felt the smooth, soft dips of Y/N’s waist, his fingers digging into her flesh as he sought to touch more of her, his hands running across every inch that was not covered by her bindings or those glorious undershorts.

Lips still moving furiously against hers, Rengoku bent slightly to run his hands down the silken expanse of her thighs, gripping under her knees before hoisting her up to carry her away from the tree and lay her down in the velvety grass below.

Y/N felt as though she were on fire. The ache between her legs was almost maddening, and she was desperate to have the Flame Pillar sheathe himself inside her, to make her forget even her own name.

If she could not have his love, she could at least have this.

Her hands dragged down Rengoku’s front, coming to a rest at his belt before she began fumbling with the clasp. Y/N had just managed to undo it when Rengoku’s hands — large, warm, and much stronger than her own, wrapped around her wrists, stilling her.

“Not yet, you impatient woman,” he smirked against her mouth. He moved one wrist to join the other in his left hand before bringing her arms up over her head, pinning her to the ground.

Y/N whimpered and rolled her hips against his, impatient and demanding, wanting desperately to feel some relief as her core clenched wildly around nothing.

Rengoku chuckled darkly, the rich timbre of his voice causing her blood to nearly boil with her want, as he made his way down her body with his lips.

He first came to her chest bindings, growling in impatience as he nipped at one breast over the tightly wound fabric.

His fingers brushed against her sternum as he ripped her bindings straight down the middle, Y/N shuddering as the warm summer night’s air caressed her sensitive skin, her nipples pebbling at the change in temperature.

She waited for him to lavish her soft mounds, but the Flame Pillar paused, eyes narrowed on the valley between her breasts, right on the pale, lilac mark where he’d plunged Shinobu’s antidote into her heart.

Y/N felt a lump form in her throat. He’d reacted poorly to the ribboned scar on her lower belly already, and now her once chance to finally have Rengoku in the way she’d so desperately longed to have him was about to be ruined.

But instead of pulling away from her in disgust, he leaned forward and pressed his lips softly against it the healed wound.

“I hadn’t realized I wounded you,” he murmured softly, reverently as he kissed it again. Y/N watched in bewilderment as he pressed his ear against her chest, letting his head rest there for a moment.

Listening to her heart hammer against her sternum.

“The sweetest music,” he whispered, pulling away to look at her not with lust but with unbounded tenderness.

Don’t look at me like that, she silently begged, don’t give me hope.

But as quickly as the moment had come, it passed and the esurient flame in Rengoku’s eyes flickered back to life. His lips continued down her abdomen, hot and needy until he reached the source of her near-fatal injury.

His mouth paused at the scar left by Upper Moon Six, the one he’d so callously glared at not even an hour before. This time, he ran his tongue along it, from the top to its base near her hipbone, pressing a fierce kiss against its end before continuing his descent.

“I will either have to thank my old Tsugoku the next time I see her,” Rengoku whispered darkly as he pulled at the soft waistband of Y/N’s undershorts with his teeth. “Or I shall have to burn her sewing room to cinders.” Rengoku’s fingers slid beneath the short hem of her bottoms, pulling them down inch by inch to expose her sensitive flesh.

Rengoku groaned when he saw Y/N was not wearing anything else beneath her scandalous bottoms. “Definitely burning.” His hands, so large and warm ran up the outer curve of her thighs, marveling at the silky smoothness of her skin. “Because you are far too tempting when wearing them.”

The Flame Pillar looked wild as he leaned forward, pressing his lips against the lower indent between Y/N’s hipbones as he kissed his way down to where she ached the most.

He ducked around the center of her desire in favor of sucking softly on her inner thigh. Y/N’s chest heaved as her hands flailed next to her, desperately seeking purchase, until the Flame Hashira caught them in his hands, his thumbs rubbing soothing circles on her palms as their fingers interlaced.

“Rengoku - just fuck me already,” Y/N groaned as the Flame Pillar’s face settled between her thighs, his hot breath against her bare cunt causing her legs to attempt to clench shut.

“Well now, that won’t do,” Rengoku tutted, his hands withdrawing from hers as he wound his arms underneath both of her thighs, spreading them as wide as he could to expose her core to his heady gaze.

Rengoku leaned forward and lightly traced up her damp slit with the tip of his tongue. His amber irises which had been locked on hers, rolled back into his head as he groaned at her taste.

“I’m going to take my time with you. I’ve been dreaming of this for a long time, Y/N.” He warned, hands tightening around her thighs as he pressed a light kiss against her slit, teasing her.

In the back of her mind, Y/N registered that he’d used her first name. But the graze of his lips against her most sensitive flesh had her crying out his name, high-pitched and breathy, and she watched helplessly as the sound made Rengoku’s eyes turn black.

In an instant, he was upon her, and he was ravenous.

His mouth latched to her center as though she was an oasis in the middle of a blazing desert, and he was a man dying of thirst.

The way Rengoku’s teeth grazed her sensitive nub made her abdomen clench, and she fought against his ironclad grip on her thighs as they spasmed, desperate to clench around his head.

Y/N moaned, head thrown back into the soft summer grass as she felt herself grow wetter and wetter beneath the Flame Pillar, her hands desperately tugging and pinching at her breasts in an effort to feel more pleasure.

Y/N felt as though she was hurtling towards a cliff that she could not stop herself from tumbling over as Rengoku increased the intensity of his ministrations against her needy cunt.

“You taste,” he ground out through harsh drags of his tongue up her drenched folds, “like fucking paradise.”

His mouth latched around her clit, giving it a sharp suck that had Y/N seeing stars. She barely had time to recover, to acknowledge that she was at her tipping point when Rengoku thrust his tongue into her core and began to fuck her.

Y/N came apart the moment she felt his tongue enter her, a rush of her juices spilling over his relentless maw, but he held her hips down and continued his feast. His teeth grazed her clit over and over while his tongue pumped steadily in and out of her, and Y/N was close to sobbing at the overstimulation.

The Flame Pillar kept his eyes locked on hers the entire time, the amber orbs glowing almost ominously in the indigo night.

“I- fuck.” Y/N breathed, grinding unrestrainedly against the blonde’s greedy mouth. “Rengoku!”

The Ice Pillar tried to sit up, tried to grab her comrade’s hair to tell him that she couldn’t take it anymore, that she needed him, but Rengoku was faster. Unfurling a steely arm from where it had been locked around her thigh to hold her open to him, he reached up her torso, his large hand splaying across her upper abdomen to restrain her.

“Sit down,” he growled between thrusts of his tongue into her aching cunt, nipping harshly at her inner thigh. “I am not finished.”

Y/N whimpered beneath the weight of his hand holding her down against the earth and the nearly painful ecstasy that Rengoku bestowed upon her between her legs.

Whether it was in praise for her obedience or a further act of torture, Rengoku then pressed his face flush against her core and rocked it harshly from side to side, his nose and the burgeoning stubble along his jaw scraping against her overstimulated and sensitive flesh.

Y/N slapped her hand against her mouth to stifle the howl that tore from her throat. Rengoku repeated the movement; it felt wonderful. It felt obscene. It made Y/N’s thighs contract around his head as her stomach dipped inward and a gush of her juices spilled out of her, more powerful than before, dampening the collar of the Flame Pillar’s haori.

For a breath, Y/N thought she would die of embarrassment until she felt Rengoku’s mouth vibrate against her from his groan of satisfaction. His tongue thrust once, twice more into her aching core before he withdrew completely, satisfaction tugging at the corners of his smirking lips.

But Rengoku looked nowhere near sated as he gazed down hungrily at her, wantonly spread out against the grass, the shredded pieces of her training attire strewn about, save for her haori.

“I will give you one last chance to end this now,” Rengoku whispered, kneeling above her but no longer touching her. “Tell me to stop, and I will. I will walk away, and no one will know.”

Though her body already ached from the intensity of Rengoku’s mouth upon her, she could not fathom stopping here, not when she’d barely begun to taste him herself. The thought of rolling aside to pull on the tattered remains of her clothing, to return to her estate and awake tomorrow as though he had not melted every icy reservation she’d held with his touch, was enough to make her want to cry.

Though her limbs felt boneless, she summoned all her strength to reach toward the Flame Hashira, to beckon him to return to her.

“I want you, Rengoku,” Y/N said, her voice a breathy whisper as tears clung to her eyelashes. “Please.”

Rengoku’s pupils exploded, his eyes darkening as he covered her nude body with his own. Y/N nearly sobbed in relief as his lips roughly caught hers, one hand coming up to cradle her face while the other snaked beneath her head, tilting it to the side so he could deepen his claim over her mouth.

Y/N’s hands rose, shakily, to pull at the buttons of his uniform top, desperate to feel his skin burn against hers.

“On one condition,” Rengoku said, moving his lips from hers to press against her ear, Y/N shivering. “You must call me by my name,”

“Rengoku?” Y/N questioned her mind too fogged by her own desire.

He nipped lightly under her jaw before pulling his face back from hers, smirking slightly at the way she whined when avoided her attempt to kiss him again.

“My true name.”

With clarity, Y/N realized what he desired. But he had teased her far too much already, and she yearned to return the favor.

So she looked up at him through her eyelashes, teeth sinking into her lower lip in such a way that made the Flame Hashira’s eyes darken.

“Please, please, Kyojuro,” she whispered, lancing a hand up his bicep. “Take me.”

The growl that clawed its way out of the heaving chest of the Flame Pillar made Y//N’s thighs clamp together. Rengoku — Kyojuro — pounced on her, and Y/N summoned all her residual strength to rip his uniform shirt open.

Kyojuro moaned into her neck as his shirt gave way and Y/N’s hands came to rest against his bare skin, her nails raking down his taut pectorals to the rigid planes of his chiseled abdomen.

Her lips began descending the path carved by her nails when she drew short at the dark, thick starburst-shaped scar that covered his shoulder and left pectoral. Kyojuro’s breath seized as she pressed her lips ever so softly against it, turning so she could look up at him from beneath her lashes.

Kyojuro was panting as she nuzzled against his scar, kissing it once more before gently gliding her hand over his heart and resting it there, letting herself savor the strong, sturdy beat from within his chest.

Just as he did before, she resumed her trail down his body, her lips coming to the edge of his pants when his hands wound themselves in her hair, every nerve in his body alight as she licked her way up the small happy trail that stopped just below his belly button.

As much as he wanted to feel her mouth around him, Kyojuro had been driven to the brink of insanity by Y/N’s touch, and his resolve was quickly dwindling.

“Y/N — my flame — I can’t wait,” Kyojuro said by way of apology, as he covered her hands with his own to still them on his belt. He slipped his hands down to grip her wrists, bringing them together in one hand and moving her arms up over her head, pinning them against the grasp. With his free hand, Kyojuro loosened his belt and his pants, and shimmied them down, kicking them off behind him. Y/N’s eyes widened at the sight of his proud length as it bounced against his belly button.

Y/N’s breath caught in her throat. She was no stranger to the male body, but this – she’d never had anyone compare to Kyojuro’s size or girth.

Kyojuro noticed her hesitation. “Is this – have you ever --?” Kyojuro breathed, hovering above her. It did not matter to him whether she had or had not, but he wanted to ensure that he did not hurt her.

Y/N shook her head. “No, it’s not my first time – but you are the first one to be so…well endowed.” Y/N flushed as Kyojuro laughed softly above her, and she felt his lips graze hers.

He pulled back slightly, reaching to grip the base of his aching cock tapping it against her soaked cunt in a warning and in permission.

Y/N seized beneath him at the spark of hot pleasure that was sent crackling up her spine as he rubbed his velvety head against the most sensitive part of her core. “Kyojuro,” she hissed through clenched teeth, rolling her hips impatiently towards him.

The mushroomed tip of his cock pushed into her entrance and Y/N felt herself go cross-eyed. It was heaven; pure, unadulterated, blissful heaven.

He was insistent on easing his thick length into her, but the throbbing between Y/N’s legs had grown nearly unbearable. He still wasn’t close enough, not nearly as much as she needed him to be.

Boldly, Y/N locked her ankles against Kyojuro’s backside, and with all her might, hauled him into her in a single stroke.

“Fuck!” he yelled, unable to restrain his volume as Y/N forced him to become fully seated within her. Her core was impossibly tight and so fucking warm and wet that it had been a true exercise of self-restraint not to spill himself inside her right then.

Y/N nearly screamed in pleasured relief at the way her body burned and stretched around Kyojuro’s considerable length, his base pressed flush against her sensitive clit as she began to grind furiously against him, desperate to relieve the friction that made her ache.

Kyojuro was still panting from the way Y/N had slammed him into her, nearly trembling with restraint as he willed himself not to finish before they’d truly begun.

Once certain that he would not climax like some green boy, he laughed quietly under his breath. The dark sound caused Y/N’s eyes to fly open, and her stomach flipped at the wicked glint in his eyes as he stared at her like a hunter stalking its prey.

Kyojuro leaned forward and took one of her breasts, harshly into his mouth, grazing his teeth over her nipple hard enough to make Y/N cry out in slight pain before he lapped at it soothingly with his tongue.

“You want me to fuck you, is that it?” He murmured between his ministrations, leaving fresh marks all over aching mounds.

Y/N could hardly make a sound as Kyojuro withdrew almost completely from her heat before slamming into her once, the Ice Pillar nearly choking on the breath that flew from her chest with his force.

Desperately — pathetically — Y/N nodded, whimpering.

“If that’s how you want it,” Kyojuro growled against her breast, giving her nipple one harsh nip with his teeth before pulling himself off her.

He sat on his knees, back straight as he began to pound relentlessly into her, his hands gripping her backside and holding her flush against his strong thighs. Y/N’s head remained thrown back against the earth, her fingers tearing at the soft grass beneath her.

Rengoku’s movements were just like those he wielded in battle — powerful; all-consuming; relentless; and unforgiving.

Y/N had never considered herself to be a particularly vocal person when engaged in carnal activities, but the way that Rengoku’s cock hammered into her spasming core over and over had reduced her to a moaning and whimpering mess. The only intelligible thing that fell from her lips was his name — Kyojuro.

“You look so fucking beautiful like this,” Kyojuro grunted out between forceful snaps of his hips against hers, the night air alive with the lewd squelching of Y/N’s dripping cunt as he pistoned into her.

Y/N looked to see the Flame Pillar’s eyes locked on her breasts as they bounced with the force of his thrusts. Between the moans and whimpers he pulled from her with every punishing thrust of his hips against hers, she lightly dragged her fingers from their place in the grass to her hipbone, and then up to trace teasingly around her peaked breast.

Kyojuro’s eyes followed every move, his thrusts hardening as she pinched her nipple and let out a breathy little scream, her walls pulsing around his aching length.

“Fuck,” Kyojuro grit, feeling himself twitch within her as he watched Y/N play with herself, spurring him to go faster, deeper within her.

He moved his hand under one of her knees and lifted her leg over his shoulder, allowing him to plunge deeper into her silken heat, and he teasingly drew his fingers up and down her outer thigh.

At that moment, as Kyojuro was poised against the silhouette of the moon, his amber eyes glowing as he watched where he appeared and disappeared inside her, the realization hit Y/N like a storm, and it knocked her entirely off her axis.

She was in love with Kyojuro.

Who else could make her feel so sacred and yet so angry? Who else had been capable of slipping past every wall she’d built within herself, capable of getting her to let her guard down before consuming her so furiously she had not realized she’d ever been in danger?

He was fire, she was ice. One of them had to give to the other. She’d just always thought it would be him giving into her.

Yet there, beneath the moonlight, her climax rising above her like a tidal wave, Y/N realized that she was powerless against the waves that rose to pull her under, to never again let her up for air.

Distantly, Y/N felt the Flame Pillar’s callused thumb find her clit and her climax slammed into her, and she succumbed to the endless sea called Kyojuro.

--------------------------------------------------------

As Y/N broke apart around him, Kyojuro swore he’d never seen anything as beautiful in his entire life.

She shattered over him with the prettiest scream he’d ever heard, and he could barely make out the drawn-out syllables of his name as her hips jerked up against his while her inner walls threatened to squeeze the life from him.

Y/N finally collapsed back against the ground, her body limp from the exhaustion of her pleasure. Kyojuro then moved in chase of his own release, his hips pressed solidly against hers as he rutted his cock deep within her.

“Fuck,” he groaned, his hands tightening around Y/N’s waist. The familiar electricity of impending release tingled at the base of Kyojuro’s spine, and his stomach began to clench as he began his ascent to his climax.  “Y/N — I am going to finish soon,” his head was thrown back, and his groans were loud enough to alert anyone nearby of exactly what was transpiring between the two Hashira. “Please — tell me where--”

“Inside,” Y/N gasped, her legs tightening around Kyojuro’s hips in a feeble attempt to keep him within her, to ensure that he wouldn’t yet leave her. “Please, Kyojuro, stay.”

Kyojuro was a rational man, and he knew of one major reason not to allow his seed to spill inside Y/N’s heavenly body. But all those rationalities flew out the window at the sound of her wanton and needy whimpers and the way her heat fluttered around him and Kyojuro did not think he could pull out of her if he wanted to.

Kyojuro’s thrusts became more and more frenzied and bruising, with the Flame Hashira hardly dragging his twitching length out of her as he neared his own climax.

“Hold onto me,” he panted, falling forward so that his chest was pressed flush against Y/N’s, one arm going to wrap around her waist while the other snaked over to where her arm lay in the grass, gripping her wrist to pin it up over her head as his fingers interlocked tightly with hers.

Y/N hiked her legs higher up his waist, crossing them at her shins so that he was buried deep within her. Her free arm looped under the one he had braced above her head to wrap around his back, her fingers digging into the rippling muscle and scarred skin that littered his shoulders.

“Make me yours, Kyojuro,” she whispered against his neck, squeezing his hips with her thighs.

Y/N felt his entire body tense at her words and Kyojuro’s moans turned into shouts as he gave one final, deep thrust within her before he exploded. His hand tightened fiercely around hers with the force of his climax,

The pleasure that surged up his spine had been white hot as he pushed himself as deeply as he could possibly go within Y/N’s vice-like core. Kyojuro was not a novice to pleasure, but he had never finished as hard or as much as he did buried within her.

Kyojuro canted his hips, prolonging his release as he continued to empty himself into her, coming down from his earth-shattering high. Y/N mewled against his throat, her lips brushing against his sensitive pulse point as her legs spasmed. once more around his hips.

He finally stilled within her, arms shaking as he braced himself above her, to keep from crushing the exhausted woman beneath him.

He lowered his head down to her level. “Are you all right, my flame?” He panted, pressing a kiss between her brows before he rested his forehead heavily against hers.

She looked up at him from under her eyelashes and nodded shakily.

He no longer could keep himself from collapsing against Y/N, but as he fell forward, he gripped her and rolled, pulling her to his chest with his leaking cock still nestled deeply between her legs.  

“I don’t want to push you away,” Kyojuro murmured softly after a moment, his chest finally easing as his breathing slowed.

Y/N made a show of looking down to where they were still joined, the Flame Pillar’s pearly seed slowly leaking out of her and onto the grass below them. “I think I’m about as close to you as physically possible, Rengoku.”

Kyojuro rolled his eyes and ground his hips slightly into her, causing Y/N to squeak against him.

“Quiet, woman, I’m trying to apologize to you.” He trailed his fingers up and down her spine as she nestled back against his chest, chin perched on his pectoral as she waited for him to continue.

“I was just so angry. After the incident on the train, when I woke up in Kocho’s hospital — I was furious. With myself.” Amber eyes met hers and softened to pools of melted honey. “It was never you I was angry with.”

Y/N held his gaze evenly, her voice firm. “But you took it out on me all the same.” It wasn’t an angry accusation — it was the truth; ugly and sharp. But it was real, and so was the tentative, knowing hope in her eyes.

“Yes,” Kyojuro breathed. “Yes, I did. And I am so sorry for it, Y/N.” His hand reached up to gently cup the side of her face, thumb smoothing over the soft expanse of her cheek. “May I ask for your forgiveness?”

Y/N leaned her head into his warm palm, and smiled, softly.

“You may ask, Kyojuro.”

He brushed his thumb along her lower lip. “Can you forgive me, Y/N?”

Y/N threw a leg out over his other hip, straddling him beneath her, though moving so fluidly that they remained connected at their base.

She rolled her hips against his, and he felt himself begin to harden within her once more. Kyojuro moaned softly, head falling back against the earth as he brought his hands up to steady her, fingers digging gently into her hips as she repeated the movement, again and again, until he’d fully stiffened within her.

“Yes Kyojuro,” she sighed, hands coming to brace themselves against his abdomen as she began to ride him. “I forgive you.”

Kyojuro groaned, his head thrown back as he began to gently grind up into her, goosebumps erupting over his flesh as she lightly raked her nails over his pectorals and the hard ridges of his abdomen.

He wanted so very badly to lose himself within his pleasure, to allow Y/N to consume him whole and never let him go again, but his atonement was not complete.

Because Y/N had given him every opportunity to confess to her before, and he had been careless with them; she would not open that door herself again.

So he would.

“And may I give you my heart, Y/N?” He asked, his hands gliding sensually up from her hips to brace themselves on either side of her sensitive waist, squeezing her firmly.

Her pace had stuttered slightly once his words registered, eyes widening as she looked down at him, and Kyojuro hated that he was the reason the shadow of doubt lingered in her eyes.

“Is it truly mine?” She breathed, resuming the intoxicating rise and fall and push and grind of her hips, breasts beginning to bounce as she picked up her pace.

Kyojuro’s mouth watered, but he restrained himself, holding her gaze. “It was only ever yours, Y/N.”

Y/N cried out then, her hips beginning to drop and roll into his with urgency. By the way her damp heat began to pulse and constrict around him, Kyojuro knew that she was barreling towards her release once more.

One hand left its searing position at her waist to drift down to where they were connected, his rough thumb toying with the sensitive nub that had her heavenly cunt squeezing him for dear life.

“My beautiful flame,” he moaned, “how lucky I am to have such a darling god be the keeper of my heart.”

Kyojuro rolled into her from below again, the hand still braced on her waist guiding himself to push deeper into her, as his thumb began to press harder into the apex of her thighs.

“Sweet tempest, please,” Kyojuro panted, the relentless squeeze of Y/N’s walls around his aching length beginning to drive him to the point of madness. “Please, may I have your love?”

Y/N’s moans were piercing as she half-sobbed above him, head thrown back into the night sky, the hoary glow of the moon making her look like a celestial deity given human form as she writhed above him.

“Yes!” Y/N cried, “Yes Kyojuro, you have always had my love!”

The moment the words fell from her lips, Kyojuro jolted upright, coming into a sitting position as Y/N’s legs instantly wrapped around him. He wound one arm around her waist to bounce her in his lap, the other moving to circle his fingers around her nub.

Kyojuro nuzzled her nose with his own, his lips mere centimeters from hers as he pressed his forehead against her and held her eyes. “Then come for me, Y/N,” he murmured, his breath tickling her lips as he nuzzled her again. “Come for me, my love.”

Y/N seized around him like a vice, her head falling back as she unleashed a euphoric cry.

The force of her climax had caused her to arch backward in Kyojuro’s lap, thrusting her breasts up and forward, and Kyojuro bent to suck one into his greedy mouth, his own release imminent. The warm sticky rush of her pleasure combined with the way her velvety, molten walls constricted around him had Kyojuro seeing stars as his seed shot into her, hot and fast, his strangled groan muffled only by the soft plush of Y/N’s breast as he filled her to her brim for the second time that night.

For a long moment, neither Pillar said anything as they came down from their mutual highs, Y/N’s head pressed against Kyojuro’s shoulder while the Flame Pillar kept his arms firmly around her waist, his fingers trailing up and down her spine.

“Y/N, are you all right?” He murmured into her ear, still buried deep within her heat.

Y/N nodded sleepily against his skin, savoring how full and complete she felt perched in his lap.

“I love you, Kyojuro.” She said so softly that the Flame Pillar thought his heart might break. Kyojuro pulled away slightly to bring his fingers beneath her chin where she lay against his shoulder. Gently, he tilted her face towards his and captured her lips with his own.  

“My darling flame,” He murmured against her lips as they broke apart, his eyes sweeping over her face, committing every detail of her beauty to memory. “Thank you.”

Y/N gave him a lazy smile. “I cannot be your flame, Kyojuro,” she teased, “Not when I am made of ice.”

Kyojuro flipped her back beneath him and danced his lips teasingly across the bridge of her nose. “Don’t you know, my beautiful foil, that ice can burn just as well as flame?” He pressed a feather-light kiss against her lips. “And I have been consumed by your silvery fire since I first laid eyes on you at Final Selection.”

Y/N looked up at him in wonder, her hand coming to rest against his face as she adoringly caressed his cheek.

“I love you, Y/N. I am so sorry it took me until now to say it.”

-------------------------------------------------—

Epilogue

Y/N made back it into her room, sight unseen, just as dawn had crept over the horizon.

Feet bare, she padded softly over to her waiting bed, shrugging out of Kyojuro’s uniform shirt and falling into her blankets, not caring at the growing discomfort she felt as the Flame Pillar’s seed dried in her undershorts.

She just wanted to sleep.

Y/N and Kyojuro had come together twice more before the pair realized that morning was imminent, and they needed to return to their respective dwellings before anyone noticed they were gone.

Y/N had lamented that Kyojuro had shredded her chest bindings beyond salvation and had worried she’d be forced to sneak back into the Butterfly Mansion with nothing but her haori to cover her bare chest when Kyojuro slid his uniform shirt over her shoulders.

“No one will think twice if they see me bare,” he’d said by way of explanation, gaze dropping momentarily to appreciate the marks he had left dotted across her breasts before rising back to her face. “I would like to keep you hidden, however.”

Kyojuro then fastened each button one by one, beginning from the bottom as he kissed his way up Y/N’s torso until his lips found the sensitive spot beneath her jaw, which he’d nipped.

It had taken everything in her not to throw him down and have him for the fifth time.

Kyojuro had walked with her as far as the edge of the path back to Shinobu’s before parting her with a sweet kiss and a promise to return to her later in the morning. He had also mentioned, somewhat mischievously, that he would be inquiring into when Y/N could expect to be discharged from the Butterfly Mansion and return to her own Estate.

Her empty, person-free estate.

Y/N collapsed into her bed, ready to sleep for a precious few hours before her training would begin anew.

“So, do you mind sharing where you’ve been all night?” A dangerously sweet voice chirped from over by the door.

Y/N shot up out of her bed, stomach falling out of her ass, as she faced the smiling, enraged Insect Pillar seated primly atop her wooden stool opposite of her.

“I was quite worried, you know,” Shinobu tutted, the honey of her smile poisoned by the violence in her eyes.

Y/N had never been one to be at a loss for words, a quick comment, or a snappy retort always on hand when the situation called for it.

But to her horror, her mind had gone dreadfully blank, and her tongue was swollen stupid in her mouth.

Shinobu smiled like she knew, eyes slowly looking her over, and Y/N was left with the uncomfortable feeling that her friend could see every way she’d allowed Kyojuro to utterly defile her.

“Will you be in need of a contraceptive?” Shinobu asked lightly, and Y/N felt like she would drop dead right then and there.

“…Yes, please.” She managed to squeak, and the Insect Pillar turned to leave.

“I will bring it with your breakfast.” Her hand closed around the doorknob but stilled.

“And Y/N?”

The Ice Pillar whimpered as her friend turned to look back at her, all smiles and throbbing forehead veins.

“If you ever keep the younger girls awake from the sounds of your activities with the Flame Pillar again, I will poison you both.”

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

[greycaelum]

Kaleidoscope Series—Clouds and Mochi Chapters: { Salve }

—Gojo Satoru X Wife Reader

𑁍 Genre: fluff, small mishap in the kitchen

𑁍 WC/CW/TW: (1.6k)—/ finger cut from a knife, caution: hot oven, discussion on cursed techniques—/

𑁍 A/N: I'm very busy with life before college starts so, here's a little piece for everyone while I'm out sorting my stuffs

It's one of those weekends when you are ready to clean a chaotic kitchen after a good time baking some sweets with the family. A small recreational afternoon after a tiring week for everyone to unwind and just have fun as a family.

Saika seems to have inherited her father's addiction to sweet things and you are really worried for her health. After all, even if you forbid sweets in this house their Papa will always find a way to sneak some for the kids.

Kouki on the other hand would eat anything his Papa gives him. You're not sure if you should be thankful your son isn't a picky eater. It seems like his stomach would accept anything that classifies as food.

It's hard not to watch the three of them all huddled up on the counter wearing the same kitty apron. Their fluffy white manes are like those pretty cats you see in tv shows. Satoru is leaning on the counter with his hair down and sunglasses. The two munchkins are sitting on the counter wearing a chef's hat and reading the recipe.

They look so cute~ so perfec—

"2 cups of sugarrrr~"

Satoru sang and dumped 4 cups of sugar into the cookie batter.

Actually no, they're a disaster.

"Sa.To.Ru."

He looked up to you and grinned.

"Aweee c'mon Honey, it won't hurt just to be extra extra sure it's sweetttttt! Cookies are supposed to be sweet, right kids?!"

"Right!!!" The two stooges of their Papa chorused.

"Baking needs to be measured, okay? It's not gonna come out right if you don't measure it correc—"

Satoru put a finger on your lips and shushed you making the kids giggle while you glared at your husband who winked at you and gave your pursed lips a small kiss of bribery.

"I got this. You just sit there and relax, okay?"

You're left with not so many choices but to watch the kids adjust the recipe to whatever Satoru tells them.

This isn't gonna be good... Maybe you should make a batch of your own and just let them play on whatever devil spawn of a cookie they end up making.

Satoru preheated the oven while the kids cut the cookies in shape cutters custom-made just for today's fun. It includes Panda, Yuji, Megumi, Nobara, Yuta, Maki, Toge, and even Todo miniature figures.

For some reason, Kouki likes hanging out with his Aoi-nii. Todo can actually be very chill with kids.

Satoru finally popped their cookie tray inside and clapped their hands while they waited.

"Why are you all crouched down there? There are seats here."

You sighed at the three cats (yes, their father is included) all crouched down side by side in front of the oven with their chins on their knees watching their cookies getting baked.

"Heyyyyy..." You pursed your lips and eventually joined the huddle, the four of you sat on the floor with the kids playing with you and Satoru to pass the time. Some thumb wrestling, tickle fights even rock, paper, scissors.

It's just like this, the simple moments of family time that you crave the most.

12 minutes passed and the 'ting' of the oven made the four of you excited (half of you dreading you'll run straight to the toilet in one bite).

Satoru carefully took out the hot tray while you were making something light for dinner. A light vegetable soup and some fried tofu and pork.

You chopped the carrots into diced and for a split second on your peripheral you saw Kouki trying to grab a cookie from the scorching tray distracting you altogether. Mother instincts leaping on action.

"Kou!" You hissed and just in time Satoru grab Kouki's hands away from the hot metal but you didn't escape the sharpness of the knife.

"Mama!"

"Hon!" Satoru put the knife away and held your finger with a cut bleeding profusely. "Can you get the first aid kit on the toilet Kikufuku?" Satoru turned to his son who immediately ran to the toilet.

"It's fine, I'm fine. The wound is not that deep." You sighed as Satoru seriously washed your wound but the blood does not stop. "Love, I'm not gonna die from a cut." You held back the urge to chuckle at Satoru's serious face as if you were hacked by a machete.

"Right, and I'm not going let you bleed like a waterfall either." Satoru snaps and drags you to sit on the tall counter chair while he tries to apply pressure to stop the blood.

Kouki came back with the kit and Saika immediately opened it.

"Mama, I'm gonna make it go away. Sho-chan taught me how to." Saika confidently brought out gauzes and betadine.

You chuckled at the little girl who wants to push her father away so she can treat you. For some reason, she really likes hanging around Shoko and often talks about being a nurse.

"Cat, clean your hands," Kouki remembered, pulling the stool so his sister could wash her hands and hop back to you.

"Princess, can you sit and behave for a minute? Papa is trying to help Mama first, okay?" Satoru frowned at the blood and was too busy to deal with the little one.

Unlike Shoko, he can use Reverse Curse Technique only to himself. He doesn't know how to heal others. Ironic.

"Papa, it's not like that." Saika huffed. She put her hands on her hips and stared at her father.

You notice your daughter's defiance and nudge Satoru. It's not like the wound is too big to worry everyone.

"Papa, Cat can do it... I saw it." Kouki interceded and for a second you thought his eyes glimmered like Satoru's.

Satoru stopped and looked at his daughter with a stubborn look on her face. He sighed.

"Cat... Well, how would our little princess do it?" Satoru crouched down and looked at her eye to eye.

"It's very easy." Your four-year-old daughter beamed and held your wounded finger. "Imagine two opposite waterfalls..." Saika murmured, concentrating on your finger.

A chill ran down Satoru's spine. Kouki didn't take his eyes off his sister and mother's interlocked hands.

"And the calm point they meet..."

A faint glow emanated on your finger and the deep cut that was bleeding was gone and there is no mark of a scar at all.

Saika's face brightened and turned to her Papa.

"See! I told you, Papa. I can do it. Sho-chan can do better though." Saika pursed her lips but smiled anyways turning to you.

"Did I do good, Mama? Is it good?" Your bubbly daughter jumped up and down and her brother ruffled her hair praising her a lot.

"Uhuh? What does my Cat want to be when she grows up?" Satoru chuckled as he carried his daughter in his arms.

You and Satoru looked at each other. A long silence before you both snap out of it and pat Saika's head, telling her she's so good.

"Where did you learn that Cat? Did Sho-chan teach you?" Satoru asked the smiling toddler.

"No, I just watch Sho-chan. She doesn't let me inside when a patient comes in so I just watch behind the door." Saika put a finger over her lips and shushed. "Don't tell Sho-chan, okay Papa?"

"I'm gonna be like Sho-chan! I'm gonna be a doctor." Saika clapped.

"See, I told you she can do it." Kouki grinned, looking at his sister being tickled by their Papa.

You ordered takeout instead and the kids happily ate their dessert and played in the backyard while you and Satoru sat beside each other, drinking some milk tea and shortcake.

Kouki has the color of your eyes, but there are several times that when you look into his orbs, the only thing he inherited from you is the color, the rest looks exactly just like Satoru. Vast and unfathomable. There are times you wonder how vast does your son actually see?

"Y'know, I struggled with reverse cursed technique until 16, I couldn't understand it very much." Satoru started while Saika tackled her brother down.

"Mnnn, even you struggled with it... Now that's something." You hummed and sighed. Your head found rest in Satoru's shoulders as he intertwined your hands and kissed the back of your palm.

There are only a few sorcerers that can perform that advance cursed technique, much severely few are those that can heal others, like Shoko. But even Shoko cannot fully explain how the technique works.

"How much does that take a toll on the brain? Unlike curse energy that comes from the stomach, reverse curse deals with the brain, no?"

"My wife is so smart, are you seducing me? Teheehehehe~" Satoru winked at you making you roll your eyes.

"Mnnn, it depends. The reverse cursed technique is more complex than it sounds. It boggles my mind how our 4-year-old daughter could even do that without being taught properly." Satoru chuckled seeing Kouki easily pinning down his sister and tagging her back and running again.

"You saw the wound she healed. It didn't even have any speck of scar Satoru. Even Shoko cannot heal wounds that cleanly. A scab or a scar is always present over the wound." You fear the situation that arises with this kind of technique. The ability to heal any kind of wound is one matter, but repairing it with no scar at all... You know it's another story. The underlying fear of her talent being exploited lingers at the back of your mind.

There are so many out there who would want to covet such precious ability themselves.

You watch Kouki playing with the bright clear marbles with blue streaks inside with Saika who is just as enamored by the swirling curse energy inside the crystal produced by her brother.

"We'll protect them." Satoru pulled you closer and kissed your temples.

It seems like your children will never fail to keep you and Satoru surprised at every chance they try.

—GreyCaelum

PLAGIARISM IS A CRIME

Check out the Masterlist for more

All rights and credits of the Jujutsu Kaisen character(s) mentioned images(s) and songs(s) used, belongs to their respective owner(s)

General/Kaleidoscope Series Taglist: @ice-icebaby @aeanya @gummy-dummy @tender-rosiey @lexiene @nevermoresworld

[skeletorrito]

fun lil itafushi fic I started

very very rough draft (also trigger warning for the f slur)

let me know what you think!

“Fushiguro…” Yuji starts with a mouth full of mochi. “What kind of girls are you into?” 

“I’m not-” Megumi blurts out, unthinking, but manages to cut himself off. He corrects, “I’m not having this conversation with you.” He shoves another mochi in his mouth, slumping down further into his bed. 

Yuji makes frequent, unannounced visits every time he’s injured on missions (which is, admittedly, more often than he’d like). Megumi didn’t have much of a chance refusing, either, because Yuji doesn’t take no for an answer. He always brings snacks or a gift with him each time, which Megumi thinks is… kinda nice (though he’d never admit it). This time, he brought red bean mochi to share. 

“Aww, c’mon, why not? We’re bros, right?” Yuji urges.

“Are we?” Megumi snips in response. 

“Of course we are! I love you, bro!” Yuji exclaims innocently, and Megumi nearly chokes on his snack. 

“Please don’t say that ever again…” he grumbles in response, flushing slightly and fixing his gaze on the floor. 

Yuji ignores him and continues to think aloud, “Maybe you’re into tall girls like me? Like Jennifer Lawrence, ooh, or that one rapper, what’s her name… umm… Megan Thee Stallion, yeah!” Yuji leans back in his chair with an easy grin, arms folded behind his head. “She’s so hot. Her ass always looks insane.” 

Megumi’s expression is flat as he listens to Yuji ramble. “I’m going back to bed, Itadori.”  

“Aww, Fushiguro, don’t be like that! You’ve gotta have a type!” Yuji continues to ignore Megumi’s attempts to shut the conversation down. Even though Megumi is already laying back in bed with the covers tucked under his chin, Yuji presses, “You talk to Maki a lot. Is she your type?”

“Maki’s my distant relative, you idiot,” Megumi spits immediately, crinkling his nose. “Leave me alone, I’m tired of talking about this weird shit. Go call Aoi if you wanna keep objectifying women like this.” 

Yuji sighs disappointedly. “I already know what he’s gonna say, there’s nothing to talk about.” He pops another mochi in his mouth, mumbling, “Man, you’re acting like you’re not even interested in girls…” 

Megumi stays silent for a little too long. Yuji curiously leans down to meet his eyes. 

“Fushiguro, you are into girls, aren’t you?” 

Megumi flips over, his face growing hot. “Get out.” 

“Wait- Are you… into guys?” Yuji’s voice is dripping with amusement and shock. 

Megumi covers his face with his comforter, hoping to avoid Yuji noticing the creeping flush on his cheeks. “I said get out, Itadori!” He yells from under the covers, taking a pillow and throwing it at him. 

He might just die on the next mission on purpose.

Yuji laughs as the pillow hits his chest. He palms his forehead. “Oh my god! That makes so much sense! Fushiguro, why didn’t you tell me!? Well, I mean, I can guess why you wouldn’t… but don’t worry! Your secret’s safe with me!” 

Megumi doesn’t respond. His fists are clenched so tightly that his fingernails are biting into his palms.

“Alright, I get it, I’ll let you rest. But just so you know, it doesn’t matter to me what you’re into, I’ll still be your friend regardless,” Yuji adds sincerely, grinning at the lump of covers on the bed. Megumi peeks at him as he leaves, groaning and shoving his face into his pillow. 

He’s not going to let this go, is he? 

He most certainly is not about to let this go. As the week progresses, Yuji’s thoughts are consumed by Megumi’s silent confession. He’s never had a gay friend before (that he knew of, at least) and, while he knows it shouldn’t make a difference, he just can’t stop thinking about the fact that Megumi is attracted to men. Yuji finds himself burning with personal, prying questions that he knows he can’t ask. But he’s dying to know. 

He restrains himself for about three whole days. 

And then, on the fourth day, his impulsiveness gets the better of him. 

Yuji spots Megumi on a bench, alone, near the garden. He scrolls on his phone as he eats a rice ball. 

“Yo, Fushiguro!” Yuji calls out and takes up a seat next to him. “Feeling better?” 

Megumi shifts his attention briefly from his phone, emerald eyes flicking up momentarily. “Yeah, a little, thanks.” 

“Good, great. I’m glad to hear it.” 

Megumi can tell that Yuji is antsy about something by the way he’s fidgeting with his hood. He sighs, shoving his phone in his pocket. “What is it?” He asks with mild annoyance. 

“Huh?”

“I know you want to say something, Itadori, so just say it.”

Yuji opens the floodgates, his brain moving faster than his mouth, “Okay, yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry, this is super personal but I have to ask: how did you realize you were gay?” 

Megumi frowns, expecting this much. He’d felt Yuji’s stare burning holes in his back since they last spoke. “Who said I was gay?” He retorts, quickly. 

Yuji’s look of pure confusion makes Megumi crack the slightest of smiles. “But… I thought… You didn’t say anything…” His response comes out in broken, flustered phrases. His face turns bright red. “So you’re… not gay?”

Megumi snorts, dismissively. “Labels are boring and pointless. I don’t really care what you call me, Itadori.” He takes another bite of his snack, chewing and swallowing politely before he adds, “And it’s not a secret, really… I just don’t run my mouth about it.” 

Yuji takes a silent minute to process this information, a small pout gracing his lips. “Okay…” he starts, carefully, “So lemme try again: How did you know you were interested in men?” 

Megumi rolls his eyes, groaning exasperatedly. “I don’t know, Itadori, how did you know you were interested in women?” 

“Oh, well-”

“It’s a rhetorical question, dummy.”

“Oh. Oh, I get it. Sorry.” Yuji scratches the back of his neck, an embarrassed grimace on his face. “I’ve just never had a friend who leans that way. I dunno, I’m curious…” 

Megumi’s eyebrows raise hearing the word curious. 

Yuji backtracks quickly, “I mean I’m not- I like women, so I’m definitely not gay.” He huffs, cheeks blushing. “It’s just… kinda cool getting to know you better? I want to learn more about you… about this in general, I guess.” 

Megumi is somewhat touched by Yuji’s openness. And that’s the thing about Yuji. He constantly surprises Megumi with the most thoughtful, selfless acts and words, and Megumi doesn’t always know what to do with that or why it gives him butterflies in his stomach. It doesn’t matter how much he pushes Yuji away, he always gets reeled back in.  

“Uh, Okay…” Megumi isn’t the most eloquent with words. “What do you want to know? Nothing weird, or we’re never talking about this again.” Megumi already regrets his open invitation. He shoves the rest of his rice ball in his mouth. 

Yuji contemplates for a moment, a hand coming to his chin, stroking. “Oh! What kind of guys are you into?” 

Megumi swallows, a deadpan expression on his face. “Seriously?” 

“Seriously! You never answered me!” 

“Why do you even care?” Megumi sneers as he adds, “Afraid I might hit on you?” 

Yuji sputters, “Wh-what?! No!” 

Megumi hums, unconvinced. 

Yuji can’t help his impulsive curiosity as he pries, “Am I your type? Like, would you hit on me if I liked guys too?” 

“No,” Megumi replies, almost too quickly. He looks away, biting the inside of his cheek.

Yuji doesn’t catch it, but someone else does. 

He’s lying, Yuji, Sukuna’s voice projects in Yuji’s head.

Fuck off, this is a private conversation! 

That little faggot definitely wants you. Sukuna continues with a laugh. You never noticed the way he looks at you when you’re not paying attention?

Shut up! Just shut up and get out of here! 

“Uh, you good, Itadori?” Megumi’s voice cuts through the internal dialogue. Yuji had been staring blankly, eyebrows knit, as if having some sort of internal battle. “Don’t tell me I hurt your feelings...” 

Yuji laughs dryly, shaking his head, “Yeah, I’m good, sorry, Fushiguro.” He does his best to suppress Sukuna’s presence for the time being. “And I’m not offended, at all.” He says it almost as if he’s trying to convince himself, not Megumi. 

Megumi stands, sighing, “I gotta get to class.” 

“I’ll walk with you.” Yuji offers eagerly and Megumi shrugs. Before they walk into one of the campus buildings, Yuji asks, “Speaking of which… Does Gojo know?” 

“No,” Megumi replies immediately in a harsh tone. He stops walking for a moment, giving Yuji a serious, warning stare. “And I plan to keep it that way.” 

Yuji shirks at Megumi’s cold expression, nodding. He holds out his pinky, making a gesture of zipping his lips. 

Megumi looks down, then up, blankly. He begrudgingly links his pinky finger with Yuji’s.

[therantfairysblog]

Kny headcanon 3

Ubayashiki does have a connection with gov. The existence of the corps arent entirely a secret from gov. They allowed them roaming to kill demons and with this family connection, the gov aren't interfere with the mess after the final battle and cover it up with the news of explosion accident. That's how the existence of demons remain hush.

Nezuko often visit mitsuri's grave until she died of old age and offering her fav sakura mochi she make herself.

Ubayashiki kiriya getting close to yushiro and sometime ask him to tell him about the children's descendant doing.

Kiriya sometimes meet the reincarnations of his children (ds corps) when he take a walk with his great grandchildren and smile at them although of course they didn't remember him at all.

All the fallen slayer's will are keep in ubayashiki household. Once in a while, kiriya read them and try to fulfilling their final request.

The legend of zenitsu were printed and sell in a book store, under the historical fiction category. Its remain the only recorded piece of paper telling the story of the final battle that night.

Sanemi's and Giyuu's children are friend with each other from the start, and getting much closer once both of their father died from the marks. (In my head, they both died at 30 yo, since their mark only active once.)

Once the battle's done, as he watch his friends pay respect to the fallen slayers, inosuke went to his foster mom (boar) grave and give it flowers, the grave of the old man that teach him talk as well and make another nice grave for his mom, kotoha. He visited their grave along with aoi and their children every years.

Kaburamaru died of old age at 28 years old. Kanao buried it in the same area as Iguro's grave. Matsuemon and Ginko live around tanjiro's house and they both outlive tanjiro.

[petitelepus]

Idk if you do poly but what about Sanemi and Giyuu fighting over Gn reader?

Maybe smut 🤭

Summary: You have caught two powerful Demon Slayer's, the Hashiras', attention.

Warnings: Cursing, Sorry but nothing naughty this time!

A/N:  Gender Neutral Reader, Sanemi Shinazugawa, Giyu Tomioka

When you were small, you were very sick, always tired, and resting in bed. Then you lost your parents to a Demon… But you were saved by a Demon Slayer. After that, you wanted to do what they did, slay Demons and help those who were in danger like you had been…

But alas, you were too weak and sickly, barely able to swing a sword before one of your famous coughing fits rendered you on your knees. Even when you grew up, you were too weak to slay Demons…

That is when this sweet woman, Shinobu Kocho the Insect Hashira asked if you'd like to work in Butterfly Mansion. While you wouldn't slay Demons, you could help those who did and that is how you found your calling.

So you worked in Butterfly Mansion, assisting Lady Aoi alongside three younger girls called Sumi, Kiyo, and Naho. Life and people treated you nicely at the Mansion. You helped people to heal and gain their strength back, and that way you could help them kill Demons.

But now, you found yourself in a very tricky situation.

"What the fuck are you doing here, Tomioka!?"

"I think the same as you, Shinazugawa."

It wasn't common for Hashiras to come to the Butterfly Mansion due to their strength and abilities that kept them from getting hurt, but sometimes even they got hurt or needed a moment of rest.

For some reason, two Hashiras, the Water Hashira Giyu Tomioka and Wind Hashira Sanemi Shinazugawa had come to the Mansion, even if they weren't hurt or anything.

Nope, apparently, based on the conversation they were having, they were here because of you.

"Fuck you, I saw them first!"

"You mean they treated you first." Giyu nodded, "Since you got hurt."

"Fuck you!"

"Please!" You hushed as you lifted a finger to your lips, "You're so loud, I'm afraid you might disturb the patients!"

"Tch, fine…!" Sanemi scowled, "Let's take this outside, you and me Tomioka, one against one!"

"If that is what you want," Giyu nodded and the white-haired man looked pissed, "Yes, fucking Hell that is what I want!"

You were starting to panic since you had never seen Slayers fight each other and you sure as Hell didn't want to see Hashiras fight each other, especially over you!

"Please, no shouting, no cursing, and especially no fighting!" You cried out, "Just… Please, follow me?"

The two young men shared glances and then nodded. You sighed in small relief and motioned them to follow you and they did. You took them to the kitchen area and motioned them to sit down by the table while you took out some snacks and started to prepare tea for them.

All this while they kept a close eye on you.

"Now…" You started as you placed a tray with two cups of green tea and some mochi and ohagi on a plate between them, "Can we please speak calmly and without fighting or cursing?"

"Fu-!" Sanemi was saying, but he quickly silenced himself by grabbing a cup of tea and taking a sip, "Fine…"

"Good," You nodded, but before you could say a word, Giyu looked at you, "Please, grab yourself some tea also?"

"I…" You blinked, a little stunned, but did as he asked and got yourself a cup of your own. As you joined the two Hashiras again, you looked between them, "Now… Why on Earth were you fighting here?"

The two young men shared quick glances and then looked at you.

"This shithe-!" Sanemi was saying, but you frowned at his use of bad language and he quickly corrected himself, "Tomioka, thinks he can walk up to you and ask you to go out with him!"

"But you are here because you want to ask them out also." Giyu pointed out, much to the other man's annoyance, "You-!"

"You…" You blinked, "You want to go out with me?"

"We both want to," Giyu nodded and Sanemi frowned, "So? Now that you know about our feelings, which one will you choose?"

"I…?" You swallowed nervously, "I have to choose?"

You were so confused and maybe a little panicky. You weren't exactly used to being so wanted… Or, well, wanted like this, and especially by two of the strongest Demon Slayers there were.

"I, uh…" You quickly picked up your tea and took a sip, nearly crying out at how hot it was. Sanemi had made it look like it was lukewarm while it was actually still hot as heck.

"I'm… I'm not that experienced when it comes to relationships…" You admitted shyly. Due to your sickness, you never had a chance to actually date anyone… But these two men weren't just anyone but Hashiras.

"So… I don't know…?"

"I see…" Giyu nodded and Sanemi frowned as he crossed his arms over his chest, "So, what, you gonna date both of us?"

"I- I-!" You couldn't say a thing, too flustered by everything happening around you, "C- Can I? Do I have to choose?"

"Taken that you've never dated anyone and that we both have feelings towards you, I think it's reasonable if you want to give us both a chance," Giyu said and you nodded nervously as you glanced at Sanemi, "H- How about you?"

"Tch, like Hell I'm giving up!" He snapped, "I'll rather date you with this shit- I mean, with this guy rather than not date you at all!"

"Then it's settled," Giyu nodded as he picked up his cup of tea and took a sip, "We are all in a relationship now."

"Great…" Sanemi grumbled as he grabbed an ohagi, but before he bit into it, he shot a glare at his fellow Hashira, "But I'm not kissing you!"

"I understand," The Water Hashira nodded as he reached for a mochi.

"I'm…" You swallowed as you raised the cup of tea to your lips to hide your nervous smile, "I'm hopeful…!"

[colourstreakgryffin]

Angst ObaMitsu Scenario

*HOLY SHIT. THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS. THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS. ALL ANIMES-ONLY OR NON-COMPLETE MANGAS! PLEASE CLICK AWAY OR YOU’LL BE SPOILED*

Anyway. Re-read the ObaMitsu’s death panels and thought to myself. What would it be like if only one died, instead of both; So here is this very depressing scenario(s) I made up at 2am. I’m sorry, ObaMitsu fans.

Probably not the best thing to write as the first ObaMitsu post but whatever

Needed Warnings; mention of depression, mention of obsession, mention of seppkuku, mention of death, mention of mental health problems

If only Mitsuri died

Obanai woke up almost two months ago and is recovering finely

But Mitsuri hasn’t. She still hasn’t woken up

Obanai sticks by her bed everyday. Just hoping that she’ll spring back up any minute

He forgets to look after himself. He can’t continue whilst knowing Mitsuri is still so vulnerable and hurt

Giyuu has to drag him out of the room and pin him down so the girls can check up on her

It doesn’t work. Obanai breaks in and pushes Aoi off Mitsuri as she attempts to put a blanket over her. He is a complete mess but he needs to know what’s going on

Aoi sighs weakly. “I… I’m so sorry, Iguro-san. Kanroji-san… has passed away…”

Passed away? No. No. No. She must be joking

“We believe she did last night” “No… she can’t be… you have to be wrong!” Aoi only lowers her head

Obanai breaks down into a hysterical anger-mixed-sorrow fit. He refuses to believe Aoi is right but deep down, knows she is

Why did he have to survive and not Mitsuri? Why does he always end up escaping death when he deserves it?

Why couldn’t have he been the one who died?!

Giyuu, Sanemi and Tanjiro have to drag Obanai out, once again but this time, kicking and screaming

Eventually. Obanai cries

And he cries his heart out. The first time he has ever experienced such emotion

He gave everything he had to Mitsuri. And now, she won’t be on this earth to enjoy life with him

What’s the point of living anymore? He couldn’t stop the death of a person he loves so dearly

There is only two reasons Obanai won’t commit seppuku. One, Kaburamaru is far too important to him and two, Mitsuri always tells him to push forward

Every night. His dreams only consist of Mitsuri. Meeting him in the beautiful Sakura tree pathway they promised to find each other again in and pushing forward that he doesn’t take his life

“Wait! Obanai! Don’t do that to yourself! Stay alive. Please. I need you to! I— …I hate this too but do it for me. Won’t you?”

Obanai returns to the Serpent Estate broken in all forms for good. Sure, life is now much safer with the eradicating of demons but it isn’t colourful without Mitsuri

His world is monochrome. His eyes are basically dead, his voice is dark and lifeless. He is depressed

Obanai takes Mitsuri’s belongings. Every single thing she owned. Her katana, her uniform, her favourite hairclips, the keys to her estate, her cats. The Love Estate will end up empty

He protects her belongings like his life depends on it

Obanai looks after Mitsuri’s cats as intently as he looks after Kaburamaru

Obanai makes Sakura Mochi in his spare time. He never liked it but for Mitsuri, he started pushing himself to liking it

Obanai visits Mitsuri’s grave daily to sit in front of it and eat the Mochi he made

He pretends Mitsuri is talking to him. He nods and responds to nothing. He claims he can hear her talking

Whilst he can’t see anymore, no thanks to the irreversible damage of his eyes, he sees Mitsuri all the time

He is growing mentally unwell, the more he keeps up this routine. He is getting a bit obsessed with keeping Mitsuri in his life

He snatched Mitsuri’s fixed haori from Aoi and wears it over his shoulders all the time

He likes to pretend that Mitsuri married him. So, he sometimes calls the imaginary Mitsuri he talks to “my wife”

Obanai is more aggressive and sour after Mitsuri’s death. He can’t see himself making connections ever again. He is barely hanging on

He’ll live the rest of his broken life completely alone. No new love or no new friend. Just him, Kaburamaru and Mitsuri’s grave

No woman can match Mitsuri. They’re all pathetic, he can’t stand another woman after he lost the woman of his dreams

If only Obanai could sense the way Mitsuri cuddles his side. Her spirit, clings to him everytime he sits at her grave

Obanai always leaves beautiful rose bouquets and bowls of Mitsuri’s favourite ramen at her grave. Their always gone when he returns the next day

Obanai truly isn’t alone. Mitsuri is always following him around and pressing kisses on his forehead every night

Obanai, truthfully, is trapped inbetween fantasy and reality. Inbetween acknowledging that Mitsuri has crossed the rainbow bridge but yet refusing to admit in favour of pretending Mitsuri is still alive

Obanai treasures all the letters Mitsuri wrote about him. Sure, he can’t read them on his own anymore(Kaburamaru reads them for him) and he ends up crying and crumbling onto the floor

All he wants is Mitsuri back

If only Obanai died

Mitsuri wakes up in a hospital bed. She survived? But. What about Obanai?

Obanai… he isn’t in the room with her. Where is he?

She desperately climbs her way out of bed and clings onto the walls to walk through the hallway. She is in so much pain but she needs to see him

Busting into the other hospital room, Mitsuri is shocked by the sight before her

The Butterfly Assistants and Aoi are surrounding Obanai, putting a blanket over his resting body

“No! Wait! Stop! What are you doing?!” Mitsuri stumbles over when running to the bed and her head bumps against Obanai’s shoulder

Her heart almost stops and her eyes widened in fear

His bare skin is cold. He didn’t make any noise nor move

“I’m… so sorry, Kanroji-san… Iguro-san has… has passed away… we believe he passed away last night…” Aoi remarks gently

Mitsuri cries instantly and screams. She can’t hold back as she grabs onto Obanai’s arms and shakes him

She doesn’t want to believe he’s dead. He must be alive! He has to be!

Mitsuri shakes him until she has to stop, out of the extreme pain. Her heart shatters into pieces as she crumbles onto the floor and cries hysterically. She cries out his name, begging for the heavens to bring him back to her

The man of her dreams… has left her for good

Mitsuri never gets over this. Never. No matter how old she gets

She becomes semi-lifeless. Her smile is no longer genuine. Her eyes are almost grey. She becomes depressed

Obanai kept her smiling. Mitsuri doesn’t see any reason to pretend to be happy. She doesn’t care about her missing arm, she doesn’t care about the other Hashira

All she cares about is how she lost Obanai

Mitsuri eventually found and swiped Obanai’s repaired haori from Aoi and brought it with her to her hospital bed

She sleeps with it

And when she is released from the Butterfly Estate and returns to her Estate. She takes care of it like it has her beating heart in it

Mitsuri wears Obanai’s haori everywhere and every second of every day. Mitsuri never takes off Obanai’s haori for longer than changing. She’ll die wearing it

Mitsuri got Kaburamaru. She may struggle with separating Kaburamaru from Obanai but she still loves the serpent and keeps him with her as much as possible

Mitsuri visits Obanai’s grave everyday. She eats in front of it, she talks to it

She likes to pretend that she is still talking to Obanai. It’s her coping mechanism

Breaking her illusion will make her break down so don’t. Let her get it out of her system

It is so unhealthy but Mitsuri can’t bring herself to let Obanai go. She needs to feed her fantasies to keep herself from slipping further into depression

Mitsuri, however, is unaware of how Obanai is still with her. In spirit, laying his head on her shoulder as she forces out a laugh at her own joke

Mitsuri will definitely live the rest of her damaged life with no new love. Not a single man in Japan can compare to Obanai

She considers seppuku. At one point, she just wants to be in heaven with him. But Obanai talks her out of it

“Mitsuri! Put that down! Don’t hurt yourself! It’s not worth it! I know, I know you’re in pain. Please, stay alive… for me”

Can’t say Mitsuri becomes obsessed with Obanai after his death but she keeps basically all of his belongings and protects them with everything she has. His katana, his uniform, the keys to his estate, all trinkets of Kaburamaru’s, his favourite kimonos

Mitsuri even changes her last name to Iguro. It’s her way of dedicating herself to her one true love

Living in a fantasy where she married Obanai, despite the fact he is now above in heaven. Forced to wait for Mitsuri to come to him

But everybody can clearly see that Mitsuri’s sanity is chipping. She is losing herself in her depression, her grief, her regret

She is stuck between her fantasy and reality. She speaks outloud to Obanai’s grave when she is with it like it’s a person, but when literally anywhere else, she is relatively normal

Mitsuri still cries as hard when she reads the long letter Obanai wrote for her before he died. His battlefield confession replaying in her head as she keeps reading the most important parts. The parts that cements his love for her

All she wants is Obanai back

Changed the pic cause it was annoying

Well. Fuck. This is very depressing, Jesus and #firsteverpostpostedwithoutsavingittodraftfirst

[demonslayedher]

So I was already itching to make some Kanao fanwork of some kind when I was walking around today and I spotted this:

Ramune Daifuku!?

For any weeb out there who has not had the pleasure of discovering ramune for sale in their local Japanese/Asian grocers, these are clear sodas in iconic glass bottles with a glass marble in the top. You press down (or let's be honest, dramatically pop) the plastic top to push the marble down into the knobby top of half of the bottle, and it stays there rolling around as you guzzle the soda. It, and other sodas like it, was already popular back in the Meiji era, and existed in an older but very similar type of bottle. It would had been readily available by the time Kimetsu no Yaiba takes place and you could realistically write fanfics with silly Corp members spraying each other with soda or frustrated with trying to get the marble out.

(This post was edited a day later because I made it a point to get actual ramune footage. I wore my butterfly yukata and somewhat of a side ponytail for full effect.)

Since Kanao's favorites are ramune soda and anything that Aoi makes (I'm just going to assume she can make a variety of sweets, she is very talented), I of course had to try it. A good thick mochi outside... and then what was this lemon-limey blue layer? A shiro-an, or--no, there's the shiro-an inside of it! And--what's this powder in the center? Oh my Oyakata-sama, it was a full center of fizzy ramune candy!!!!

[alex-thegendertheif]

Could you do agere headcannons for Sakura Ogami please

this is my first request so i apologize if its not that good, and for my bad English as its my second language

Little and Cg Sakura Ogami head cannons 🌸🥋💪🤍

[⚠️SPOILERS⚠️]

Little Sakura Ogami Headcannons

- her little age is around 6 - 2

- her main cg is Aoi

- aoi was the first to find out bc she found sakura shaken up after sayaka death/ leon trial

- she is a very quiet, sleepy kiddo, but shes also more playful and happy

- when shes regressed she loves watching yo-kai watch, pokemon, salior moon, mlp, hello kitty or anything disney related

- she is literally baby girl when she is regressed

- disney kiddo™️

- she has a stuffy of pink bunny she named mr bon bon (definitely projecting right here)

- when shes regressed she is not allowed to lift heavy stuff/weights bc she can hurt herself or someone

- loves being outside when regressed

- her favorite meal when shes regressed is California rolls, ramen and mochi

- she loves cuddling and snuggling with aoi when shes regressed

- it took her a while to allow herself to be in such a vulnerable state as shes believes she bas to always be the stoic one

Caregiver Sakura Ogami Headcannons🌸

- literally the most supportive caregiver in existence of caregivers

- she is very sweet to any one of her littles

- she also has like a spidey sense for littles

- loves hearing your stories, playing games with you

- prepared for any situation with the little

- she makes the best little snacks

- but her ramen and sushi are the best (gordan ramsy could literally never)

- loves to carry her littles around

- best caregiver cuddler

- if anyone is to tell her their a little she will buy them a stuffy, paci to support them

- best listener

[kmuradesu]

‘LIMIT’

sorcerer!reader (gn) x jjk

» summary: you don’t know your potential. no one knows your potential. you struggle with your cursed technique quite a fair bit and whilst on a mission where you’re all struggling, it seems to have you in the right mindset to go forth with it.

» CW: worrying thoughts, wholesome yuji, violence, panic, passing out, infirmary, not proofread!

» a/n: i kinda like this one. i do like jjk fics when the reader is injured but I CAN NEVER FIND THEM. bc no-one does them.. anyways eat up sweetcheeks 😘

———————————————————————

4 days earlier.

"Y'know about our transfer student, l/n. I've never seen a cursed technique quite like it." The white-hared man swung his leg over his knee, repositioning the blindfold masking his face.

"And I'm not even sure if they understand their potential yet." He added as he softly threw his head back on the edge of the sofa.

"Well maybe it's time to find what their capable of, have they ever used the technique?" Another man, much more mature-sounding, spoke.

"Hm. Once, but it quickly dissipated after 17 seconds since it's got this mass physical affect on them. They lost consciousness for 2 days."

"You should focus on training them to have more concentration whilst using their technique, don't you think?" Nanami suggested, a small expression of irritation visible on his face.

"Oh trust me, I already am." Gojo smirked to himself, now flicking his blindfold.

———

After a short briefing in Principle Yaga's office about a skill-set mission coming up soon with the other three First-Years: Kugisaki, Fushiguro and Itadori, you were dissmised and found yourself wandering down the class halls.

Deep in thought, you subconsciously walked into an episode of maladaptive daydreaming. Am I ready? I can't control my technique. How am I supposed to fight if I'm struggling?

Just think about food... mochi? donburi, ramen? yakitori, sush-

"L/n-chan!"

You looked back, feeling a hand glide onto your shoulder.

"How are you feeling about the new assignment?" It was Itadori, with his charming pearl smile and chirpy tone.

"..Oh hey, I think it'll go okay, nothing you can't handle."

"I can handle?.. aren't you going to fight too? All four of us Principle Yaga said." The boy looked concerned, brows creasing.

"Yeah but-" You sighed, rubbing the back of your neck with a bit on worry.

"Yeah but, what? There are no buts. You're a talented sorcerer like all of us and deserve some kind of action." A soft smile lifted his lips, brown eyes lightly squinting down at you.

Your stressed thoughts were forced to leave as you returned a wavery lipped-smile, eyes looking down at the floor for a split second.

"Yeah, guess you're right." You muttered, your brain relaxing in defeat.

Itadori then began to tease you, sticking his lean chest out in an exaggerated manner, earning a judging look from you. "I'm always right."

"Who are you and what have you done with Yuji Itadori?"

"Aoi Todo! thank you very much."

Both of you burst out into a fit of giggles.

———

A day later.

"Control your breathing l/n and relax, you're too tense for the technique to work." In one of the abundant training grounds of Jujutsu High, Gojo had put you up against a Grade 2 curse that the school had caged for training purposes.

Beads of salty sweat dripped down the flat of your forehead, chest overfrequently rising and falling as you panted through gritted teeth.

"Easy for you to say." You muttered, replacing your guard once again as the curse lunged with speed towards you. Having a more rapid reaction time compared to the curse, you swerved to the side, causing the slug-like curse to fall flat on its face with a gurgled shout. Swiftly taking the opportunity, using your excessive store of cursed energy you delivered a bone-cracking strike to its spine, earning another agonised cry.

The corner's of your Sensei's mouth turned upwards, still visible from where you were which was around 60 or 70 metres away on the opposite side of the gritty field.

"Stop thinking, and let it happen." The man said, brows furrowing under the fabric covering his eyes.

"I'm trying!"

"Stop talking."

Taking a deep breath, you closed the lids of your eyes for a second trying to blank your mind of any stray thoughts. But you didn't take account of the fact that the curse was quickly recovering from the beating it had recieved.

THWACK!

———

5 hours before the mission.

"Hey y/n-chan! I can't believe you got your ass whooped by a Grade two curse, and we're supposed to be fighting a Grade one today." Kugisaki had bumped into you outside of your dorm, just as you were leaving after getting ready. Mentally, physically and emotionally.

"Yeah yeah whatever. My stupid technique doesn't want to work." You retorted, subtly rolling your eyes.

"Hah, ain't you sure it isn't just you?.."

Your expression had sunk a little, once again going into drowning thought.

"Hey come on, but we'll for sure need you once we're out there though, soooo no pressure." The girl gave you a sly smile, gently patting the ridge your shoulder prior to walking past like she had originally intended to do.

Yep, no pressure then.

———

"DEMON DOGS!"

"YUJI, GO FOR THE FRONT!"

"KUGISAKI!"

“I CAN’T!”

"FUSHIGURO, WHERE'S L/N?!"

Everything was so chaotic, it was all hard to process - what was going on, who was doing what, where should you attack from. It was all going haywire and you were nowhere to be seen after being pummelled into the side of a building with enough force to break all the material in your body.

Almost hyperventilating, you stood about 30 metres from the whole scene in a pile of rubble, fists in balls as its knuckles turned white, and a vexed face full of overflowing rage.

You knew your technique's got a radius of a hundred meters and so everyone fell perfectly in the lines. It was now your time to flipping shine, just how Gojo had said it.

Shaping your fingers and reinforcing your defensive stance, you spoke with malice.

"Cursed technique, Expansive Verve!"

It was a legitimate earthquake. The earth's core grumbled with vigour like it felt like it was falling apart by the second.

Suddenly, Megumi's charging demon dogs had vanished into thin air. Just as he was about to land a punch, Yuji discerned all his cursed energy was draining away, as if someone had pulled the plug. Nobara was half way through using her straw doll technique, before the blue hue around the nail, highlighting its fused energy, had dissolved like it was soluble in water. They all felt terribly weak.

"WHAT?!" Her feminine voice called out, worry, concern, anger - all three evident on her face as she took a step back.

"My cursed energy, it's all gone- Fushiguro's dogs too." Looking desperately at his hands forever hopeful that his store would come back to life again, Yuji's brows knitted together.

"How is that possible?"

The curse seemed to be losing its own too.

"Where's l/n?" The girl mumbled, making all three of them place their heads on swivels as they searched for your form.

And there you were, standing in the dusted debris of what was once a structure, eyes sharp and wild as different tinges of colour were being dragged from the floor into your hands.

"Oh, so that's where it all went." Itadori weakly shrugged, watching your figure struggle a little as it started to make movement towards the curse.

"Hey their doing it! Their technique-"

Kugisaki was swiftly cut off as a powerful beam of light, which was actually multiple sources of cursed energy combined, skimmed past her face, shaking her balance.

A blinding explosion of luminescence painted the onyx night sky of Sendai City, the curse in the middle of it which immediately elicited pained wails and screams of terror as it tore up from the inside out.

It had literally blown up into trillions of pieces as its hot flabby skin pelted to the floor around you.

You didn't just exorcise it, you killed it.. with the help of your friends of course.

The three of them just stood in shock. A cursed technique like that!? What were you, a special grade or something?

Finally feeling the final mass loss of energy you had given yourself, your legs transitioned into jelly, stance faltering as you collapsed.

“Y/N!” Itadori called out, as he made a run for you but he had quickly forgotten that he had zero stamina and power which lead in his vision tipping for a second.

But soon enough all three of them made it to you, the pink-haired boy doing his upmost to check you were okay.

“Are they okay?” Kugasaki’s brows creased, worry staining her stern features.

“Well obviously not, they’re passed out.”

Fushiguro looked dumbly at the girl, muttering ‘common sense’ under his breath.

With a subtly panicked voice, Itadori spoke, “Let’s get them to leiri-san!”

———

It had been 5 days after you had performed your technique, yet you still lay unconscious yet hospitalised in the infirmary of Jujutsu High with Shoko-san being your personal doctor.

Gojo-Sensei’s orders.

The man would’ve yearned to actually be there, and witness the power that one of his students held with much more potential.

Megumi, Nobara and Yuji had also been in the infirmary for about a day, recovering from their sudden loss of cursed energy since you absorbed it all to use it. But they were fine after resting, returning back to their normal day-to-day duties and visiting you every so often.

“I still can’t believe it. How is that not impossible?”

“No-one’s quite sure Itadori, I’m not even sure myself.” Gojo shrugged, bouncing his leg over his knee as he tried to recline back into the uncomfortable, twine-like chairs of the hospital room.

The sterile smell was offensive to their noses, making Yuji scrunch his nose in disgust frequently. And he had to admit, hearing the beeps of the heart monitor you were hooked up to were comforting. It just meant that you weren’t dead at least.

“I mean, that’s the first time they’ve actually managed to complete their technique right?”

“That’s right. We still don’t know the techniques full potential yet until we witness it a few more times though—”

“..mm.” Both of their heads snapped up to the bed you were limp on, being hopeful that the noise they had just heard wasn’t from somewhere else.

“..hm.”

There it was again. Cautiously, the young boy walking up to your bedside, looking down at you as he gently rubbed your shoulder.

“Y/n? Helllooo?”

He thought his words landed on deaf ears.

“..hey Itadori.” Groggily, you blinked open your eyes, shortly squinted after since the light was too bright for your eyes to quickly adjust to.

———————————————————————

heh.. that took longer than expected but i did it all in a day so no complaints please 🙂‍↕️🤚wasn’t sure when i should end it buuuut. please no translating, copying, posting my work on a different platform, or modifying my work. all rights reserved - kmuradesu

[scarnemo]

great to see you again 💜

[aomori-division]

"the moon dances with me the way the sun never will"

Introduction

Hisui Meguno also know by his moniker Aphelios. Is a part time toystore clerk and violinist/dancer and the second memeber of Aomori division Howling moon

A mysterious youngman dressed in dark and colorful clothes, his appearance is very different from his aura of melancholy and sadness besides the bore look of his face noticed by the people who see him working on his adoptive father's toystore

He is always surrounded by a feeling of guilt and despite he never say it openly his goal in the DRB is related to certain person named "Kohaku"

Hisui is a short young man with brown complexion. His eyes are a reddish purple with eyebags under them and his hair is orange blonde with dyed pink tips until shoulders in a tousled bob, he has a bang that cover partially his left eye, something noticeable are the crack marks on a side of his face and that he has on all his body

Daily, Hisui dress a mix of pastel goth and emo fashion, his outfit consist of a dark purple off-shoulder shirt and a silver jacket, his lower body is covered by thig, ripped black jeans with different colorful belts in pink, lilac and turqouise and long boots to the knee. His accesories a black chocker decorated with a moon charm, he usually wear purple headphones

Some poeple who met his younger brother noticed that Hisui looks too much alike him, but Hisui's appearance is more gloomy and tired than Kohaku's

Aliases

"project white rose"

My little dolly

Sui nii (by Kohaku)

Sui (By Ruka and Aoi)

Mooncake (by Akai)

Biographical info

Gender-male

Age-24

Birthday-september 18th

Ethnicity-japanese/filipino

Hair colour-blonde orange with pink tips

Eye colour-reddish purple

Eight-147 cm/4'8

Star Sign-virgo

Piercings-lobes,tonge

Markings-marks that look like cracks in all the body, some track marks on the arms, needle marks in the wrists, tattoo of a crecent moon in the forehead

Family

Biológical father (desceased)

Biológical mother (desceased)

Adoptive father

biológical younger brother (estranged)

Adoptive younger sister

Boyfriend

Voiced by-96Neko (rapping and singing)

Fun facts

MC name: Aphelios

Occupation: Toystore clerk/violinist

Division: Aomori

Team: Howling Moon

Position:2nd member

Favorite food:strawberry mochi

Least favorite food:natto

Likes: toys (especially suffed toys), Orange juice, pastries, the moon, dancing, his new family, Akai, walking in the night, violin,his younger brother, fashion and make up,magic, books , butterflies, sleeping, visit candyshops

Dislikes: his health problems, depressive episodes, illegal experiment, ARCA prison's lab, Kohaku's hate towards him, remember he is not human anymore, the feel of guilt

Hypnosis microphone

Hisui's hypnosis microphone takes the form of a elegant ,black and purple ribbon mic with different dark pink roses around the support, but the support also has chains that surrounded Hisui

Hisui's speakers takes the form of a black wood violin surrounded by blue butterflies,the speaker is a circular speaker inside the violín and when he starts to rap the butterflies starts to fly

Hisui's rap ability is called guilty chains when he use his rap ability Hisui can manipulate the chains of his mic for tie or attack the opponents draining his own stamina, he just can use his ability one time for battle and just in one opponent

Hisui's rap themes are around things like the misery and sadness but also the guilt for anything, he raps about his own feelings of sadness or how he "is tired" but also mention the guilt, how he feels guilty for something in special. How he feels sad for too much things but also mention be grateful with his new family and lover, or his love towards his younger brother

Hisui also raps about his love for the night with references to the loneliess and the moon. But in his rap Hisui could talk about his hate towards certain group that broke him completely. How he never will to forgive them for all the damage they made him and for taked his humanity from him saying how he going to " make them feel my pain"

Personality

Aloof and lethargic, Hisui seems to be a serious person with a aura of melancholy and sadness around him. He acts nice but reserved with the toystore clients, talking just if them spoke him and out of that foccused on his own business. Hisuis is the type of person who can be see sleeping in anyplace with a calm look contrary to his gloomy usual or wandering just because he can do

But even with his gloomy and depressive episodes Hisui is surprisingly nice and empathic, understanding people's emotions and being able of helping them when he can. But ve also scolds them if it's neccesary or they made a mistake

With his family (adoptive father,sister and boyfriend) he acts more mischievous and a bit outgoing. Hisui smile and jokes more with them, acting teasingly but careful, loving his new family and being grateful with them. Despite it Hisui also could have moments where he feel a bit annoyed when Aoi,Akai and Ruka insist on take care of him during his depressive episodes or when he's having a bad moment with his health, that's because he sometimes think that he not deserve all the "warm and love" he has now due to his low self-esteem. In part for the experiments on him and the guilt for leave Kohaku, falling in depression when Hisui think how his beloved younger brother now hate him, but he trie (and fail) not show it when it happens

Trivia

Hisui can understand and speak tagal

Hisui plays violin as a job but also dances as hobby

When Hisui rap, something noticeable (besides the femenine sound of his voice) is that his almost always sounds sad and broken, like he were trying to not cry

He was the subject of the project "white rose" made by a lab owe by th ARCA prison. The experiment consisted of mix magic and science to modified a soul until make it "artifitial" but the experiment was a failure

The reason why Hisui has all his healt problems is because the group not had the soul magic to modified properly a soul, and the scientist had not enoughly knowledge for take care of him

Hisui need to take too much meds in form of pills and inyections, that leave him track marks

Sometimes during his depressive episodes he tried to mix his different meds and use them as drugs

He was noticed by a person from Avici syndycate to the experiment, but the truth is that person originally noticed Kohaku as the experiment subject. and Hisui taked willingly his place as the subject, that's the reason why he leave Kohaku

Like his younger brother Hisui like sweets but he prefer the fruity mochi (especially strawberry) and the pastries

He meet Felix Sachishi because Hisui often goes to his bakery

Hisui loves Kohaku until today but he is aware of how he hate him, something that hurts Hisui more

[shikenzenya]

Amayo no Seppun - Atarashii Gakko! / Atarashii Gakkou no Leaders (雨夜の接吻 - 新しい学校のリーダーズ) lyrics translation + romaji + kanji

english translation + romaji + kanji under the cut!

KISSES ON A RAINY NIGHT

The stray hairs on the nape of my neck get wet in the spring rain Making my slender body tremble Please hold me, immediately Like the scattering cherry blossoms

My janome¹ umbrella rolls down the slope Even though there’s no wind Kisses on a rainy night Ah, I’m soaking wet, soaking wet

Frightened by the spring thunder, I huddle my shivering body Contemplating the fate of our love Give me your heart, give me the truth Like witnessing a flash of blue lightning

My geta with broken thongs in hand If I chase after you, I go in my socks Kisses on a rainy night Ah, I’m burning up, burning up

You pick up the janome and cover us Embrace my shoulders, back, waist Kisses on a rainy night Ah, I’m shaking, I’m shaking

_________________________________

AMAYO NO SEPPUN

Harusame ni unaji okurege tomo ni nure Hosoi karada o furuwaseru Daite kudasai, ima sugu ni Saita sakura ga chiruyouni

Janome no kasa ga sakamichi o Kaze mo nai no ni korogatte Amayo no seppun Aa, nuremasu, nuremasu

Shunrai ni obie ononoki mi o chijime Koi no yukusue omoiyaru Kokoro kudasai, shinjitsu o Aoi inazuma miruyouna

Hanao no kireta geta o mochi Otte ikunara tabi hadashi Amayo no seppun Aa, moemasu, moemasu

Janome o hiroi sashikakete Kata o senaka o koshi o daki Amayo no seppun Aa, yuremasu, yuremasu

________________________________

春雨に　うなじ　おくれ毛ともに濡れ 細いからだを　震わせる 抱いて下さい　今すぐに 咲いた桜が散るように

蛇の目の傘が坂道を 風もないのに転がって 雨夜の接吻 ああ　濡れます　濡れます

春雷に　怯え　おののき　身を縮め 恋の行く末　思いやる こころ下さい　真実を 青い稲妻　見るような

鼻緒の切れた下駄を持ち 追って行くなら足袋はだし 雨夜の接吻 ああ　燃えます　燃えます

蛇の目を拾い　さしかけて 肩を背中を　腰を抱き 雨夜の接吻 ああ　揺れます　揺れます

________________________________

¹ A Janome umbrella is a Japanese style umbrella with a “snake-eye” design on it, like this! 

[unofficialsapphire]

Hi all..

CHAPTER 6: IN BETWEEN

For the past few weeks, Shinobu has been nothing but patience towards you. She tried explaining to you that you were a demon slayer with promising talent as you are now a kinoe. Fellow demon slayers awe your determination to eradicate all demons. You trained hard to where you are now.

Even some hashiras had come to know your existence, some invite you for sword training with them. They were so friendly and welcoming towards you acknowledging your strength and determination. It was easy getting along with them as you were friendly and lovely.

You were hysterical at first when Shinobu explained that you were confused between dreams and reality. But from time to time you slowly accept the truth, Mui was never yours. It may have felt so real but you convinced yourself that it was just a vivid dream.

She didn't know how you met Muichiro though, you didn't remember either. You don't even remember your past. Shinobu assured you that it was a trauma response and I'll get them soon.

Rengoku came to visit and brought along Mitsuri. I was told that we were close friends. She brought me her favourite sakura mochi. She is lovely, her smile always radiants the room.

There was a lot of disagreement from the slayer corp. Regarding your status at the moment. They held a meeting to discuss your situation as you were supposed to be promoted as hashira before you were sent to your last mission.

"Forgive me master, but seeing Y/n right now she isn't suitable to be hashira." Sanemi said in disagreement.

Rengoku remains positive, "If we train her now, she will gain her strength back stronger than before" His faith in you never falters.

"Master, I believe that Rengoku is right, Y/n is a strong girl but I also feel that sanemi has a point, she isn't capable of fighting right now" Mitsuri, tried to be reasonable with the situation, as your friend, she didn't want to push you to your end.

Master Kagaya nodded at their words, "Shinobu, my child, what is your input on this" he smiled warmly,

Shinobu, bow down, "Master, Y/n is not yet capable at the moment, She hasn't regained all her memories. Though she is recovering physically well, her mind is unstable. She needs to re-learn basic sword fighting if she wants to be a slayer"

Master and the hashiras discuss more and they settled that you'll have to pass final selection again if you want to be a slayer. They had agreed that they will all train you to be back on your feet in no time.

You have completed your rehabilitation training and Master gave you your own estate which was supposed to be a gift if you became a hashira but you didn't want to stay there as you felt you were not deserving, no matter what the hashiras tell you to but they didn't want to push you.

"Thank you for letting me stay here Shinobu-san" you smile warmly at her. "Anything for you Y/n" she smiled sweetly.

Rengoku offered to train you after your rehabilitation training. You were skeptical at first. You're not in the right state of mind to fight demons. You don't even remember flame breathing anymore and Rengoku taught you that before. He believes in you. He trusts your strength, if he trains you he believes you'll get back on your feet again.

"I'll think about it Rengoku-san" you hesitately said. "Alright, we are willing to help you Y/n" He said before moving away.

Being in the butterfly estate, you became friends with Aoi, you help serving the injured slayers and helping them to get better.

One day, you were walking back to the estate when you bumped into someone.

"oi watched where you were going" you gasped as you heard a familiar voice making you look up.

"Mui!!" You yelled, tears in your eyes, you tried hugging him but he flinched. "Who are you" he demanded. "I'm.. I'm Y/n! Can't you remember me?" You tried touching his arms, he tilted his head in confusion, "Have we met before?" "What?" It's me Y/n! Your.. your girlfriend!" You blurted out. Tears in your eyes. Mui. Your Mui he's alive, he has gashes in his cheek. You tried touching it but he pushes you away. "Stop lying! I don't even know you" He turned his back not wasting anymore time with you and continuing his way. "Mui" you yelled after him running to grab his arms, he harshly pulled his arms away from you. "Stop wasting my time" he harshly told you. "No.. no it's me, Y/n" you begged, you were now crying trying to get him to remember you.

"Y/n-san" you heard mitsuri yelled running towards you. She pulls you in her arms as you sob. "I'm sorry Muichiro-san, I'll take her now." you cried as you watched Muichiro continue his way.

When you come back to your senses, you remembered that Mui you know was just a vivid dream and not real. You felt embarrassed and wanted to apologize but you couldn't face him now.

"uuugh why did I ever dream of him in the first place" you groaned. You know it was just a dream but your feelings were there.

"well its because you love him" Mitsuri giggled. Happy that you're calm now.

"what?!" You look at her, "Shinobu said it was just a dream that's why I feel like this"

"Ever wondered why you dreamed about him?" She nudges you, smiling widely.

"It's cause you like him Y/n" she continued.

"I.. what?! No" she laughs as she sees your face turn bright red.

"Cmon Y/n, we shared that secret, he's all you can talk about whenever you come visit me" She giggled, remembering the days you would come just to rant about him.

"He's mean! How could I possibly like him?!" You tried to argue despite the redness of your face.

"oh shush, you even asked me to help you spy on him while training. Oh try to remember that one time, you ask me to push you so you'll fall in his arms hahaha that's a good one"

You blushed harder, you can faintly remember asking her.

"Y/n-san Look! Muichiro-san is coming" Mitsuri Squealed tugging your arms. "Okay.okay just like we discuss. Push me towards him aah" you squealed excitedly. You were pretending to walk and when Muichiro crosses paths with you, Mitsuri pushes you, making you pretend to fall onto him. "Oops I'm sorry Muichiro" before running away. You squealed when you caught up to Mitsuri, "he smelled so good" you fangirl, smiling widely.

You were feeling better coming over at Mitsuri's estate, she always tried to help you remember. Slowly but you're starting to remember some of your past.

[skeletorrito]

One kiss is all it takes - full itafushi oneshot, rated T, 4.8k

Summary: 

Aw, c’mon, what’s one kiss gonna hurt? You don’t like me like that, right? So it shouldn’t be a problem.” Yuji’s intentions are completely, totally innocent… but they really don’t feel that way to Megumi. 

Megumi scowls, gripping the comforter underneath him in anger because of course Yuji puts him in this situation again. He needs to reply, and fast, or risk being called out. It’s just a kiss, after all…. and then Yuji will go back to being his straight, overbearing, jocky teammate, right? It’s just one kiss. He can handle one kiss.

“Fine. One kiss, and then you shut up about this whole thing and we pretend this didn’t happen.” He agrees in a grumble. 

“Deal.” Yuji grins, nodding and scooting closer.

In which Megumi Fushiguro accidentally comes out his teammate, Yuji Itadori, and Yuji... learns a lot about himself in one night.

One kiss is all it takes

TW: homophobic language

“Fushiguro…” Yuji starts with a mouth full of mochi. “What kind of girls are you into?” 

“I’m not-” Megumi blurts out, unthinking, but manages to cut himself off. He corrects, “I’m not having this conversation with you.” He shoves another mochi in his mouth, slumping down further into his bed. 

Yuji makes frequent, unannounced visits every time he’s injured on missions (which is, admittedly, more often than he’d like). Megumi didn’t have much of a chance refusing, either, because Yuji doesn’t take no for an answer. He always brings snacks or a gift with him each time, which Megumi thinks is… kinda nice (though he’d never admit it). This time, he brought red bean mochi to share. 

“Aww, c’mon, why not? We’re bros, right?” Yuji urges.

“Are we?” Megumi snips in response. 

“Of course we are! I love you, bro!” Yuji exclaims innocently, and Megumi nearly chokes on his snack. 

“Please don’t say that ever again…” he grumbles in response, flushing slightly and fixing his gaze on the floor. 

Yuji ignores him and continues to think aloud, “Maybe you’re into tall girls like me? Like Jennifer Lawrence, ooh, or that one rapper, what’s her name… umm… Megan Thee Stallion, yeah!” Yuji leans back in his chair with an easy grin, arms folded behind his head. “She’s so hot. Her ass always looks insane.” 

Megumi’s expression is flat as he listens to Yuji ramble. “I’m going back to bed, Itadori.”  

“Aww, Fushiguro, don’t be like that! You’ve gotta have a type!” Yuji continues to ignore Megumi’s attempts to shut the conversation down. Even though Megumi is already laying back in bed with the covers tucked under his chin, Yuji presses, “You talk to Maki a lot. Is she your type?”

“Maki’s my distant relative, you idiot,” Megumi spits immediately, crinkling his nose. “Leave me alone, I’m tired of talking about this weird shit. Go call Aoi if you wanna keep objectifying women like this.” 

Yuji sighs disappointedly. “I already know what he’s gonna say, there’s nothing to talk about.” He pops another mochi in his mouth, mumbling, “Man, you’re acting like you’re not even interested in girls…” 

Megumi stays silent for a little too long. Yuji curiously leans down to meet his eyes. 

“Fushiguro, you are into girls, aren’t you?” 

Megumi flips over, his face growing hot. “Get out.” 

“Wait- Are you… into guys?” Yuji’s voice is dripping with amusement and shock. 

Megumi covers his face with his comforter, hoping to prevent Yuji from noticing the creeping flush on his cheeks. “I said get out, Itadori!” He yells from under the covers, taking a pillow and throwing it at him. 

He might just die on the next mission on purpose.

Yuji laughs as the pillow hits his chest. He palms his forehead. “Oh my god! That makes so much sense! Fushiguro, why didn’t you tell me!? Well, I mean, I can guess why you wouldn’t… but don’t worry! Your secret’s safe with me!” 

Megumi doesn’t respond. His fists are clenched so tightly that his fingernails are biting into his palms.

“Alright, I get it, I’ll let you rest. But just so you know, it doesn’t matter to me what you’re into, I’ll still be your friend regardless,” Yuji adds sincerely, grinning at the lump of covers on the bed. Megumi peeks at him as he leaves, groaning and shoving his face into his pillow. 

He’s not going to let this go, is he? 

He most certainly is not about to let this go. As the week progresses, Yuji’s thoughts are consumed by Megumi’s silent confession. He’s never had a gay friend before (that he knew of, at least) and, while he knows it shouldn’t make a difference, he just can’t stop thinking about the fact that Megumi is attracted to men. Yuji finds himself burning with personal, prying questions that he knows he can’t ask. But he’s dying to know. 

He restrains himself for about three whole days. 

And then, on the fourth day, his impulsiveness gets the better of him. 

Yuji spots Megumi on a bench, alone, near the garden. He scrolls on his phone as he eats a rice ball. 

“Yo, Fushiguro!” Yuji calls out and takes up a seat next to him. “Feeling better?” 

Megumi shifts his attention briefly from his phone, deep emerald eyes flicking up momentarily. “Yeah, a little, thanks.” 

“Good, great. I’m glad to hear it.” 

Megumi can tell that Yuji is antsy about something by the way he’s fidgeting with his hood. He sighs, shoving his phone in his pocket. “What is it?” He asks with mild annoyance. 

“Huh?”

“I know you want to say something, Itadori, so just say it.”

Yuji opens the floodgates, his brain moving faster than his mouth, “Okay, yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry, this is super personal but I have to ask: how did you realize you were gay?” 

Megumi frowns, expecting this much. He’d felt Yuji’s stare burning holes in his back since they last spoke. “Who said I was gay?” He retorts, quickly. 

Yuji’s look of pure confusion makes Megumi crack the slightest of smiles. “But… I thought… You didn’t say anything…” His response comes out in broken, flustered phrases. His face turns bright red. “So you’re… not gay?”

Megumi snorts, dismissively. “Labels are boring and pointless. I don’t really care what you call me, Itadori.” He takes another bite of his snack, chewing and swallowing politely before he adds, “And it’s not a secret, really… I just don’t run my mouth about it.” 

Yuji takes a silent minute to process this information, a small pout gracing his lips. “Okay…” he starts, carefully, “So lemme try again: How did you know you were interested in men?” 

Megumi rolls his eyes, groaning exasperatedly. “I don’t know, Itadori, how did you know you were interested in women?” 

“Oh, well-”

“It’s a rhetorical question, dummy.”

“Oh. Oh, I get it. Sorry.” Yuji scratches the back of his neck, an embarrassed grimace on his face. “I’ve just never had a friend who leans that way. I dunno, I’m curious…” 

Megumi’s eyebrows raise hearing the word curious. 

Yuji backtracks quickly, “I mean I’m not- I like women, so I’m definitely not gay.” He huffs, cheeks blushing. “It’s just… kinda cool getting to know you better? I want to learn more about you… about this in general, I guess.” 

Megumi is somewhat touched by Yuji’s openness. And that’s the thing about Yuji. He constantly surprises Megumi with the most thoughtful, selfless acts and words, and Megumi doesn’t always know what to do with that or why it gives him butterflies in his stomach. It doesn’t matter how much he pushes Yuji away, he always gets reeled back in.  

“Uh, Okay…” Megumi isn’t the most eloquent with words. “What do you want to know? Nothing weird, or we’re never talking about this again.” Megumi already regrets his open invitation. He shoves the rest of his rice ball in his mouth. 

Yuji contemplates for a moment, a hand coming to his chin, stroking. “Oh! What kind of guys are you into?” 

Megumi swallows, a deadpan expression on his face. “Seriously?” 

“Seriously! You never answered me!” 

“Why do you even care?” Megumi sneers as he adds, “Afraid I might hit on you?” 

Yuji sputters, “Wh-what?! No!” 

Megumi hums, unconvinced. 

Yuji can’t help his impulsive curiosity as he pries, “Am I your type? Like, would you hit on me if I liked guys too?” 

“No,” Megumi replies, almost too quickly. He looks away, biting the inside of his cheek.

Yuji doesn’t catch it, but someone else does. 

He’s lying, Yuji, Sukuna’s voice projects in Yuji’s head.

Fuck off, this is a private conversation! 

That little faggot definitely wants you. Sukuna continues with a laugh. You never noticed the way he looks at you when you’re not paying attention?

Shut up! Just shut up and get out of here! 

“Uh, you good, Itadori?” Megumi’s voice cuts through the internal dialogue. Yuji had been staring blankly, eyebrows knit, as if having some sort of internal battle. “Don’t tell me I hurt your feelings...” 

Yuji laughs dryly, shaking his head, “Yeah, I’m good, sorry, Fushiguro.” He does his best to suppress Sukuna’s presence for the time being. “And I’m not offended, at all.” He says it almost as if he’s trying to convince himself, not Megumi. 

Megumi stands, sighing, “I gotta get to class.” 

“I’ll walk with you.” Yuji offers eagerly and Megumi shrugs. Before they walk into one of the campus buildings, Yuji asks, “Speaking of which… Does Gojo know?” 

“No,” Megumi replies immediately in a harsh tone. He stops walking for a moment, giving Yuji a serious, warning stare. “And I plan to keep it that way.” 

Yuji shirks at Megumi’s cold expression, nodding. He holds out his pinky, making a gesture of zipping his lips. 

Megumi looks down, then up, blankly. He begrudgingly links his pinky finger with Yuji’s.

Yuji still can’t stop thinking about Megumi and it causes him to panic.  He becomes hyper-aware of how his teammate interacts with him, how he looks at him, how he talks to him. He doesn’t trust Sukuna’s input, because he wants to trust Megumi’s word, but now, he doesn’t even trust himself.

Another three days pass. Megumi is fully recovered and back to sparring with him, but even that becomes more intimate than he can handle. At one point during training, Yuji pins him to the ground and lingers for a second too long as he stares, stupidly, because the way Megumi Fushiguro looks underneath him is so… different, somehow. He’s noticing features he’d only admired in passing: Megumi’s shiny, navy hair tousled against the turf, his dark green eyes widening and glittering, his soft lips parting in surprise as Yuji straddles his chest. Megumi starts to blush as they make eye contact, looking away quickly with a frown.

Yuji stands, also blushing, and offers a hand to Megumi to help him up. But he just brushes it aside and gets up on his own, dusting himself off. They, awkwardly, finish up with sparring and don’t talk to each other for the rest of the day. 

Until Yuji knocks on his door that night. 

Yuji has an unmistakably alarming knock that Megumi can identify immediately. He flicks on the lights and opens the door after a few seconds, only allowing his face to peek through. “It’s late. I’m trying to sleep.”

“I know, I know, I’m sorry, I’m just…I’m kinda freaking out, Fushiguro.” Yuji rakes his hand through his dusty pink hair.

Megumi opens his door a little wider, stepping to the side with a sigh so Yuji can enter. 

Yuji plops on Megumi’s bed, scrubbing his face with his hands. 

“What’s wrong?” Megumi asks in a groan, frustrated, also joining him on the edge of the mattress. He crosses his arms across his slouchy t-shirt.

Yuji talks into the hands covering his face. “This is going to sound crazy, but it’s like I don’t even know myself anymore.” 

“What the hell does that mean?” 

“Like… I’m not even sure I’m straight anymore, Fushiguro.” His confession is muffled into his palms. He curls them into fists against his cheeks, elbows resting on his knees, and stares at Megumi’s closet as he continues. “I mean, girls are hot, like really hot, and I was so sure of that for my whole life but now…” He meets Megumi’s eyes for a second, then shifts his gaze quickly. “I don’t even know.”

“Oh… kay.” Megumi replies, unhelpfully, more stunned than anything. 

Is this… because of me? He wants to ask, but keeps that thought, and the confusing feelings associated with it, to himself for now. The corner of his lips tugs into barely a smile. “I think that’s kinda normal, Itadori.” 

“Ya think so?” Yuji looks at him with those puppy dog eyes. 

Megumi is so out of his element here. He does his best to console Yuji in this moment and push through his own embarrassment. “I mean, it’s not like you have to choose. You can be attracted to men and women… and any other gender out there, for that matter. So stop stressing about it.”

“Wait.” Yuji looks genuinely dumbfounded. “You can?” 

Megumi laughs, actually laughs, hard. 

It’s the rarest sound in the world.

Now, it’s music to Yuji’s ears. 

He wipes a tear from his eye, grinning, “You’re so fucking dumb, Itadori.” 

Yuji also laughs, flushing sheepishly, and his honey-brown eyes search Megumi’s face fondly. “I guess that makes sense, yeah… Still, I don’t really know- I mean, I’ve never even-” he snaps his fingers as an idea comes to him mid-sentence, “Hey, Fushiguro, would you kiss me? Just so I can know for sure?” 

He says it so nonchalantly that Megumi’s reaction is delayed. He pulls back, his forest green eyes going as wide as saucers. “What!?”

“Yeah! I just want to know what it’s like to kiss a guy… and if I don’t like it, then that’s my answer, right?” Yuji explains, like it’s the most reasonable request in the world.

“What kind of insane logic is that?!” He exclaims and flushes. “I’m not doing this.” 

“Aw, c’mon, what’s one kiss gonna hurt? You don’t like me like that, right? So it shouldn’t be a problem.” Yuji’s intentions are completely, totally innocent… but they really don’t feel that way to Megumi. 

Megumi scowls, gripping the comforter underneath him in anger because of course Yuji puts him in this situation again. He needs to reply, and fast, or risk being called out. It’s just a kiss, after all…. and then Yuji will go back to being his straight, overbearing, jocky teammate, right? It’s just one kiss. He can handle one kiss.

“Fine. One kiss, and then you shut up about this whole thing and we pretend this didn’t happen.” He agrees in a grumble. 

“Deal.” Yuji grins, nodding and scooting closer. 

Megumi’s gaze flicks back and forth from Yuji’s lips to his eyes, suddenly feeling very small and anxious. A bead of sweat drips down the back of his neck, his fingers gripping the bedspread so tightly it hurt. He closes his eyes as Yuji leans into him, cupping his cheek as he does. Why he feels the need to do that, Megumi doesn’t know, but it’s so very Yuji and he finds an odd, intimate comfort in that. 

Yuji’s lips are soft and warm, and feeling them on his own makes his stomach tingle. He returns the kiss hesitantly, the touch of their lips like electricity immediately because…

Yuji is a good kisser. 

Like really, surprisingly good. 

So, one gentle kiss turns into another deeper, more passionate one. Unanticipated sparks are flying as they smash their lips together, Yuji’s hand slipping to the back of his head and threading through his hair sending a pleasant shiver down his spine. Yuji starts losing himself in Megumi’s mouth, and Megumi lets him because he hasn’t been kissed in what feels like forever… and he certainly hasn’t been kissed like this before. 

Yuji slips him some tongue, and Megumi moans softly, but audibly. Hearing himself, he snaps out of it immediately. He breaks off the kiss, pushing Yuji away from him. 

“I, uh, I think that’s enough.” He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, flushing wildly. “I’m going to bed. Please leave.” His gaze stays on the floor. 

Yuji looks dazed and a little hurt as well. He frowns as he replies, “Kay.” Yuji stands, heading for the door. He doesn’t turn around as he adds, “Thanks, Fushiguro,” before slipping out and walking next door.

So you’re a little faggot too, huh? I’m surrounded by you filthy sodomites. Sukuna’s voice echoes in his head as he throws himself on his bed and curls up under the covers. 

Can you fuck off?! Your homophobic comments aren’t helping. Yuji retorts. Why are you so active all of a sudden, you pervert?!

Sukuna chuckles. Me? A pervert? Oh, that’s rich coming from someone who’s about to masturbate to their teammate. 

Yuji screams into his pillow, frustrated, “Get out of my head, you asshole!” 

A few deep, menacing laughs and Sukuna goes quiet again.

Yuji doesn’t sleep much that night. Megumi doesn’t either. 

Both boys are haunted by the kiss they shared and what it means.

One kiss is all it takes, sometimes. 

Megumi avoids him for the rest of the week, which makes him feel so much worse about the whole situation. How could he jeopardize their friendship like that? All because of his own selfish, stupid curiosity. Yuji is riddled with guilt and embarrassment. He wants so desperately to repair, but he knows Megumi is the kind of person who needs space and he will respect that. 

Yuji is especially defeated because he’s learned a lot about himself this past week, and one of the things he learned is that he likes guys. Well, not just any guy. Megumi.  

He likes Megumi… but Megumi doesn’t like him back and that stings. Even though they shared, in his opinion, this magical, amazing kiss, Megumi still pushed him away in the end. 

At the end of the school day, he sulks to his dorm and stays there until night, debating whether he should text Nobara and confide in her about this whole situation. Being the extrovert that he is, he needs someone to talk to. 

Then, he hears a soft knock at his door. 

No one ever knocks at his door, except Gojo, and he always announces himself beforehand. What would anyone want with him on a Friday night? 

He swings open the door, taken by at who he sees on the other side. It’s Megumi and he seems… Upset? Angry? Yuji can’t really tell, for Megumi’s eyes are darkened in an unreadable expression as he lingers in the hallway.

“Oh! Fushiguro, hey…” Yuji starts and trails off awkwardly.

Megumi steps in, shutting the door behind him. He was silent, glowering at Yuji. 

“Look I wanna apologize-”

He’s cut off by Megumi’s lips pressing into his own, hands grabbing at his face and pulling him in. Yuji releases a surprised noise, confused and overwhelmed. He breaks away, blinking incredulously. “Fushiguro, what are you-?”

“Shut up, Itadori. Just shut up and let me talk,” Megumi finally says in a harsh tone. He pokes at Yuji’s chest as he monologues. “You started this, just remember that. You want to know what kind of guys I’m into so badly? Fine. I like athletic guys with a good heart, a cute smile, and an undercut. Guys like you. Happy?” His cheeks were bright pink, contrasting his pale face. 

Yuji’s mouth hangs open. “So you were lying about being into me!” 

“Of course I was lying!” Megumi exclaims, flustered, “I thought you were straight!” 

“Well, I thought I was too!” Yuji yells in response, equally flustered. He softens as he adds, “But I guess I’m not because… I really like kissing you, Fushi-”

“Megumi.” He interrupts quickly, locking eyes with Yuji. “You can… call me Megumi when we’re like this.” Megumi averts his eyes, his face growing hot. 

“Okay, Megumi,” Yuji grins ear-to-ear as he says it. “Then, you can call me Yuji.” 

“Yuji.” Megumi says it aloud, just to test it out. It rolls off his tongue so easily. 

Now, Yuji is the one who grabs him and kisses the life out of him. He backs Megumi up against the door with a soft thud, pressing into him with urgency. Megumi laces his arms around Yuji’s neck, fingers gripping into soft hair as Yuji’s tongue flicks at his bottom lip. He groans, opening wider and allowing Yuji to defile his mouth, their tongues slipping together hungrily, greedily. He’s never shared an open-mouth kiss with anyone; he didn’t even think he’d like it because it looked gross and sloppy. But he was wrong. He was so, so wrong because it feels filthy and amazing and even better than it did a few nights ago. 

Megumi gasps for air as he pulls away for a moment. “Why the fuck are you so good at this?” he breathes, his expression hazy.

“You think I’m a good kisser?” Yuji beams at the praise. “Well… I did skip class a few times to make out with girls under the stairwell. Well, okay, maybe it was more than a few times...” He thinks aloud, rambling. Megumi rolls his eyes. “Usually it was Gym class because, I mean, it’s not like I really need it.”

“Yeah, that sounds like something you’d do,” Megumi replies with a smirk. “Do you… want to keep going?” He asks, peeking behind Yuji at his made bed. Yuji follows his gaze, nodding and pulling Megumi over to the mattress. He urges him to lie down, watching gleefully as Megumi’s raven hair splays across his pillow. He wants to burn this memory in his brain forever. 

Yuji climbs overtop of him eagerly, straddling him, and they begin kissing again. His hand slips up Megumi’s shirt, grazing over smooth, taut muscles, and he receives a soft moan in response. He unconsciously reaches up to Megumi’s chest, attempting to grab at it.

“Uh, you know I don’t have tits, right?” Megumi murmurs into Yuji’s lips, cracking an amused smile. 

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry, Megumi,” Yuji replies and grins sheepishly, flushing. “Old habits die hard, I guess.” He tries to pull his hand away, but Megumi grabs his arm and keeps it there. 

“It’s fine, Yuji, I’m just teasing you. I like it.” He releases his grip and Yuji relaxes as he continues to explore. Megumi's curious hand also reaches under Yuji’s shirt, running his fingers along prominent abdominal muscles. 

Yuji giggles, stomach clenching. “Sorry, I’m kinda ticklish…”  

Megumi smiles softly, storing this fact in the back of his brain for later use. He stills his fingers, his palm resting flat against Yuji’s chest. So unlike his own, Yuji’s body is hard, rough, and bulky, chiseled with lean muscle from the super-human amount of strength training he endures daily. Megumi’s mind starts to wander, considering other parts of Yuji he hasn’t yet seen or touched.

“Can I… kiss you somewhere else?” Yuji starts, then revises quickly as he notices Megumi’s eyes growing wide, “Um, I mean like your neck, not, y’know.” He laughs nervously, rambling, “Not that that’s totally off the table or anything, but I figured we’d start slow-” 

“Just shut up and do it, Yuji,” Megumi laughs, grabbing him with both arms and pulling him in closer. His lips hang on Yuji’s ear, whispering, “Kiss me anywhere you want.”

Yuji releases a small, choked noise. He buries his burning face into Megumi’s neck. “You can’t just say stuff like that…” he murmurs, muffled, and feels the vibration of Megumi’s low chuckle in response. Megumi tilts his head to expose an expanse of untouched, porcelain skin. Yuji presses kisses at it, gently and softly at first, until he hits just the right spot where Megumi starts making these cute little moans and gasps. This only encourages Yuji to keep going, biting and sucking and licking, leaving unintentional bruises that he will later regret but, right now, he doesn’t care one bit because the noises that Megumi makes underneath him are so addicting. 

He never wants to stop kissing Megumi. 

They go on like this for what feels like hours, and when they’re done, the lights go off and Yuji holds him. His head rests on Yuji’s chest, two strong arms wrapping around him tightly. He’s so enveloped in warmth and light in this embrace, and it’s overwhelming, aching, and vulnerable. When was the last time he was held like this? Was he ever held like this? It’s so new and wonderful, and a little scary, too. 

It feels like a home Megumi never knew he had and, now that he has it, he doesn’t know what to do with it. 

He lifts his head and presses his ear into the center of Yuji’s chest, a shaky, relieved sigh escaping him as he hears the slow ba-dum ba-dum of Yuji’s heart. 

“Megumi?” Yuji asks with genuine concern. 

Megumi’s voice breaks as he answers, “I’m just checking.” 

Yuji’s heart aches to hear Megumi on the brink of tears. It’s been months since that traumatic mission, but it’s still so fresh in everyone’s mind. Noabara and Megumi mourned him for a whole month, finally accepting his death and moving on, only for him to show up one day perfectly alive, without a scratch on him. The guilt of his death, his rebirth, and its effect on his friends, weighs on him often. He pulls Megumi into him tighter, murmuring, “I’m so sorry I hurt you.” 

Megumi presses his face into Yuji’s chest as silent tears roll down his cheeks, dampening the fabric of Yuji’s soft t-shirt. “I know it’s not your fault,” he finally manages to choke out. The memory of his teammate’s lifeless body falling to the ground right in front of his eyes still gives him nightmares. He wants to be happy that Yuji still lives. And he is happy that Yuji’s with him again. “But it still fucking hurts sometimes.” 

Yuji starts tearing up as well. He blinks them away as best as he can. “I know it does. That’s why I’m staying right here with you,” He reassures and pets his head gingerly. “I’m not going anywhere.” 

Megumi sniffles, his arms snaking around Yuji’s waist. “You better not,” he mutters, and Yuji chuckles in response. 

He stays over Yuji’s dorm that night, slipping into an easy sleep snuggled up next to his teammate. 

Monday morning rolls around and Megumi arrives to his first class early. He’s surprised to find Gojo already sitting at his desk. 

“You’re back early…” he comments dryly under his breath and takes a seat, arms crossed. 

“Megumi! Aw, I missed you too. I just flew in from a business trip, so I figured I’d just come right here and surprise you all!” He studies Megumi for a moment from under his blindfold, then smirks. “What’s this? Are you trying out some new fashion?” He remarks about the thin turtleneck Megumi is wearing under his uniform today. He stands, walking up to Megumi’s desk for a better look. 

Megumi averts his gaze to the floor. “I was cold,” he murmurs.

Gojo smirks a little wider. “On this balmy spring day? C’mon, Megumi, you can find a better excuse than that.” He reaches out and Megumi swats him away, but Gojo expected as much. He teleports to the other side of him instantly, yanking the collar of his turtleneck down.

“Hey!” Megumi retorts, blushing and scrambling to cover his neck. 

Gojo feigns a dramatic gasp as he witnesses Megumi’s neck covered in blemishes. “Just as I suspected, someone has defiled my precious baby!” Gojo puts on the theatrics, pretending to faint. He pulls a chair up to Megumi’s desk, sitting on it backwards with his arms resting on the back. “So Megumi found a little boyfriend while I was away, huh? He sure did a number on you.” Gojo’s voice is dripping with delight at this new discovery. He grins ear-to-ear, cupping his face like a gossiping schoolgirl. 

Megumi’s eye twitches. He hugs himself tighter, a flush creeping across his face. “Why are you assuming-”

“Oh, please, Megumi,” Gojo interrupts, dismissively waving a hand, “I watched you go through puberty, I know a little gay boy when I see one. Or bi, pan, queer, whatever you identify with.”

Megumi stays silent, scowling.

“Just a word of advice-” 

“I don’t want your advice.” 

“Rude.” He flicks Megumi’s forehead. “Anyway. Just don’t go falling in love with your teammate.” Gojo sighs, pouting and staring at the rising sun in the classroom window. His expression is difficult to read under the blindfold, but his tone becomes slightly solemn and reflective when he adds, “It only leads to heart-ache. Believe me, I know…” 

Megumi’s expression changes enough that Gojo knows he triggered some kind of reaction with those words. 

“Oh. Oh, dear,” he chuckles softly, smiling, “Well, I guess that ship has sailed, huh? I would’ve never expected-” 

As if on cue, Yuji bursts into the classroom with Nobara. 

“Gojo-sensei, you’re back!” He exclaims and throws his arms around him, completely oblivious to the tone of the room. Gojo laughs, standing to greet him and Nobara. He passes out little trinkets, small souvenirs he picked up from his trip.    

Nobara yawns, groaning about being up so early on a Monday. Her eyes immediately lock onto Megumi’s shirt. She snorts, asking in a mocking tone, “Fushiguro, why the hell are you wearing that doofy turtleneck? It’s like 27C outside.”   

“I-” 

“He’s trying to hide all the hickies Yuji gave him,” Gojo replies quickly and nonchalantly, and the entire room erupts in absolute chaos. 

Nobara laughs so hard she cries, grabbing at Megumi’s shirt in an attempt to see. Megumi fights her off, cursing and glaring at everyone, Yuji included. Yuji’s face turns tomato red, speechless and gawking. Gojo sits back and watches with a toothy, mischievous grin plastered on his face, his mission to embarrass the hell out of Megumi successful.  

Despite his warning to Megumi, he still roots for them all the same.

Thanks for reading!!! Please leave a kudos or a comment!

[apothecaryscript]

Episode 22 : Blue Roses / 第22話『青い薔薇(Aoi Sobi)』

猫猫「春の芽吹きを感じる頃、玉葉様の妊娠は、確かなものとなった」

Maomao “Haruno mebukio kanjiru koro, Gyokuyou-samano ninshinwa, tashikana monoto natta.”

Maomao “By the time we started to smell spring in the air, it became certain that Lady Gyokuyou was indeed pregnant.”

鈴麗「あいー、フフッ、あいっ！」

Rinrī “Aiii, fufu, ai!”

猫猫「不思議だなー、赤子がいると分かるのか？」

Maomao “Fushigi danaa, akagoga iruto wakaru-noka?”

Maomao “That’s curious. Can she tell there’s a baby inside?”

3人「可愛い～！」

San-nin “Kawaiiii!”

Three ladies “So cute!”

紅娘「私もそろそろ…」

Hon’nyan “Watashimo soro-soro…”

Hongniang “Maybe I also should start to…”

猫猫（縁談が持ち込まれても、全力で引き止められるだろうな…有能すぎるのも困りものだ）

Maomao (Endanga mochi-komare-temo, zenryokude hikitome-rareru-darona… Yuno sugiru-nomo komari-monoda.)

Maomao (Even if she did get a proposal, they’d probably never let her leave. Being too good at one’s job can be a curse at times.)

猫猫（毎日が充実してると、やっぱり日がたつのが早い…壬氏様の棟にいた2か月はムダに長かったのに…）

Maomao (Mai-nichiga jujitsu shiteruto, yappari higa tatsu-noga hayai… Jinshi-samano muneni ita ni-kagetsuwa mudani naga-katta-noni…)

Maomao (Time flies when every day is so fulfilling. In comparison, the two months spent at Master Jinshi’s offices felt like forever.)

鈴麗「あい、うっ」

Rinrī “Ai, u.”

猫猫「またお絵描きしますか？」

Maomao “Mata oekaki shimasuka?”

Maomao “Would you like to draw pictures again?”

鈴麗「あい！」

Rinrī “Ai!”

Lingli “Yes!”

鈴麗「あーい」

Rinrī “Aai.”

4人「うん？」

Yo-nin “Un?”

猫猫「これは、カラハツタケという毒茸…でっ」

Maomao “Korewa, karahatsu-take-to-iu doku-kinoko…de”

Maomao “This is the woolly milkcap, a poisonous mushroom― Ow!”

紅娘「普通の花を描きなさい」

Hon’nyan “Futsuno hana’o kaki-nasai.”

Hongniang “Draw normal flowers, please.”

猫猫（普通の花、ねぇ…）

Maomao (Futsuno hana, nee…)

Maomao (Normal flowers, huh?)

―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

壬氏「青い薔薇ですか？」

Jinshi “Aoi sobi desuka?”

Jinshi “A blue rose?”

羅漢「ええ。ご存知ありませんかな？目の覚めるような青い花びらが、美しくてね…。かつて、宮中によく生けていたものですが…」

Rakan “Ee. Gozonji arimasen-kana? Meno sameru-yona aoi hana-biraga, utsukushi-kute-ne… Katsute, kyuchuni yoku ikete-ita mono-desuga…”

Lakan “Yes. Perhaps you’ve never seen one before? The striking blue petals are so beautiful. I used to see them in the palace often,”

壬氏「夢でも見たのでは？青い薔薇など存在しないでしょう」

Jinshi “Yume-demo mitano-dewa? Aoi sobi-nado sonzai shinai desho.”

Jinshi “Perhaps you were dreaming? Blue roses do not exist.”

羅漢「それが、あるのですよ。また皆で愛でたいものですなあー。いかがでしょう？何とかなりませんか？あなた様であれば、なせぬことなどないのでは？」

Rakan “Sorega, aruno-desuyo. Mata minade mede-tai mono desunaa. Ikaga desho? Nantoka nari-masenka? Anata-samade areba, nasenu koto-nado naino-dewa?”

Lakan “But in fact, they do. Oh, how I’d love to appreciate them with everyone again. What do you think? Could it be done? With your power, there must be nothing outside your reach.”

壬氏「分かりました。そのような薔薇があるのなら、私もぜひ見てみたい」

Jinshi “Wakari-mashita. Sono-yona sobiga aruno-nara, watashimo zehi mite-mitai.”

Jinshi “Understood. If such a rose does indeed exist, I’d like to see it as well.”

羅漢「決まりですな。いやはや、実に楽しみだ…それでは。来月の園遊会で」

Rakan “Kimari desuna. Iya-haya, jitsuni tanoshimida… Soredewa. Raigetsuno en’yu-kaide.”

Lakan “Then it’s settled. Goodness, I can’t wait! Excuse me. I hope to see it at next month’s garden party.”

壬氏「ハァ…」

Jinshi “Haa…”

高順「ただでさえお忙しいのに、余計な案件を抱えずとも…」

Gaoshun “Tadade-sae oisogashii-noni, yokeina anken’o kakaezu-tomo…”

Gaoshun “You’re already so busy. You didn’t have to take on more work.”

壬氏「言うな…とりあえず国中の花屋を当たってくれ」

Jinshi “Iuna… Toriaezu kunijuno hanaya’o atatte-kure.”

Jinshi “Don’t rub it in. Please just go ask every florist in the nation about this.”

―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

高順「花屋の話では、今は薔薇の季節ではないと…」

Gaoshun “Hanayano hanashi-dewa, imawa sobino kisetsu-dewa naito…”

Gaoshun “The florists say that roses are not in season.”

壬氏「ハァ…」

Jinshi “Haa…”

―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

壬氏「急に呼び立ててすまない」

Jinshi “Kyuni yobi-tatete sumanai.”

Jinshi “Sorry to call you up so suddenly.”

猫猫「フゥ…」

Maomao “Fu…”

壬氏「今度、皆で青い薔薇を愛でようということになってな…」

Jinshi “Kondo, minade aoi sobi’o mede-yoto-iu kotoni nattena…”

Jinshi “We were talking about getting together to admire blue roses.”

猫猫「青い薔薇？…私は薬屋ですが」

Maomao “Aoi sobi? …Watashiwa kusuriya desuga.”

Maomao “Blue roses…? I’m just an apothecary, you know.”

壬氏「ああ、分かっている…」

Jinshi “Aa, wakatte-iru…”

Jinshi “Yes, I’m aware…”

猫猫（何か訳ありか？やけに疲れてるな…。薔薇か…少しなら知識はあるが…妓女相手の小遣い稼ぎで扱ったことがある。だが…）

Maomao (Nanika wake-arika? Yakeni tsukare-teruna… Sobika… Sukoshi-nara chishikiwa aruga… Gijo-aiteno kozukai-kasegide atsukatta kotoga aru. Daga…)

Maomao (I wonder what prompted this? He seems awfully tired. Roses, huh? I do know a thing or two about them. I’ve sold them before to make some quick cash with the courtesans. But…)

猫猫「本当に青い薔薇を見たと？」

Maomao “Hontoni aoi sobi’o mitato?”

Maomao “They really said they saw a blue rose?”

壬氏「ああ」

Jinshi “Aa.”

Jinshi “Yes.”

猫猫「幻覚剤は、流行っていませんか？」

Maomao “Genkaku-zaiwa, hayatte imasenka?”

Maomao “Is there some new popular hallucinogen, or…?”

壬氏「んなもの回ってたら、国が滅ぶわ！」

Jinshi “N’na-mono mawatte-tara, kuniga horobuwa!”

Jinshi “That’d ruin our whole nation!”

高順「壬氏様」

Gaoshum “Jinshi-sama.”

Gaoshun “Master Jinshi.”

壬氏「うっ…… 無理だろうか？」

Jinshi “U…… Muri daroka?”

Jinshi “Is it impossible?”

猫猫「ハァ…。どのようにすればよろしいのですか？」

Maomao “Haa… Dono-yoni sureba yoroshiino-desuka?”

Maomao “What exactly is it that your desire?”

壬氏「来月の園遊会に用意できるか？」

Jinshi “Raigetsuno en’yu-kaini yoi dekiruka?”

Jinshi “Can you find some by next month’s garden party?”

猫猫「来月？薔薇が咲くのは、少なくともふた月以上先ですけど」

Maomao “Raigetsu? Sobiga saku-nowa, sukunaku-tomo futa-tsuki-ijo saki desu-kedo.”

Maomao “Next month? Roses bloom two months later at the earliest.”

壬氏「だよな…。何とか断っておく…」

Jinshi “Dayona… Nantoka kotowatte oku…”

Jinshi “I know… I’ll find a way to turn him down.”

猫猫「あ…」（壬氏様の、この反応…。それに、無理難題を押し付けるようなやり口…）

Maomao “A…” (Jinshi-samano, kono hanno… Soreni, muri-nandai’o oshi-tsukeru-yona yari-kuchi…)

Maomao (Master Jinshi’s reaction, and this style of forcing people to attempt the impossible…)

猫猫「この話、もしかして、とある軍師から持ち掛けられたのでは？」

Maomao “Kono hanashi, moshika-shite, toaru gunshi-kara mochi-kake-raretano-dewa?”

Maomao “Was this brought up by a certain strategist?”

壬氏「…ああ…」

Jinshi “…Aa…”

Jinshi “Yes.”

猫猫「分かりました。お引き受けします」

Maomao “Wakari-mashita. O-hiki-uke shimasu.

Maomao “Understood. I will take this on.”

壬氏「いいのか？」

Jinshi “Iinoka?”

Jinshi “Are you sure?”

猫猫「できるか分かりませんが、やるだけやってみます」

Maomao “Dekiruka wakari-masenga, yaru-dake yatte mimasu.”

Maomao “I don’t know if I can pull it off, but I’ll try my best.”

猫猫（逃げているだけも腹立たしい。どうせなら、あのにやけたモノクルをかち割ってやる…！）

Maomao (Nigete-iru-dakemo hara-data-shii. Dose-nara, ano niyaketa monokuru’o kachi-watte-yaru…!)

Maomao (I don’t want to just run from him. I might as well take a swing at smashing his creepy monocle.)

猫猫「壬氏様。いくつかお願いしてもよろしいですか？」

Maomao “Jinshi-sama. Ikutsuka onegai shitemo yoroshii desuka?”

Maomao “Master Jinshi, may I make a few requests?”

―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

猫猫「使用を許可して下さり、ありがとうございます���梨花様」

Maomao “Shiyo’o kyoka shite kudasari, arigato gozai-masu. Rifa-sama.”

Maomao “Thank you for allowing me to use it, Lady Lihua.”

梨花妃「構わなくてよ。あれはもともと、あなたが作らせたものだもの。フフフッ」

Rifa-hi “Kamawa-nakuteyo. Arewa moto-moto, anataga tsuku-raseta mono damono. Fufufu.”

Concubine Lihua “I don’t mind. You were the one that had it constructed in the first place.”

猫猫（懐かしいな…以前、毒に伏せった梨花妃のために蒸気風呂を作らせてもらった。今回それをお借りするのだが…さすがにタダでは申し訳ない）

Maomao (Natsukashii-na… Izen, dokuni fusetta Rifa-hino tameni joki-buro’o tsuku-rasete moratta. Konkai sore’o okari suruno-daga… Sasugani tada-dewa moshi-wake nai.)

Maomao (It’s been a while. I remember back then, I got them to make a steam room for Lady Lihua, who was suffering from poison back then. I’m borrowing it now, but I feel bad using it for free.)

猫猫「さっ。こちら、帝の愛読書です」

Maomao “Sa. Kochira, mikadono aidoku-sho desu.”

Maomao “This is the emperor’s favorite book.”

梨花妃「ありがたく頂戴するわ」

Rifa-hi “Arigataku chodai suruwa.”

Concubine Lihua “I appreciate this.”

猫猫（妓楼から取り寄せておいてよかった～）

Maomao (Giro-kara tori-yotese oite yokattaaa.)

Maomao (I’m glad I got it through the brothel.)

―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

壬氏「そっちを頼む」

Jinshi “Socchi’o tanomu.”

Jinshi “Take that side.”

宦官たち「はい！」

Kangan-tachi “Hai!”

Eunuchs “Yes, sir!”

猫猫「壬氏様」

Maomao “Jinshi-sama.”

Maomao “Master Jinshi.”

壬氏「ああ、来たか。言われた通り、建てさせたが…一体どうするんだ？」

Jinshi “Aa, kitaka. Iwareta-toori, tate-sasetaga… Ittai do surunda?”

Jinshi “Ah, you’re here. I had them build this as you asked, but… What is this for?”

猫猫「薔薇を狂わせるんです」

Maomao “Sobi’o kuru-waserun-desu.”

Maomao “We’re going to make the roses go mad.”

壬氏「薔薇を狂わせる？どういう意味だ？薬屋」

Jinshi “Sobi’o kuru-waseru? Do-iu imida? Kusuriya.”

Jinshi “Make the roses go mad? What does that mean, apothecary?”

猫猫「日光を入れて、あそこから、蒸気を小屋の中に送ります。暖めた部屋で薔薇を育てるんです。花が、開花の季節を間違えてくれるかもしれません」

Maomao “Nikko’o irete, asoko-kara, joki’o koyano nakani okuri-masu. Atatameta heyade sobi’o sodaterun-desu. Hanaga, kaikano kisetsu’o machigaete kureru-kamo shire-masen.”

Maomao “We’re going to let the sunlight in, and blow steam inside through there. The roses will grow in this warmed room. This way, the flowers might mistake it as the time to bloom.”

壬氏「それで、‘狂わせる’か」

Jinshi “Sorede, ‘kuru-waseru’ka.”

Jinshi “I see, so they’ll ‘go mad.’”

猫猫「咲く保証はありませんが…」

Maomao “Saku hoshowa arimasenga…”

Maomao “I can’t guarantee it, though.”

猫猫「あ…」

Maomao “A…”

Maomao “Oh.”

壬氏「あっ！」

Jinshi “A!”

高順「ああ…」

Gaoshun “Aa…”

―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

小蘭「猫猫～！」

Shaoran “Maomaooo!”

Xiaolan “Maomao!”

猫猫「小蘭？！」

Maomao “Shaoran?!”

Maomao “Xiaolan?”

小蘭「私も手伝うよ！足のケガ、大丈夫？」

Shaoran “Watashimo tetsudauyo! Ashino kega, daijobu?”

Xiaolan “I’ll help, too! Is your leg okay?”

猫猫（あ…もしや、お目付け役か？無理だけはするなって、さんざん言われたもんな…）

Maomao (A… Moshiya, ometsuke-yakuka? Muri-dakewa surunatte, sanzan iwareta-monna…)

Maomao (Did he summon her to chaperone me? They did repeatedly tell me not to push myself too hard.)

猫猫「平気。手伝わせてごめん」

Maomao “Heiki. Tetsuda-wasete gomen.”

Maomao “I’m fine. Sorry to make you help.”

小蘭「ううん。久しぶりに一緒だね！エヘヘッ」

Shaoran “Uun. Hisashi-burini issho-dane! Ehehe.”

Xiaolan “It’s okay. It’s been a while since we’ve worked together, huh?”

猫猫「フッ、そうだね」

Maomao “Fu, sodane.”

Maomao “Yeah, it has.”

猫猫（持ち込んだ薔薇は100株以上…。これで最後）

Maomao (Mochi-konda sobiwa hyakkabu-ijo… korede saigo.)

Maomao (We brought in over one hundred roses. This is the last one.)

小蘭「うわあっ、すごい量！」

Shaoran “Uwaa, sugoi ryo!”

Xiaolan “Wow, this is a lot!”

猫猫（種類はバラけさせ、できるだけ早咲きのものを選んだ）

Maomao (Shuruiwa barake-sase, dekiru-dake haya-zakino mono’o eranda.)

Maomao (We diversified the species, selecting early-blooming ones where possible.)

小蘭「全部咲くかな？」

Shaoran “Zenbu saku-kana?”

Xiaolan “Will they all bloom?”

猫猫「そうなってほしいけど…」

Maomao “So-natte-hoshii-kedo…”

Maomao “I hope so.”

猫猫（温度調整には、細心の注意を払う。人手を数名派遣してもらったが、他人に任せることは難しい作業だ。間違って、全て枯らしてしまってはおしまいだ。）

Maomao (Ondo-chosei-niwa, saishinno chui’o harau. Hitode’o sumei haken shite-morattaga, tanin’ni makaseru kotowa muzukashii sagyoda. Machigatte subete karashite shimattewa oshimaida.)

Maomao (Temperature control requires utmost care. I got them to send some help, but this is a tough task to delegate to others. If we make a mistake and kill them all, that would be the end of it.)

猫猫（晴れた日は外に出して、日光を浴びさせる）

Maomao (Hareta hiwa sotoni dashite, nikko’o abi-saseru.)

Maomao (On sunny days, we bring them outside to expose them to sunlight.)

小蘭「気持ちよさそう～！」

Shaoran “Kimochi-yosasooo!”

Xiaolan “That must feel good!”

猫猫「うん」

Maomao “Un.”

Maomao “Yeah.”

高順「調子はいかがですか？」

Gaoshun “Choshiwa ikaga desuka?”

Gaoshum “How are you doing?”

2人「ん？」

Futari “N?”

高順「差し入れです」

Gaoshun “Sashi-ire desu.”

Gaoshun “Here, a gift.”

小蘭「わあっ！」

Shaoran “Waa!”

猫猫「ありがとうございます」

Maomao “Arigato gozai-masu.”

Maomao “Thank you very much.”

小蘭「仕事サボれて、おやつまでもらえるなんて最高だよ！」

Shaoran “Shigoto sabo-rete, oyatsu-made moraeru-nante saiko dayo!”

Xiaolan “I get to skip work and eat snacks? This is great!”

猫猫「これも仕事だけどね」

Maomao “Koremo shigoto dakedone.”

Maomao “This is work too, though.”

小蘭「どうしたんだろう？」

Shaoran “Doshitan-daro?”

Xiaolan “What’s with them?”

猫猫「さあ？もの珍しいのか？」

Maomao “Saa? Mono-mezurashii-noka?”

Maomao “I don’t know. Maybe they’re just curious.”

猫猫（それとも、怖いもの見たさか？）

Maomao (Soretomo, kowai mono mitasa-ka?)

Maomao (Or they want to be scared.)

小蘭「次、何したらいい？」

Shaoran “Tsugi, nani shitara ii?”

Xiaolan “What should I do next?”

猫猫「新芽の多い苗があったら、いくつか摘んでくれる？栄養が集中して咲きやすくなりますし、病気の予防になるんです」

Maomao “Shinmeno ooi naega attara, ikutsuka tsunde kureru? Eiyoga shuchu-shite saki-yasuku nari-masushi, byokino yoboni narun-desu.”

Maomao “If a seedling has a lot of sprouts on it, can you pick a few? It concentrates the nutrients into the remaining sprouts and helps prevent sickness.”

宦官たち「おお…」

Kangan-tachi “Oo…”

Eunuchs “Ah.”

宦官「あっ…」

Kangan “A…”

Eunuch “Whoa!”

小蘭「大丈夫だよ～。ぽい！」

Shaoran “Daijobu dayooo. Poi!”

Xiaolan “It’s fine.”

宦官「ありがとうございます」

Kangan “Arigato gozai-masu.”

Eunuch “Thank you.”

小蘭「いいえ」

Shaoran “Iie.”

Xiaolan “Don’t mention it!”

―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

猫猫「急いでください！」

Maomao “Isoide kudasai!”

Maomao “Hurry!”

小蘭「つぼみ、なかなか出ないね…」

Shaoran “Tsubomi, naka-naka denaine…”

Xiaolan “It’s taking them a long time to bloom.”

―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

猫猫（寒さが戻った日は…徹夜で小屋を暖める。天候はままならない）

Maomao (Samusaga modotta hiwa… tetsuyade koya’o atatameru. Tenkowa mama-nara-nai.)

Maomao (On days where it gets cold, I stay up all night to maintain the heat. Weather can’t be controlled.)

―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

小蘭「昨日も寝てないの？」

Shaoran “Kinomo nete-naino?”

Xiaolan “Did you pull another all-nighter?”

猫猫「寝たよ…明け方」

Maomao “Netayo… Ake-gata.”

Maomao “I did sleep, around dawn.”

小蘭「明け方って、さっきだよ！できること、やっとくから…ちょっとだけ寝たら？」

Shaoran “Akegatatte, sakki dayo! Dekiru koto, yattoku-kara… Chotto-dake netara?”

Xiaolan “Dawn was just moments ago! I’ll do what I can, so why don’t you get some sleep?”

猫猫「目、離せないし…」

Maomao “Me, hanase-naishi…”

Maomao “I can’t leave this alone.”

小蘭「ん？またこっち見てるね」

Shaoran “N? Mata kocchi miterune.”

Xiaolan “They’re looking at us again.”

猫猫（毎日毎日よく飽きないな…というか気が散る。何か気をそらせたら…ふん…）

Maomao (Mai-nichi mai-nichi yoku aki-naina…to-iuka kiga chiru. Nanika kio sorase-tara… Fun…)

Maomao (Every single day. Don’t they get tired of this? It’s irritating. I wonder if I can divert their attention…)

―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

小蘭「すごい！これが爪紅か～！」

Shaoran “Sugoi! Korega tsuma-kurenai kaaa!”

Xiaolan “Wow! So this is what a manicure is like!”

猫猫「花街ではみんなやってるよ」

Maomao “Hana-machi-dewa minna yatteruyo.”

Maomao “Everyone does it in the pleasure district.”

小蘭「綺麗だもんね！」

Shaoran “Kirei-damonne!”

Xiaolan “It sure is pretty!”

―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

貴園「あっ、猫猫もしてるの？可愛いー！」

Guien “A, Maomaomo shiteruno? Kawaiii!”

Guiyuan “Oh, you did it too, Maomao? So cute!”

愛藍「最近流行ってるわよね」

Airan “Saikin hayatteru-wayone.”

Ailan “It’s been popular recently.”

猫猫「そうですね」

Maomao “Sodesune.”

Maomao “Indeed.”

猫猫（帝の寵愛を受ける上級妃は、流行りの最先端だからな…）

Maomao (Mikadono choai’o ukeru jokyu-hiwa, hayarino sai-sentan dakarana…)

Maomao (The high-ranking concubines are always at the cutting edge of fashion.)

紅娘「非効率ね…」

Hon’nyan “Hi-koritsu ne…”

Hongniang “Seems like a waste of time.”

猫猫（紅娘様はおしゃれより仕事か）

Maomao (Hon’nyan-samawa oshare-yori shigotoka.)

Maomao (Lady Hongniang prefers work over fashion.)

猫猫「毒見も終わりましたので、水晶宮に戻ります」

Maomao “Dokumimo owari-mashita-node, Suisho-Kyuni modori-masu.”

Maomao “I’ve finished tasting for poison, so I’ll go back to the Crystal Pavilion now.”

玉葉妃「もう？」

Gyokuyo-hi “Mo?”

Concubine Gyokuyou “Already?”

猫猫「園遊会まで時間がないので…」

Maomao “En’yu-kai-made jikanga nai-node…”

Maomao “The garden party is coming up soon.”

玉葉妃「そうね…」

Gyokuyo-hi “Sone…”

Concubine Gyokuyou “I see…”

紅娘「あっ、そうだわ。今回、玉葉様は欠席されるの。楼蘭様のお披露目に、席をお譲りする形よ」

Hon’nyan “A, so-dawa. Konkai, Gyokuyo-samawa kesseki sareruno. Roran-samano ohiromeni, seki’o oyuzuri suru katachiyo.”

Hongniang “Oh, by the way, Lady Gyokuyou won’t be attending this time around. We’re letting the focus of this event be Lady Loulan’s introduction.”

猫猫（妊娠を隠すためか…）

Maomao (Ninshin’o kakusu tameka…)

Maomao (To hide the pregnancy, right.)

猫猫「分かりました。では…」

Maomao “Wakari-mashita. Dewa…”

Maomao “Understood. Excuse me.”

桜花「ねえ、水晶宮では大丈夫なの？」

Infa “Nee, Suisho-Kyu-dewa daijobu nano?”

Yinghua “Hey, is everything alright at the Crystal Pavilion?”

貴園「どんどんやつれていってるわよー」

Guien “Don-don yatsurete itteru-wayoo.”

Guiyuan “You look worse for wear every day.”

愛藍「あまり無理しないでね」

Airan “Amari muri shinaidene.”

Ailan “Don’t push yourself too hard, okay?”

猫猫「ありがとうございます」

Maomao “Arigato gozai-masu.”

Maomao “Thank you.”

―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

小蘭「猫猫～！」

Shaoran “Maomaooo!”

Xiaolan “Maomao!”

猫猫「ん？」

Maomao “N?”

小蘭「猫猫～！大変！」

Shaoran “Maomaooo! Taihen!”

Xiaolan “Maomao! Hurry!”

猫猫「えっ…」

Maomao “E…”

猫猫「蕾…！」

Maomao “Tsubomi…!”

Maomao “A bud…”

小蘭「さっき見つけたの！やっと一つ目だよ～！アハハッ！」

Shaoran “Sakki mitsuke-tano! Yatto hitotsume dayooo! Ahaha!”

Xiaolan “I found it just now. Our first one, finally!”

猫猫（このままいけば、何とか咲いてくれるかも…）

Maomao (Kono-mama ikeba, nantoka saite-kureru-kamo…)

Maomao (At this rate… We might just make it in time.)

小蘭「猫猫？猫猫？猫猫！！」

Shaoran “Maomao? Maomao? Maomao!!”

Xiaolan “Maomao? Maomao! Maomao!”

―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

壬氏「薬屋から連絡は？」

Jinshi “Kusuriya-kara renrakuwa?”

Jinshi “Has the apothecary sent any word?”

高順「いえ、何も。私もここ数日、顔を出せず…」

Gaoshun “Ie, nanimo. Watashimo koko sujitsu, kao’o dasezu…”

Gaoshun “No, nothing. I haven’t been able to visit her for the past few days.”

壬氏「お互い、園遊会の準備に追われていたからな」

Jinshi “Otagai, en’yu-kaino junbini owarete-ita-karana.”

Jinshi “We were both busy preparing for the garden party.”

猫猫「壬氏様」

Maomao “Jinshi-sama.”

Maomao “Master Jinshi.”

壬氏「あ…」

Jinshi “A…”

―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

武官「あれが子昌殿の娘、楼蘭妃か」

Bukan “Arega Shisho-donono musume, Roran-hika.”

Military officer “So, that’s Concubine Loulan, daughter of Master Shishou.”

文官「なんと華やかな…」

Bunkan “Nanto hanayakana…”

Civil official “How splendid.”

子昌「楼蘭妃に…至らぬ点はありませんかな？何でもおっしゃってください」

Shisho “Roran-hini… Itaranu tenwa arimasen-kana? Nan-demo osshatte kudasai.”

Shishou “Regarding Concubine Loulan, is there anything that needs improvement? Please, hold nothing back.”

楼蘭妃「何なりと」

Roran-hi “Nan-narito.”

Loulan “Please.”

皇太后「まあ…」

Kotaigo “Maa…”

Empress dowager “Oh.”

高官「青い薔薇…！」

Kokan “Aoi sobi…!”

High-ranking official “Blue roses?!”

高官「まさか…」

Kokan “Masaka…”

High-ranking official “It can’t be…!”

壬氏「蕾を愛で、咲き誇る姿に思いをはせるのも一興かと」

Jinshi “Tsubomi’o mede, saki-hokoru sugatani omoi’o haseru-nomo ikkyo-kato.”

Jinshi “It may be entertaining to enjoy the beauty of these buds while imagining how they look at full bloom.”

皇帝「うむ、美しいな」

Kotei “Umu, utsukushii-na.”

Emperor “Yes. They’re beautiful.”

高官「んん…」

Kokan “Nn…”

High-ranking official “Hmph.”

壬氏（壬氏に向けられる、あらゆる視線。いくら秀でた容姿があろうと、若造の宦官がでしゃばる様を好むほど無欲な官ばかりではない。色情はいい。いくらでも利用法がある。嫉妬もいい。扱いやすい。厄介なのは…何を考えているのか分からない目だ。子昌…楼蘭妃の実父で、女帝の寵愛を受けた男。今なお、帝は頭が上がらない。だからこそ、こちらも微笑みを絶やさない。それに今、子昌よりも厄介なのは…羅漢。あの男だ…）

Jinshi (Jinshini muke-rareru, arayuru shisen. Ikura hiideta yoshiga aroto, wakazono kanganga deshabaru sama’o konomu-hodo muyokuna kan-bakari dewa nai. Shikijowa ii. Ikura-demo riyo-hoga aru. Shittomo ii. Atsukai-yasui. Yakkai nanowa… nanio kangaete-iru-noka wakara-nai meda. Shisho… Roran-hino jippude, joteino choai’o uketa otoko. Ima-nao, midadowa atamaga agara-nai. Dakara-koso, kochiramo hohoemi’o tayasa-nai. Soreni ima, Shisho-yorimo yakkai nanowa… Rakan. Ano otokoda…)

Jinshi (The attention that ‘Jinshi’ gets. Unlike some of the worthless officials, many don’t appreciate a young eunuch hoarding attention, no matter how beautiful. Lust is fine. It’s easy to exploit that. Envy is fine, too. It’s manageable. What’s really troubling is… When I can’t tell what they’re thinking. Shishou. Concubine Loulan’s father, the man favored by the mother of the former emperor… Even now, the emperor can’t look him in the eye. That’s why I also can’t let my smile fade, either. And besides, the one who’s more worrying than Shishou right now is… That man, Lakan.)

羅漢「何と嫌味な…」

Rakan “Nanto iyamina…”

Lakan “How annoying.”

―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

桜花「気が付いた？」

Infa “Kiga tsuita?”

Yinghua “Are you awake?”

猫猫「桜花さん…」

Maomao “Infa-san…”

Maomao “Yinghua.”

桜花「もう水晶宮に行っちゃダメよ。いつもやつれ果てて帰ってくるんだから」

Infa “Mo Suisho-Kyuni iccha dameyo. Itsumo yatsure-hatete kaette-kurun-dakara.”

Yinghua “Don’t go to the Crystal Pavilion anymore. You always come back looking so exhausted.”

猫猫「すみません」

Maomao “Sumi-masen.”

Maomao “I’m sorry.”

壬氏「起きたか」

Jinshi “Okitaka.”

Jinshi “You’re up.”

桜花「あっ…私はこれで」

Infa “A… Watashiwa korede.”

Yinghua “Excuse me.”

壬氏「座ったままでいい」

Jinshi “Suwatta mamade ii.”

Jinshi “You can stay seated.”

猫猫「難しいですね…開花には至りませんでした」

Maomao “Muzukashii desune… Kaika-niwa itari-masen-deshita.”

Maomao “It was hard. I couldn’t get them to fully bloom.”

壬氏「それは、俺に対して済まないというんじゃないのだろうな」

Jinshi “Sorewa, oreni taishite sumanaito iunja naino-darona.”

Jinshi “You’re not apologizing to me, are you?”

猫猫「ん？」

Maomao “N?”

壬氏「何でもない。十分だ。これは一体どうしたんだ？」

Jinshi “Nandemo nai. Jubunda. Korewa ittai do-shitanda?”

Jinshi “Never mind. You did well. How did you do it, though?”

猫猫「染めただけですよ」

Maomao “Someta-dake desuyo.”

Maomao “I just dyed them.”

壬氏「染めた？何も付いていないぞ」

Jinshi “Someta? Nanimo tsuite-inaizo.”

Jinshi “Dyed? But there’s nothing on them.”

猫猫「外側ではありません。内側から染めたのです」

Maomao “Soto-gawa-dewa ari-masen. Uchi-gawa-kara sometano-desu.”

Maomao “Not on the outside. We dyed them from the inside.”

壬氏「あ…」

Jinshi “A…”

猫猫「この薔薇は、もともと全て白い花なのです」

Maomao “Kono sobiwa, moto-moto subete shiroi hana nano-desu.”

Maomao “All of these roses were originally white.”

猫猫「様々な色水を使って、白い蕾に吸わせたんです」

Maomao “Sama-zamana iro-mizu’o tsukatte, shiroi tsubomini suwasetan-desu.”

Maomao “We mixed water with several colors and had the white buds suck them up.”

壬氏「それで、青だけでなく多くの色があったのか」

Jinshi “Sorede, ao-dakede-naku ookuno iroga atta-noka.”

Jinshi “So that’s why there are many colors, not just blue.”

猫猫「はい。葉っぱはどす黒く染まるので、あらかじめ全てむしっておきましたが…。あとは、園遊会の間、色落ちしないよう、色水の染み込んだ綿を固定すれば完成です。実に単純な方法です」

Maomao “Hai. Happawa dosu-guroku somaru-node, arakajime subete mushitte oki-mashitaga… Atowa, en’yu-kaino aida, iro-ochi shinai-yo, iro-mizuno shimi-konda wata’o kotei sureba kansei desu. Jitsuni tanjunna hoho desu.”

Maomao “Yes. The leaves ended up coming out black, so we plucked them all. Then all we had to do was to fix cotton soaked in the dyed water to the stems, so they couldn’t lose their vibrancy during the garden party. It really was quite simple.”

猫猫（実際、骨が折れたのは薔薇の花を咲かせるまでだ）

Maomao (Jissai, honega oreta-nowa sobino hana’o sakaseru-madeda.)

Maomao (What was actually difficult was getting the roses to bloom at all.)

壬氏「確かに…単純だな」

Jinshi “Tashikani…tanjun dana.”

Jinshi “Simple, indeed.”

猫猫「ですので、何かしら言いがかりをつける官が出るかもしれません。帝には、先に種明かしをしておきました。最初に秘密を知るのが嬉しいらしく、楽しそうに聞いてくださいましたよ」

Maomao “Desu-node, nani-kashira iigakari’o tsukeru kanga deru-kamo shire-masen. Mikado-niwa, sakini tane-akashi’o shite oki-mashita. Saishoni himitsu’o shiru-noga ureshii rashiku, tanoshi-soni kiite kudasai-mashitayo.”

Maomao “Also, because some officials might have picked a quarrel about this, I went ahead and revealed the trick to the emperor. He seemed to enjoy the fact that he got to know the secret first, and had a good time listening to me explain.”

壬氏「では昔、宮廷内で青い薔薇を見たというのは…」

Jinshi “Dewa mukashi, kyutei-naide aoi sobi’o mitato iu-nowa…”

Jinshi “So, about the story of the blue roses being seen in the palace…”

猫猫「毎日毎日、青い色水を薔薇に吸わせる暇人がいたんでしょう」

Maomao “Mai-nichi mai-nichi, aoi iro-mizu’o sobini suwaseru hima-jinga itan-desho.”

Maomao “There must have been someone with a lot of free time feeding blue water to the roses.”

壬氏「なんでまた、そんなことを…」

Jinshi “Nande mata, sonna koto’o…”

Jinshi “Who would do something like that?”

猫猫「さあ？女を口説く道具でも欲しかったのでは？」

Maomao “Saa? Onna’o kudoku dogu-demo hoshi-kattano-dewa?”

Maomao “Who knows? Maybe they wanted a gimmick with which to woo women.”

壬氏「珍しいな。爪を染めているのか？」

Jinshi “Mezurashii-na. Tsume’o somete-iru-noka?”

Jinshi “That’s unexpected. Are you painting your nails?”

猫猫「似合いませんけどね」

Maomao “Niai-masen-kedone.”

Maomao “It doesn’t suit me, though.”

猫猫（鳳仙花と片喰があれば、もっときれいに染まるんだけど…。爪紅の異名を取る鳳仙花と、猫足の異名を取る片喰。２つを練り合わせて爪につけると、あざやかな赤になる。まあ、きれいに染めた��ころで…。これでもまともになったんだけど…）

Maomao (Hosenka to katabami ga areba, motto kireini somarun-dakedo… Tsuma-benino imyo’o toru hosenkato, neko-ashino imyo’o toru katabami. Futatsu’o neri-awasete tsumeni tsukeruto, azayakana akani naru. Maa, kireini someta-tokorode… Kore-demo matomoni nattan-dakedo…)

Maomao (If I had some balsam and woodsorrel, I could have made them look prettier. Balsam is often used to dye fingernails, and woodsorrel is nicknamed cat’s foot. Mixing them together and applying them on the fingernails creates a vivid red. But then, even if I made them prettier… This is better than it was before.)

猫猫「高順様。頼んでいたものは？」

Maomao “Gaoshun-sama. Tanonde-ita monowa?”

Maomao “Master Gaoshun, what about the item I requested?”

高順「ええ、言われた通りに」

Gaoshun “Ee, iwareta toorini.”

Gaoshun “Yes, as you wished.”

猫猫「ありがとうございます」

Maomao “Arigato gozai-masu.”

Maomao “Thank you.”

猫猫（これで舞台は整った。あとは…いけ好かない奴に一泡吹かせるだけだ）

Maomao (Korede butaiwa totonotta. Atowa… Ike-sukanai yatsuni hito-awa fukaseru dakeda.)

Maomao (Now the stage is set. All I have to do now is catch that nasty creep off guard.)

―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

羅漢（…にしても、まさか挑発が失敗に終わるとは…）

Rakan (…Ni-shitemo, masaka chohatsuga shippaini owaru-towa…)

Lakan (I didn’t expect my provocation to fail.)

羅漢（多くの人間の顔は、碁石のようにしか見えない。男は黒石、女は白石。軍部の��下の人間でも、せいぜい象棋の駒だ。多くの者は兵、卒で、階級が上がるほどに馬、砲となっていく。軍部の仕事は簡単だ。駒に見合った配置をすればいい。適材適所…それで大体の戦は勝てる。難しいことではない。たとえ自分が無能でも、割り当てさえやれば、勝手に仕事を終わらせてくれる）

Rakan (Ookuno ningen’no kaowa, go-ishino-yoni-shika mie-nai. Otokowa kuro-ishi, onnawa shiro-ishi. Gunbuno bukano ningen-demo, seizei shanchī no komada. Ookuno monowa hei, sotsude, kaikyuga agaru-hodoni uma, ho-to natte-iku. Gunbuno shigotowa kantanda. Komani miatta haichi’o sureba ii. Teki-zai-teki-sho… Sorede daitaino ikusawa kateru. Muzukashii koto dewa nai. Tatoe jibunga muno-demo, wari-ate-sae yareba, katteni shigoto’o owa-rasete-kureru.)

Lakan (Most humans only look like go stones to me. Men are black stones, women are white stones. Even my subordinates in the military only appear as chess pieces, at best. Most are soldiers, pawns. As they gain ranks, they become cavalry and cannons. Working in the military is easy. I just need to know where to place the pieces. The right pieces in the right places. Most wars can be won by that alone. It’s quite easy. Even if I were completely useless, as long as I placed others in the right places, the work would get done on its own.)

羅漢（今日は、いつも以上に目が痛い。どうにも赤い色がちらつく。爪紅か…記憶の中の爪紅は、けばけばしい赤ではない。うっすら染まった、鳳仙花の赤…）

Rakan (Kyowa, itsumo-ijoni mega itai. Do-nimo akai iroga chira-tsuku. Tsuma-kurenai-ka… Kiokuno nakano tsuma-beniwa, keba-keba-shii aka-dewa nai. Ussura somatta, hosenkano aka…)

Lakan (My eyes hurt more than usual today. A red color keeps flickering into my view. Manicures… The manicures in my memories aren’t this overly flamboyant crimson. They’re the soft color of balsam.)

羅漢「ハッ…」

Rakan “Ha…”

(Continue to episode 23)