pairing: kamado tanjirou x sumiyuri hayami (oc)
a/n: this literally took me forever because i kept trying to get the emotions right so i ended up rewriting bits like… five times but thank you @hinokami-s for being so patient with me and commissioning me!!
“Akari!” She calls out, throat scraped raw and tender, forcing her legs to wade through the thick snow even as the winds batter her. The frigid air is shockingly cold and thin, making her gasp between each breath, but that doesn’t stop her from crying out in the least. “Akari, don’t make me worry! Answer me, Akari!”
She shouldn’t have suggested splitting up. Hayami is the more seasoned demon slayer, she should have been the one to be more cautious, more careful. The blood at the foot of the mountain, the lack of a demon’s usual trail… Hayami should have known.
She’s only just found Akari again. Hayami doesn’t know what she’ll do if… if Akari…
It’s silent all around her except for the chilling howl of the wind rushing between the withered corpses of dead trees and the sound of her own laboured breathing, the mountaintop blanketed in an undisturbed layer of white snow. Akari does not answer. Hayami tries to count her breaths, to calm herself down and keep her breathing under control, but it’s not working, her heart is constricting as though there’s a vice wrapped around it, a noose tightening around her throat, she can’t—
A scrap of red appears at the corner of her vision.
She breaks into a run, cutting away the snow in her path with her katana. Perspiration drips down her cheeks and turns cold against her skin, but Hayami barely notices it in the least as she struggles towards the vivid blot of colour. It’s Akari’s haori, she realises, a few steps away.
Hayami takes a few steps more, and the sharp tang of iron and blood fills her nose, sharp and cloying and nauseating.
It takes nearly everything Hayami has in her not to throw up immediately, taking deep gulps of wintry air to clear her head. She stumbles forward to snatch the haori off the snow, numb fingers trembling as she raises it to take a more careful look. Embroidered spider lilies sway almost gently as wind kisses the torn edges of the cloth. Without a doubt, this is Akari’s haori. Red splotches dot the fabric, the edges torn. Her heart pounds almost painfully in her chest.
Whirling around, she follows the trail of blood staining the snow as quickly as she can, blade unsheathed. If the haori is here and the blood is still wet, that must mean that Akari is still nearby — she might not be too late. Please, she begs to whichever god is willing to listen to her desperate pleas, please, let Akari be alright, let Akari be safe, please, please, please don’t let me be too late.
The snow crunches under her straw boots, turning wet and slippery. Red seeps into the slush and drips. The trail of blood turns more and more fresh, the scent turning near unbearable with every sharp breath she takes — and then all of a sudden, when she crests the hill, she can’t breathe.
There’s a severed hand lying in the snow, crimson pooling around it, viscous and so, so vivid against the ivory snow. Hayami throws her nichirin blade to the ground and runs, lungs contracting between painful gasps. The arm is still warm, the blood still fresh, but there’s so much of it and Hayami has to fight the lightheadedness sweeping through her to stay conscious. She remembers holding that very hand, fingers intertwining with each other’s, and smiling up at their owner shyly — and they’d just found each other again after so many years! How could the world be so unfair, the fates be so cruel?
Hayami clutches the arm to her chest as she rises to her feet. She wanders the mountain until the melting snow has seeped through the straw of her shoes and she can’t feel her feet, until her lips and the tips of her fingers are blue from the cold, but she still doesn’t find any trace of Akari in the least.
When her legs finally give out under her, Hayami doesn’t bother getting up when she collapses into the snowdrift, curling around the severed limb in her arms as fresh snow begins to blanket her gently like a lover’s caress. The cold numbs the pain, freezes over the tears threatening to spill from her eyes.
It would be better, Hayami thinks to herself as she closes her eyes, if the world could just stay frozen like this forever.
