CHIYA 千夜 ☄. *. ⋆ 00010101 :: Filo :: Her/She :: INTJ-A 5w6 :: multi fandom :: sfw ‧₊˚✩彡 if I was given three wishes, I'd wish for you in all of them 𓂃˖ ࣪⊹
★ Current Concern: dying in university so I'll disappear for a while ( ꩜ ᯅ ꩜;) .
MASTER LIST
ੈ✩‧₊˚࿐ ˊˎ- Jujutsu Kaisen
✩ to live in a plato perfect world ┊ yuuta
✩ when he loved me ┊ suguru
✩ voicemail ┊ satoru
✩ fragments of caelum ┊ sukuna
✩ as long as I exist, you will always be loved ┊ satoru
✩ everything you didn't do, and all that you did (for Gojo Satoru) ┊ satoru
⋆·˚ ༘ *ੈ ˗ˏˋ when dividing up the universe, you could have mine ࿐ྂ
✩ ghost ┊ toge
✩ weak ┊ satoru
ੈ✩‧₊˚࿐ ˊˎ- Kaiju No. 8
⋆·˚ ༘ *ੈ ˗ˏˋ i'd give you the sun if you asked me, you could have all of the stars ࿐ྂ
✩ if I can stop one heart from breaking ┊ soushiro
ੈ✩‧₊˚࿐ ˊˎ- Genshin Impact
✩ until the end ┊ kaeya
✩ in the wake of stars... there, we remain ┊ capitano
ੈ✩‧₊˚࿐ ˊˎ- Sakamoto Days
✩ for affection, for acceptance ┊ yoichi
✩ as long as you'd let me ┊ yoichi
✩ we keep this love in a photograph ┊ shin
✩ patches of sunlight ┊ shishiba
ੈ✩‧₊˚࿐ ˊˎ- Ace of Diamond
✩ all the stars are closer ┊ mei
✩ if it can't be you, then let it be no one at all ┊ kazuya
ੈ✩‧₊˚࿐ ˊˎ- Blue Lock
✩ all the colors of the sun ┊ tabito
✩ the world after you ┊ rin
ੈ✩‧₊˚࿐ ˊˎ- Honkai: Star Rail
✩ throughout the heavens and eternities ┊ dan feng
✩ my name... forever engraved among the stars ┊ anaxagoras
✩ sunshine arrives with you ┊ anaxagoras
✩ until there is nothing left to lose ┊ mydeimos
ੈ✩‧₊˚࿐ ˊˎ- Dr. Stone
✩ love letters from the shore to the sea ┊ukyo
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Please comment! <- makes me happy ( ˶ˆᗜˆ˵ ) always and forevermore grateful to be bestowed your likes, kudos, and support. 💝
It’s frightening… a love with a time limit. When he was the right person, with all the time in the world… and she was nothing but a fraction of time he’d experience. Something you know will end before it can even begin.
ao3: fragments of caelum
pairing: sukuna x f! reader
genre: romance, angst, heian era
wc: 15.4k
status: completed
art by: usobuki_jj on twitter
Songs of the spring echoed in the courtyard, domed by an eternal blue sky, bordered by the stretching forests. Vines circled the barks of the trees, reaching far into their branches with hopes to touch the heavens. Sun rays thawed the dewdrops, casting them far into the depths of the sky.
Cradled underneath it all was the vessel of the King of Curses. The falls of his steps were the only rhythmic clatter clashing against the silence that blanketed the lands.
Haze of the early morning remained, tying everything to peace. No noise, no curses, no Sukuna.
Itadori continued his journey to the library where he knew no living sorcerer would ever step foot in. For what reason? Why, to run an errand for his all-time favorite teacher, Gojo Satoru, of course!
That place was as horrid as the curses they were trained to exorcise. It didn’t help that it was riddled in eerie quietness, or that the principal had these thick black curtains covering every window because he didn’t want those ancient manuscripts to crumble to ash and be blown away.
Quite simply it was a place he would never enter if he could help it.
Itadori pushed open the heavy wooden doors, hearing an ominous creaking sound emanate from it, going on and on for what seemed to be forever until the back of the door crashed against the wall with a loud bang.
The young sorcerer gulped, putting a foot forward, and trod as quietly as he could to the farthest corner of the room, where those papers (written with ancient runes no one ever really bothered to read) were dumped. Why his teacher wanted those, he didn’t know—Itadori wasn’t even sure if he could understand what was recorded in those, they were probably older than all of them plus Principal Gakuganji combined.
When he reached the very back, a dusty table greeted him along with a few books stacked up in the middle of it.
The sight had him asking, when was the last time anybody’s been here?
He sighed and picked up everything that cluttered the table. Mumbling about how the school needed to stop being cheapskates and hire a janitor.
One by one, he placed them back on the shelves, pondering which section they should go to, but it proved to be for naught since he couldn’t understand what most of them said.
Whether by accident or by fate, he knocked over a journal: weathered by the hands of time, pages golden with age. A compass was etched on its cover along with a name that had faded perhaps years before he was even born.
As he bent down to pick it up, an old picture slipped from one of the pages.
When his fingers grasped the object, Itadori realized it wasn’t a photograph, it was a drawing. One so detailed it deceived his eyes.
I guess cameras weren’t a thing back then, huh?
On its blotched page, a smiling girl could be made out. Her hands held up a peace sign over her closed eyes with one of her hands boldly slung over a man that only plastered on a ghost of a smile. Written on the side in messy little characters were:
'Ryōmen & (Y/n)'
Auflage, 850
Itadori squinted, trying to see the face of the man—finding it strikingly familiar like someone he knew was tethered to the same features.
"Sukuna..." He called; eyes still glued to the sketch. Itadori wasn’t sure what to make of it all.
It was the King of Curses, feared by sorcerers and demons alike. But here, in this moment trapped in time he looked… human. As though he couldn’t be any farther from the names the world had called him.
"Oi! Sukuna! Do you know this lady?"
Itadori’s head remained free from thoughts. For a second he nearly believed that there was only a single soul inhabiting this body of his.
The silence remained, scattering like stardust through the stuffy and tense atmosphere. Itadori, who was once just curious began to worry about the demon king’s unresponsiveness.
It was strange. The oxygen in his lungs came in leveled breaths, yet his heart thudded so wildly in his chest he thought it would break free from its cage and start running to the ends of the world.
This woman couldn’t be any more than a stranger to him… so why?
"Where... where... did you get that?" Another voice, deeper in tune, laced with anger and sadness, broke the stagnancy.
It felt like his blood was pushing past its limits. His organs felt ignited, and his vision began to blur. This was Sukuna’s doing. To have him answer was rare enough as it is but to have him open the lid to his sentiments—have them pour in abundance that it became overwhelming for Itadori to handle—was never something so farfetched he couldn’t even dream of it.
"ITADORI!" Sukuna's voice echoed in his head, tearing apart his daydreams and bringing him back to reality.
"Okay... Okay... Relax.” He breathed, coaxing his body to stop its trembling. “It just fell from one of the pages."
You kept it… even after all of that… idiot woman.
Itadori inspected the fragile piece of paper, careful to not let any scattered sunlight graze it for fear that it might crumble and fade for good.
He flipped past the cover of the book and carefully turned the pages. The words of the owner were inscribed in ancient text, one so archaic he doubts there were still records of it alive to this day.
It's old, that's for sure. Have other people seen this? It doesn't look like it's been touched for years.
"Sukuna. Oi! Sukuna!" Itadori tried to call, only to be rewarded with disregard.
SUKUNA!
The young sorcerer grumbled, knowing he wouldn't get anything out of the—now surprisingly quiet—demon. So, he pulled out his cellphone and snapped a shot of the drawing, careful not to use a flash. He would get answers even if it killed him.
He slipped the drawing back into the journal, placing the artifact on the table.
Auflage's Hero: (L/n) (Y/n), the Little Liar.
Itadori ran.
Out of the library, down the winding halls, over the cobblestone pathway; drowsiness being overpowered by his overwhelming curiosity. He rushed to find the person he knew that'd know the answers he so desperately wanted to hear, Gojō Satoru.
Was this the reason why he sent him there? To find that? To see Sukuna in a way he never would have imagined?
Leaves of springtime began to fall, littering the grey sidewalks and roads with silver and blushes of pink. Puddles from last night's apparent rainfall made the scent of warmth linger in the air.
Glimpses of the open field slipped through the foliage, pushing him to hurry.
As he reached the final steps of the courtyard, he saw the person he was looking for.
"Gojō-sensei!" He called, trying to catch his breath.
The blindfolded man turned to look at the heaving form of his student.
"Itadori!" He enthusiastically bellowed before turning to face his students once more.
"See? You guys could learn a thing or two from him! You know... he can finish a 50-meter track within 3 seconds! Ain't that impressive huh? He could be a car!"
Itadori scrambled to his feet, approaching the happy figure of his sensei.
"Do you know someone named (L/n)?"
The albino-haired man seemed to be deep in thought, his pointer finger repeatedly tapping on his chin before joyfully declaring his knowledge on the topic. "I do! In fact, there's an entire clan of them! Bow-using priests and priestesses. Isn't that right, (Y/n)?"
"(Y/n)?" Itadori’s question rang, shadowed by a sonorous tune.
A mischievous smile plastered on Gojō's face, "You know her, Sukuna?"
Perhaps this was his plan all along, to rile the King of Curses into silence. Force him to relive a memory written down as one of the greatest achievements in sorcerer history.
"Tch. Who could forget?"
And it worked because the demon king never resurfaced for the rest of the day.
"What does he mean by that, Sensei?"
"Yeah. Why would someone as evil as Sukuna have ties with the sacred clan of (L/n)?"
"Why'd he suddenly get all chatty when he heard (Y/n)-chan's name?”
Question after question left the mouth of his students, flooding his ears, making his head spin.
"All right. All right, I'll tell you... just be quiet. Come on, let's all go inside."
---
Welcome to AUFLAGE.
The sign that welcomed visitors to the town was old, decorated in ivy and overgrown flora. Some of the white paint had already begun peeling off, and the wooden board where the words were engraved had its edges ridden by termites.
Please d i e slowly.
And that same sign gave travellers a very warm welcome.
Auflage was a little village near the end of society. Covered by thick forests of the west, flagged by towering mountains in the north and south, bordered by the sea in the east.
The isolation eased the nerves of its citizens, chains of brooks and rivers that circled around the town were considered a protective barrier by the old folks that resided there. They claimed that it was what protected them from the curses of the outside world.
In that same village resides a happy young woman. Easily swayed by strangers, fooled by travelers, and convinced by the shadiest of stories. (L/n) (Y/n) was what they called her.
The carefree girl that lived near the brooks. Always stuck in her own world. She came into town one day dressed like a shrine maiden.
None of the townspeople knew where she had come from, nor did they bother to ask. Perhaps she came from the next town over, or maybe even farther out in the cities. It didn’t matter. To have a new face linger for a few days was a delight, and they rejoiced at the news that she would be there to stay for a long time.
Her little home was far into the woods, a small humble hut littered with firewood, still, the people of Auflage accepted and loved her.
As the trees swayed to the rhythm of Mother Earth, her figure emerged from the thick mist. Her zori sounding in soft thuds as it hit the hardened earth. Thin golden armbands glinted in the faint light of the sun that slowly seeped through the cracks of the mountains.
The rest of her figure came into the scene, dressed in a pair of wide-legged, pleated trousers, dyed in bright red, a white kimono-style upper clothing held in place by a wide belt, with sleeves that flared at the wrists fluttering ever-so-softly in the wind.
Adults and children alike were scattered across the small village. The little ones chasing their friends around, laughing joyously without a care for the world.
It was a simple sight that she saw every day but every time she laid eyes on it, it grew more and more special.
The lady made her way across town and entered the local tavern, guided by one of the strongest shamans out there.
(Y/n) took a seat on one of the many unoccupied stools in the building.
"One mug of cider please."
Her forehead met the wooden counter, still drowsy from the early wake-up call. The sound of her plea got the attention of the flair man.
"Ah! (Y/n)-san! Always good to see you!" He cheered, wiping a glass to use for her request.
"Good to see you to Amaury-dono, how's the wife?" She raised a hand in greeting, eyes still rooted to the floorboards.
Amaury only smiled at the girl as he finished up her fill, "She's good, Arne is due in a few weeks so got to work hard."
He placed the mug of cider in front of her as (Y/n) mumbled a silent ‘thanks’.
Creaks of the opening door dragged Arne’s attention to the incoming patronage. "Welcome! What'd be for today Seizou-sama?"
Seizou shook his head and took off his sun hat, revealing his balding scalp and the wrinkles that etched themselves on his face, resembling the years that passed in his life. Hanging it on one of the hooks near the door.
"Nothing of the sort lad, just came here to issue a request."
Amaury nodded and smiled, nonetheless.
"Sure thing, let me just get some papers in the storage."
(Y/n) lifted her head to see Amaury's retreating form, his back getting further and further away until he disappeared around the corner.
Once she was certain he was out of earshot, (Y/n) faced the trembling man.
"What kind of request is it, Seizou-san?"
Seizou gave her a sad gaze, one where despair and hopelessness ravaged in those fading irises of blue. "Killing the king of curses."
(Y/n) pondered on the thought. In all her years living here, she only came across that title a couple of times when it was whispered amongst warriors and hunters or woven into a tale of caution.
Beware the demon king by night,
With blazing eyes and fangs so bright.
The scrolls that the village owned were useless; moth-eaten, fading as the days passed. And even if they weren’t, the priestess wasn’t fortunate enough to know how to read—such a luxury reserved for nobility.
His whispers lure in dreams unseen,
To snatch away the pure and clean.
Of course, rumors and stories flutter past her ears every once in a while. Parents told the tales of the demon king who will take you away to his palace if you don’t eat all your vegetables. Even depict him as a being with horns and wings with sharp jagged teeth. There were the occasional sketches that went around if a painter was visiting town, albeit (Y/n) doubts if they will ever ring true.
Walk the paths where lanterns glow,
Stray too far and the dark will show.
"Say, what... what brought this on hmm? What makes you think that this 'king' even exists?"
It was difficult to believe that which you have not seen for yourself. Much more to fear a creature you have never once met.
The aging man only sighed, he couldn’t blame the young woman, really.
"May I?" he asked, gesturing to the seat near hers.
"Be my guest."
Seizou situated himself on the stool only a few feet away from the girl.
"The king of curses is no mere legend, miko. Few of my kin have encountered him during the hunting season, saying there lay a creature in the woods far too fast for the eyes to see, resilient to the sharpest of blades—the strongest of swordsmen. But it was no forest beast… it was a demon. The vilest of them all. No shaman could bring him down. Calamity falls on the cities he ventures. Towns reduced to ashes from his wrath. He spares no one, not women nor children. They say that he has four arms and a mighty build. His body adorned in ink; eyes dyed red from all his bloodshed. Only he had four, prodding at you every which way; so deformed one would think he had two faces. My son... tried to... hunt him down and never came home. Soon, my youngest also attempted to do it, he too... never returned."
(Y/n) listened earnestly to his tale as she shifted in her seat, resting her cheek on her fist. "Say he really does exist...” she entertained, still skeptical of the demon’s existence.
“Surely, you can’t expect people to do this for such a noble reason as vengeance?”
"Of course not. I’m putting all my fortune into this. At the very least, if someone were to defeat him... It'd do great for the future."
The girl looked towards the window seeing the clouds swirl and darken over the once azure sky, feeling something creep up her spine. "Oi, Mr. Seizou..." she called.
His fading icy blue eyes clashed with her (e/c) irises. "I'll do it. I'll kill him."
---
At the rise of daybreak, (Y/n) prepared for her estimated lengthy adventure. From sharpening blades to making wards to stocking up on food and other necessities that she needed to live.
The priestess wrapped her things in a large cloth, hiding the little things in the pockets of her kosode.
She barricaded her windows and finally locked the door. (Y/n) was sure she wasn’t returning here for a while. Although it was sad, for she had grown to love her humble home, it had to be done.
After grabbing the map (given by Seizou) that supposedly leads to the castle of the king, the priestess took off on what will be a year-long journey to the kingdom of the demon king.
As she walked the cobblestone path of Auflage—the last one for a very long time so it seemed—stores of all kinds and sizes that a great deal of things welcomed her vision. From bakeries to armories to the newly established livelihoods. For a town near the end of the world, it sure held a lot of variety.
Despite having been in town for a long time, the structures and the people still fascinated her.
(Y/n) decided to stop by one of the stores that recently opened.
A jingling sound flooded her ears, ringing all throughout the space, the moment she opened the door. A sign perhaps… that somebody entered the place.
The priestess observed her surroundings, weapons were fastened to the mahogany walls, huge beams of wood holding the building upright. Daylight streamed through the windows of the door, and there it lingered. Torches lined the posters, bringing luminescence to the room clouded in shadows.
What caught her attention were the odd-looking things lining the shelves. From swords to butcher knives to just rotten banana peel-designed wrappings.
(Y/n)’s stare drifted from one trinket to another, finding them so strange from the usual apparatuses used by the shrine maidens. What kind of shop is this? Is that a toenail?
"What'd it be for you, missy?"
Her curious gaze met the eyes of the man at the end of the aisle, clothed in a humble grey hakama and kosode.
"I see a lot of cursed energy pilling up inside you." He commented, eyeing the products he had for sale. Surely, he must have thought them odd, too.
"I beg your pardon?"
The tiny keeper laughed, clutching his stomach at how hilarious he was. His hunched form and disheveled appearance approached the weary figure of the priestess.
"You see that man over there," the woman looked to where his bony finger pointed to, "you're somewhat similar to what he is." He smiled, crossing his hands behind his back.
At the other side of the store was a muscular man, cautiously looking over the things that were on display. His ears catching patches of the conversation that was quietly weaving behind him.
"—could learn a thing or two from him."
The tiny old hunchback walked to the back of his shop, soon coming out with a bow and a case of arrows in his arms.
"I'll rent it to you," he casually dropped the weapon in her arms, not minding the clatter that followed as a few of the arrows fell to the floor, "if you come back alive, you can have it. If you don't, I’ll charge everything on your descendants."
If the wind could penetrate through the thick walls, (Y/n) was sure that it would blow everything away... everything including her.
She looked to the odd man; his posture, appearance—even just the fact that he was running some quack shop sent warning signals all over her head.
"Kill the king for me, too."
---
(Y/n) walked the final steps that would lead her to the ends of the village, one where the forest path lies ahead: the only entrance and exit to Auflage.
She passed through the large torii gate that welcomed travellers to the estranged town and soon, she also passed the broken sign that should've spelled drive instead of d i e.
Towering trees flagged her vision, the endless ocean of green and yellow littering the ground, accompanied by the rhythmic orchestra of the fauna made her head go into a frenzy of cautiousness.
(Y/n) had already made the journey through the woods halfway. If she kept at this pace, she would reach the town before eventide.
Still, it did not make her ventures a whole less eerie.
It's quiet. Too quiet.
The echo of a snap compelled her to turn her head towards the direction of the sound, to find a culprit for her startle.
The scene that greeted her was certainly, how do you put it...
Odd.
"Handsome, aren't I?" He smirked.
"More like strange..." The priestess countered cautiously, eyeing the man behind the trees.
"And handsome."
"It must be nice to have such vain concerns." She sneered.
The stranger emerged from where he hid behind the tree, his pink hair spiking in meaningless directions, clothes barely covering the areas it was supposed to cover. His body was packed with muscles, like he had all the food to eat with no one to share, yet he appeared somewhat wounded.
But what made (Y/n) halt her observations was the striking crimson pooling in his irises, as though every shade of red was made just so he could have it. It must be a trick of the light, surely. For what human could be blessed with such beauty that even the gods might envy him for it.
“If you draw me now, you might finish it by twilight.”
Alas, he had a foul mouth on him. And it irked the priestess—especially when he was saying such atrocities with that sickeningly haughty grin and a face drawn with ink. I’ll put you in your place, you pig!
"What're you doing in the middle of the woods?" She questioned, forcing her patience to reach further. "Almost naked at that."
(Y/n) gestured to his beaten figure.
"If you wanted a quick coin, you could at least have tried a town. You’re not going to sell much out here with tanukis and foxes."
Pinky boy tilted his head to the side, amusement glimmering in his red eyes. "Do you not know who I am?"
Taken aback by the sudden question, (Y/n) raised an eyebrow at him. "Am I supposed to?"
The stranger grinned wider at her retort, doubling over in laughter because to him, the tiny little priestess was oh-so amusing.
"Interesting..." pinky hair chuckled, wiping the water from his eye.
"I'm Ryoumen." He declared, spreading his arms out in a grand boisterous gesture.
"I didn't ask... but okay. I'm (Y/n)." The priestess bowed humbly.
Orchestras of birds hastily fluttering their wings and taking off interrupted their conversation. Soon, gray clouds blotted the sky, thunder echoing through every nook and corner of the forest.
“I can walk with you until the next village, it’s just around two hundred and twenty-five cho away*. If we walk now, we can reach it by twilight."
(*30 km or 18 miles)
“Heh?” He smirked, raising a brow at her bold offer.
“Or you can just stay here and freeze to death,” (Y/n) shrugged, turning her back to him, and soon started to walk away. “Either way, I offered so my conscience is clean~” she waved, “Don’t curse me if you die out here.”
---
"Gojō-sensei! Who's Ryoumen?"
"That's Sukuna's last name. Now shut up or I'll leave you all hanging."
--
"You want to kill the king of curses?" Sukuna laughed at her declaration.
(Y/n) forgetting all about her manners, hurriedly slurped every bit of noodle left in the bowl before slamming it down on the table. "So, what if I do?"
The man scoffed and flicked her forehead, "I think you're a hundred years too early to be trying that."
She slapped his arm away, ignoring his jibe. "I can do it. It’s what I always wanted to do ever since I arrived at Auflage. Besides, you wouldn't know until you try."
"Your optimistic attitude will be the only reason you'll make it to the gates of his temple."
His comment caught the priestess’s interest, eyes shining with wonder and admiration that agitated the pink-haired man.
"You've been there, old man?"
"Don't call me that.” He glared at her.
“And... yeah. I have. That's why you saw me in such a state." Sukuna crossed his arms over his—still naked—chest, defensively.
His statements were half a lie, half the truth. When he realized his hesitance, he briefly wondered, why in heaven’s name was he guessing over what words to say.
Sukuna had gone there, of course—it was his home, after all. And he got battered and beaten from destroying town after town, chased by some shamans who wanted to take his head.
Still, he lied just as easily as he killed. Finding that his resolve faltered when she looked at him with such shameless appreciation…
"Ain't that cool!" She beamed and flashed him a charming smile, "Hey~ teach me, will you?"
Sukuna broke free from his daydreams, shackling himself back into reality where he left no room for such foolish thoughts.
"No. I don't teach. I don't have anything to teach you."
The priestess deflated at his rejection, eyes watering and lips quivering. "You’re a real pain." she silently mumbled.
(Y/n) sniffed, intakes of breath growing more and more frantic by the second.
Then the tears came streaming down her face, gaining the attention of the people, and fast.
Oh... she's good.
"W-Why... why... WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT?!"
His eyes widened at her yell, "Wha—"
"After all we've been through?!" She stood up and slammed her hands on the table, making the porcelain and silverware that littered the furniture clatter.
Murmurs erupted from the people who silently watched the scene unfold. To them, it looked like (Y/n) and the pink-haired man were having a lover's quarrel... but none of them could see the glinting mischief that pooled in the eyes of the priestess.
She's worse than me.
Sukuna didn’t know what to make of this silly little woman. It unnerved him so, he could have killed every single person in this inn, even burn the entire town to cinders… yet he remained—staring at her with unmanned wonder.
"YOU DID IT WITH HER DIDN'T YOU?"
Confusion rattled his soul, "I don't know what you're talking about—" he really didn't, they haven’t even spent one moon together!
One thing was clear, (Y/n) was causing a scene... and it was a very convincing one at that.
"YOU RAILED MY MOTHE—"
Before she could finish her sentence, Sukuna’s hand covered her mouth. Eyes widening to bowls at her supposed declamation.
"Fine, I'll teach you—just... be... shut your foul mouth." He harshly whispered in her ears.
The curse really didn’t know how he agreed… or why. Perhaps it was the lingering murmurs, or the boredom waiting to be tamed. Still, in the darkest corners of his soul… it remained, this little spark that soon will blossom into raging fire—casting his world alight.
Sukuna grabbed her hand and led her out of the varying gazes of the people inside the establishment.
"Now that wasn't so difficult, right?" (Y/n) placed her hands on her hips and laughed at the painted expression of annoyance that colored his face.
“For a priestess, you’re pretty scummy.” Sukuna sneered.
“Hah! Jokes on you, I’ve heard worse than that, Ryoumen~”
He stole a glance at her at the mention of his name, one of the many, he reminds.
Sukuna realizes it then… that it was the first time someone’s lived long enough for his name to be voiced in his presence. It had always been Sukuna-sama with him, or Demon king, beyond that there was nothing at all.
Despite having many titles, he was hardly called. As embarrassing as it was to admit, many years would pass without a living soul uttering his name. He would often forget about it, failing to recall that he had one in the first place.
So, to hear it now with his own ears felt strange. Sent him reeling back into the darkest corners where there was nothing but the familiar oblivion—away from that fickle flame.
Because how would he make of it when she lets it flow past her lips with such gentle familiarity? Like he was given that name so long ago just so she could call him that here at this very moment—that her voice will string with that title for every crimson moon to come. For every passing lifetime.
Silence covered the distance between them, leaving the faint rumble of people talking and laughing to echo in their wake. Flames that danced from the lanterns cast an orange glow over their faces, painting their shadows in elongating strokes.
(Y/n) exhaled loudly before she started prancing around him like a lost horse.
"What'll it be, huh? Martial Arts?" She ghosted punches over his form, pretending to kick the air.
Idiot.
"One of those fancy breathing techniques with the sword thing I keep hearing about?" She grabbed a stick and lightly hit the impassive man on both sides.
Sukuna, irked at her ministrations, grabbed the stick and broke it into two then threw it to the sides.
"Can I breathe fire?"
"What about water?"
“Hey! Wait up!” (Y/n) chased after the form of the walking man.
"What about those chakra things? With the psschhooww and the wham and bam will I be able to do that?"
Sukuna dragged a hand over his face, silently questioning the decisions he makes whenever he had nothing to do with his time.
Man, she's annoying.
The priestess and the king of curses continued their journey, treading the path until the cobblestone faded into hardened earth and the midnight sun shone overhead.
They halted in front of a small hut on the side of the road, with shattered windows, fungi blanketing the roof of the small shack. No flicker of fire could be seen inside the humble house.
It kind of reminded (Y/n) of her home back in Auflage.
"We'll stay here for the night." Sukuna forced his way into the house. If this was compliant with the Shogun’s law, the priestess didn’t want to know. She just hopes that whoever owns this shack wouldn’t mind if they occupied it for a little while.
Clinks of glassware being broken, wood scraping against the floors, thuds of heavy objects hitting the ground. The sounds made her worry.
Soon enough, Sukuna emerged from the doorway, leaning his forearm against the threshold, his other hand holding an unlit lantern.
"There's no light though..."
"Really? You're gonna worry about lights when you're literally going across the country to kill the king of curses?" He stood to his full height and towered over the priestess.
The gentle breeze of the evening swayed the (h/c) threads that were planted firmly on her head, a shiver crawling up her spine as the cold wind bit against her body.
"Please don't kill me!" She wailed in mock panic, shutting her eyes tight.
"I'm not going to kill you, you maniac. I should be worried if you're gonna kill me." He defended.
"You don't have to be so defensive about it." (Y/n) ceased her act and rolled her eyes at him.
I want to kill her so badly... she's so annoying.
(Y/n) turned to face the man, the light of the imprisoned fire casting a faint glow of orange on her face. How he managed to set it ablaze, she had no clue.
For a moment she looked at him like she wanted to say something, but she held back. Probably something stupid, he thought.
Her pondering continued until she let out a laugh, eyes glinting with scheme and mayhem, smirking up at the tall man. "You're not going to take advantage of me, are you?"
A flash of fire rushed past her head and blew a hole through the wall of the already rundown shack. "WHAT WAS THAT?"
"I'm not gonna take advantage of you... you sicko!" Sukuna fisted his free hand, restraining every bit of anger in his soul. To think this—this demon spawn could even be the least bit grateful!
Oh, he's mad.
"That was a curse. That's what you'll be learning first thing tomorrow." He lectured, handing her the lamp and pushing her through the doorway, "NOW SLEEP!" before he slammed the door shut.
The King of Curses remained standing under the stars, trying his best to restrain the bubbling urge to incinerate everything in his sight.
What in the world am I doing? He sighs, walking further into the rice fields.
Sukuna sat under a tree, a great distance away from the hut. The cicadas sung their melodies into the night, frogs croaking from the side. He watched aimlessly as the curses circled around the area of his energy, seeing them lurk around the edges of the forest, or peek from the foliage yet remained a means too far for them to be harmed.
If only that idiot priestess was the same.
The light from the lamp gradually faded, a sign that she was yielding to slumber. Curses weren’t tethered by such earthly needs. Sukuna had no need for food or water either. He simply indulged in the flavors they brought but he held no obligation to them.
She held a striking difference to him.
Long after she had passed from the memories of every person she had met, their children, and their children’s children, Sukuna would live on for the centuries to come.
The priestess was so painfully mortal. A hand from him would send her soul to the borders of death. A slip—a mistake. A burst of anger, an annoyance, if she were to be at the end of his temper…
Sukuna pondered then, if he should leave.
This has been nothing but a simple detour. A way to kill the time he just had so much of.
But she shone like fire through the abyss that it made looking away impossible. Because when you’ve known nothing but resentment, you’ll latch yourself to any form of kindness that shows your way.
---
Light of daybreak refracted the early morning dews like prisms, casting the colors of the sun into the haze of dawn.
"WAKE UP RYOUMEN!"
(Y/n) banged together a metal ladle and a metal pot while repeatedly saying her new favorite phrase, 'WAKE UP RYOUMEN!'.
"I'm up! I'M UP WOMAN! STOP YOUR DAMN NOISE!" He grabbed the utensils out of her hand and threw them out the window. “You’ll wake the entire village with your racket!”
In the end, Sukuna returned before the break of sunrise, telling himself that he’ll play along until the act gets old, or he grows too tired to keep up—until his patience wears thin, or she dies. Whichever comes first. He didn’t know then… that those were all just excuses.
For a priestess, she has such a terrible attitude.
“Hey, um…”
Sukuna looked from the broken window (a lot more broken than last night) to the priestess.
Her cheeks were dyed as scarlet as her hakama, hands behind her back as she bit her lip.
“I just… wanted to say… that—”
Irked by her stalling, he snapped. “Spit it out, miko!”
“THANK YOU FOR COMING ALONG!” Startled by her words, (Y/n) quickly covered her mouth like she could hardly believe she had said those words of her own free will.
“What I meant was that… that… uhmm…”
A firm hand covered the expanse of her head, ruffling the already unkempt threads.
“I said I would, didn’t I? I don’t break promises.”
The king would never know how his simple truth would tether the priestess to him. How the words he spoke on a whim would be the frail vow that would shackle her until the day she dies. That it would latch onto him as tightly… just like he had held onto her.
(Y/n) beamed at him from under his arm, grabbing the shoulders of the tall man and shaking him back and forth, "Teach me then, o great one."
Sukuna led the priestess to a large clearing. Far from the prying eyes of any other mortal.
Reaching the area with a large tree (the same one he had idled under last night). He told her to stay a few steps back.
Sukuna spiralled his focus in a single breath—
“Ready when you are!”
“Be quiet!”
Once more, he breathed in, his posture upright and relaxed yet brimming with intensity. Sukuna’s eyes narrowed sharply as he channeled his cursed energy, hand rising with fluid grace. His fingers parted in deliberate gestures, steering the power that sparks and swirls to take the shape of a fiery arrow. In a controlled motion, he draws his arm back, the flames burning brighter every passing second.
Then he fired, sending the arrow straight to the tree, burning through it, and blasting open a boulder on the other side of the field.
Pleased with the small display of destruction, he turned to the priestess with sheer delight. Finding that she had her jaw dropping to the ground from shock.
“You’ll be learning that miko.” Sukuna smirked, jutting his thumb at the fiery wake of his technique.
Snapping out of it, she shut her mouth and readied herself to protest, “Are you kidding me?! I can’t do that!” (Y/n) crossed her arms, glaring at him all the way from where she stood a hundred feet away.
“It’s the only beginner trick I know!” He hollered, silently snickering at her predicament. “Kids could do twice as much if they tried!”
“You cheat! That’s a lie and you know it! You’re the worst teacher ever!” The priestess fumed, snarling at him from the distance, shaking a fist in the air from sheer annoyance.
Sukuna slowly crossed the distance between them, taking in her angered image. It amused him seeing her so riled up from a single comment. Human emotions were truly as fickle as their lives.
The sun glared brightly over their heads. Still, its rays fell warmly for what seemed to be the first time in half a century.
As he drew closer, he craned his neck to catch her gaze. “You’re already giving up?” He teased, shaking his head in disappointment, “What happened to all that hope? Come on~”
“Why you—”
“OI! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU SCOUNDRELS ARE DOING? YOU BURNED MY TREE DOWN!”
The priestess looked to the raging villager in panic, getting ready to kowtow for forgiveness while Sukuna didn’t even spare a passing glance as he stood uprightly.
“I think… we should…” She looked to Sukuna with a diabolical grin, finding that he did not even show the slightest bit of emotion on that inked face of his. With a shake of her head at his indifference, the priestess intertwined her hand with his and tugged him forward breaking forth into a—“… run.”
“Hey! Get back here!”
She laughed, the melody echoing between the borders of the valley and his ears, feeling his soul calm at the sound.
The unusual duo ran from the angry man, stopping only once they heard no footsteps chasing after them.
Sukuna has never run from something so obscenely foolish—he reckons he never ran away from anything at all. There existed no creature who could make him fear for his life or sweat from nerves.
Still, even as he tried to deny, he could not shake off this excessive thrumming in his heart—screaming that getting dragged by this human was just a teeny tiny bit fun.
---
For days and weeks on end, that became their routine: wake up because of the loud banging (whether it be a broken sword, a wooden stick, or an out-of-tune biwa), eat (mostly just for the priestess), go to a clearing, practice techniques that can easily be done by a kid if the teacher wasn’t such a jerk to his student that obviously wasn’t a kid but a priestess who could only try so hard!
If they were lucky, angry mobs of people wouldn’t come chasing them out of the village… that was very rare. It had them sleeping in marshes, openings of an old tree, caves.
(Y/n) didn’t mind. In her heart, so long as Ryoumen was there for her every waking moment she was certain that everything would be alright.
But it could not be said for the rest of the world.
Soon enough, tales of the king of curses traveling with a priestess began circulating from town to town. Undoubtedly originating from the folks they startled half to death, given their flashy explosions and endless bickering.
In twilight's glow, the priestess strides.
The demon king at her side.
They knew nothing. All those foolish humans and shamans conjuring their own truths to soothe their fear, to vanquish uncertainties, to pin their accusations on whoever was close enough to be suitable.
His eyes aflame, her heart of grace.
Souls entwined in a wicked embrace.
But if the world ran on scales being tilted to fair and unjust then there would be no need for rulers. Reality remains: the truth can be muddied and lies can come as clear as water. If people in power put their faith in that notion, who were the unfortunate as to question them so?
Calamity awaits this dark dance,
A fate in ruin, a cursed chance.
Stories of the king’s companion reached the ears of power, binding the unknown priestess in a place far from where she actually stood. It was simple, really. If one cannot get to the root, you stick the poison in the bark until it seeps in and kills it from within.
For those who lived in torment of his existence would stop at nothing if it meant eliminating him from the lands.
O priestess pure, who dared to scheme,
With demon king, forsake your dream.
In shadows deep, your light shall wane,
A traitor's fate, eternal pain.
Bound to the fiend, your soul will weep,
In eternal gloom, your spirit keep.
For conspiring with the devil's might,
In endless night, lose all your light.
“Curse the traitor who dares to walk the shadows.”
Wades of grass swayed from the broken gale, leaves rustling until the breaths of their life got carried into the blue ether.
“Oi, get up.” Sukuna loomed over the hunched form of the tired priestess, looking down on her with bordered patience.
The woman panted and tried to catch her breath, pushing her palms against her knees to hoist her body upwards. “Yeah… just… give me a… second.”
“I can see the sun go across the sky, that’s how long you’re taking.”
“That’s so rude—” her body was suddenly shaken by violent coughs, sending her crumbling to her knees. "I think I might be coming down with something." She laughed, looking up and flashing him a forced grin.
"Yeah, the wrong idea." He jeered, poking her forehead.
"It might be a cold." The priestess tried to put forward, grabbing the hand that continuously knocked on her head to help hoist her upright.
"Don't be ridiculous.” Sukuna scoffs, prying his arm from her once she’d found footing, tucking it under his battered kimono. “Idiots are too dumb to catch a cold."
“Right? That’s why you’ll never have to worry about getting sick!” She laughs, walking past him and onwards the path they had to tread.
Sukuna, frozen where he stood, could only stare and watch as her figure got further and further away. Draped over by the daylight that lingers around her, loyal as they come. Clothes that fluttered in the wind like waves crashing against the shore. Eyes that looked back at him when she noticed his footfalls weren’t anywhere near hers.
He wasn’t so sure if he was angry at her comment… or relieved that she was alright.
Even now as she waved at him from so far away, her sleeves waltzing with the breeze, Sukuna couldn’t see any of those hurtful resentments—the ones that he was most familiar with—as though they had not existed at all.
“I’m leaving you if you don’t hurry up!” she yelled, cupping her hand near the side of her mouth to have her voice reach him.
Foolish little human, he would think. He could cross that distance in the blink of an eye, even appear at the gates of his home without a single breath passing. Still, he chose to walk alongside this priestess… wasting the time he just had so much of.
But deep down, he knew. He was happy that he was wasting all his time with her.
---
“If you don’t feel well just say so, idiot miko.” Sukuna knelt beside her heaving form, his shoulder being the only thing stopping her from falling to a crumpled heap on the floor.
“No… I’m… I’m fine.” She caged the fabric of his clothing between her fingers, chasing the breath she kept on losing even from a simple exercise like walking to a clearing. “I just… need—I just need to catch my breath… that’s all.”
Sukuna shifted in his position, slumping on the hardened soil, allowing her weight to fall on him completely.
“You’ve been saying that for the past week.” He reminds, planting a hand to support both their weights.
“You don’t seem to be getting better.” Sukuna’s fingers carded through her hair, wanting to untangle them… only they stuck to his digits like glue, bunching up in his hand like he had yanked it straight from her scalp.
“Yeah… sorry about that.” Her chuckles sounded tired, as though it took everything in her to even force it out. The priestess loosened her grip on him, letting her hand fall.
Time felt warped in those few arbitrary seconds, perhaps he was just imagining that it did; never quite admitting the bothersome whirring his heart would emit when he saw her struggling all this time. It was fine when he was the one to cause her little setbacks, because she, too, took part in riling him up. But it was an all too different matter when it was caused by something else.
Still, in those few passing moments, the pieces seemed to gravitate together. And he yells at himself for ignoring the warnings. His agitated energy, the flutter of his power, the unsettling gloom trailing past her shadow. The coughs, her hair… the patches of green and violet decorating her skin.
Even from a few moons ago, he shouldn’t have brushed it off. The priestess would wake in the dead of the night screaming—yelling that something was out to get her. She’d jump at the slightest rustle, asking if Sukuna felt it too… that someone was watching them. Her sadness from the hostility of the animals from the villages, or that she wasn’t as happy as she used to be… that it probably killed her inside just to pretend that she was alright.
Sukuna pushed the priestess, not enough to get her to let go, but far enough for him to be able to see the dark circles under her eyes and within them, the hazy reflection of the one that had been cursing her.
---
“Your wife seems to be in terrible condition.” The shaman from the village inspected the priestess, squinting his eyes in what looked to be pretend observation. Of course, anybody, be it human or curse, could see that she wasn’t doing well.
Sukuna rolled his eyes, not even bothering to correct that the woman was not his wife—he’d rather eat his own fingers than be bound to her for eternity.
“Well, let her stay here for a few days to get her energy back. It’s a long way from the one hexing her so she should be alright.” The human excused himself from Sukuna, leaving him to stare at the bedridden form of the priestess.
With every stutter of her breath, the twitches in her closed eyes, even the faintest mumbles that slipped past her lips, Sukuna found himself clinging to the moments when her laughter would ring in his ears, that she’d poke fun at him and say he was walking like an old man, or when she’d complain and say she was tired… that she wanted to sleep and eat until she couldn’t breathe.
Back then, it all looked so foolish; annoying if nothing. On days like those, he wished she would just cease her endless chatter—even if it was for less than an hour—or that she would tire herself out from running around like a child, or that she would stop asking all those unnecessary questions.
Why is the sky blue?
What’s your favorite season?
Where do you want to live once this adventure is over?
But one would never really know the value of a moment until it’s forced to become a memory.
He drew closer to her, raising his arm in a languid manner, a spark of blue flame dancing on the tips of his fingers.
Sukuna’s hand lingered above her body, hesitant to cast the spell that would end her torment. He wouldn’t have admitted it, and he knew that he never will, but in that space in time—a little rift that belonged to him alone—he trembled in fear.
What would she make of him if she ever found out? That the king she had so desperately sought was the same being walking alongside her. The same one who was at the receiving end of her kind smiles and warm affection. What would you think of me… if you knew the truth?
It was easier that way. To hide. To run. To cower away from all that he deserved from the one person he didn’t want to look at him that way: In fear, in hatred, in contempt. Because beyond that, Sukuna didn’t know where to be. He couldn’t bear to know what would become of him if the priestess would see him the way humans did. The vile curse who killed anyone in his wake. Sukuna. Calamity bringer. Demon king.
But the sight of her in pain, plagued by the nightmares conjured by a wicked sorcerer, weakened by the spell wrongfully placed on her, haunted by the waking thought that it would never get better.
No. that’s too much.
Sukuna let the fire fall, burning away the remnants of harm thrown at her. Swearing to himself that he would not let her suffer for his sake.
If she were to wake one day and realize her mistakes, then it would just have to be the monument of his retribution. He would take it, so long as it was not right now… here, where the fervent longing in his heart blazed for nothing but the priestess. Burning so fiercely, blinding any other thought, because he didn’t want anything, not the humans or the curses, to take her away from him.
Not the human who fearlessly led him through the forest, clung to him like he was the one who held all the answers, looked at him like he had hung the stars in the sky.
Not when he wished for nothing but to stay by the miko’s side.
---
A hundred million lights shone on the midnight canvas overhead, illuminating the world in a soft glow, casting faint drizzles of warmth to cover the face of the sleeping girl—no longer running from the darkness.
Sukuna never left the room. For if she was here, then there was no need for him to be anywhere else.
Yet once more, the world—or rather, his subordinate—begged to differ.
"Sukuna-sama."
The demon king spared not even a passing glance at the sudden entry of the white-haired servant, choosing to keep his crimson stare pinned on the priestess.
"Oh, Uraume." He acknowledged emptily.
"I have been looking across the country—"
"Get lost. I don't need you right now." He was quick to dismiss his servant’s urgency with a wave of his hand.
Uraume placed a foot in protest, although hasty to rescind when a sharp glare emanated from the eyes of the demon king. "But Sukuna-sama, the sorcerers..."
Fed up with the useless rambling, Sukuna let out an exasperated sigh, "What? Are you so weak that you can't take care of a few little humans?" he ridiculed.
"They are dabbling with the forbidden arts, Sukuna-sama." Uraume tried desperately to raise even a grain of attention in the king’s heart, yet he remained impassive to the situation all the same. "One was recently sighted to have cursed a few nobility—"
Sukuna leaned back in his chair even more, resting his cheek on his fist and glancing at his servant from the corners of his eyes. "Since when have I cared for others, Uraume? Let them die."
His words were cold, uncaring, and cruel… but not once has he torn his gaze from the soul resting on the cot.
Uraume thought it to be strange. The king of demons had spent so long treating the lives of others as nothing less than dirt under his foot, yet he held this fleeting human he’s known for less than six full moons as a treasure he could not look away from.
It wasn’t any of the servant’s business. How Sukuna chose to spend his time is out of Uraume’s concern. Uraume merely has to report to Sukuna and take care of all the things he didn’t want to concern himself over.
"She did from the grounds of her home, Sukuna-sama." Uraume tried not to falter from Sukuna’s heavy stare, choosing to bow instead of facing the angry expression painted on the king’s face. The servant did not want to be at the end of his wrath.
"Pink eyes? Blue hair?" His footsteps echoed within the small room, and Uraume was soon looking at the seams of a white kimono.
"Yes, Tsukumo Ren, are you perhaps acquainted with her—?"
"Kill her." Sukuna’s hostility forced the servant to the floor.
Now that Uraume has confirmed it, Sukuna had no doubts. Tsukumo Ren was the sorcerer behind those pools of (e/c) staring back at him that day. The same ones that used to look at him with all the hope in the world. The same ones that were glistening in pain—begging for him to put her out of her misery.
"Kill that sorcerer. That's an order."
The sound of fabric rustling had Sukuna withdrawing his energy, looking down on his servant in contempt before he tore his gaze and walked away.
“Leave.”
Uraume wasted not a single breath and teleported away. Either the servant obtains the sorcerer’s head, or Sukuna would be the one to take Uraume’s.
After what felt like eternities dragging on, the priestess had finally woken.
Sukuna pushed the gnawing sensation of relief down the depths of his soul.
He felt silly… feeling like that, for a human, no less.
"Were you… talking with someone… just now?" She rasped, hoisting herself to sit up.
But he would admit to it just once that in this moment, Sukuna was happy to be the one who stood here. To be the first thing she saw, the first voice she heard. To be the first person she thought of.
“No.” Sukuna was quick to deny, as he handed her a cup of water. “You were hallucinating.”
After being the object of contempt for many, many centuries… it was nice to know that beside her, he was wanted. Above all else, beyond rhyme and reason, when he was with her… he felt seen.
The priestess downed the liquid, feeling her the tightness in her throat diminishes. “I see. Have you eaten yet?”
“Worry about yourself more, idiot.”
He felt loved.
---
The demon king, in twilight’s glow,
Found solace in the priestess he’d come to know.
Not a week later, the renowned shaman who could curse anybody from a distance was proclaimed dead. Shards of frozen water bordered her home that had exploded into splinters. Sorcerers investigating under the command of the shogun found her body sliced to pieces, her blood painting the walls.
For her, his heart would fiercely burn,
And vengeance swift would soon return.
Soon enough, rumors emerged from town to town. Iterating the tale told by one folk to the next, each one a lot more diverted from the truth than before. Still, it would not matter. For the chants written down in history would prove every other legend wrong—yet this one will always remain true, even as the world is raised to ruin.
To those who dare to bring her pain,
His wrath unleashed will reign like rain.
---
"Who ever knew I'd be so famous that others would want to curse me?" (Y/n) walked joyously, swinging her arms back and forth divergent to the falls of her steps.
Sukuna trod alongside her, as he told the priestess the truth, finding no need to withhold it from her. If his servant held life second to Sukuna, then the sorcerer would be no more.
"Yeah, waste of a perfectly good incantation if you asked me." The king shrugged nonchalantly, purposely saying the words that would add fuel to the fire flickering in her.
Sukuna could feel the sharp glares she was sending his way all while he pretended not to notice them, suppressing the laugh that threatened to burst from his throat.
The priestess huffed in annoyance, turning her head away from him and walking at a much faster pace, leaving him behind.
“Oi! I was just joking!” He yelled in protest, hurrying his strides to catch up with her who was now turning the next corner of the street.
Sukuna stopped moments before he could collide with her back.
People walked past them in every direction while they stayed stagnant in the midst of it all, like an iceberg adrift in the vast ocean.
"So, how do you intend on paying the healer?" The priestess turned to face him, inclining her head to meet his stare.
Her question took him by surprise. They had to pay? For what? That quack doctor didn’t do shi—
"Uh... I wrote my name; they can ask for something in return when they want to." Sukuna looked away, scratching the back of his head. Like hell he’d do something for a lowly human—
"You know how to write? That's so cool!" She looked to him in adoration, the same one she had always worn before that sorcerer took it away—and heavens was he elated to have the light of those eyes end its journey behind his own.
"What you don't?" Sukuna smirked, flicking her forehead.
"Nope! Not even my name!"
Sukuna was left staring at her, at a loss for words, like he had seemed to be for the past twilights. He couldn’t wrap his head around it, how this little human squeezed through the tight crevices in the walls he built so high—or perhaps it was him who tore them down.
"You wouldn't even know if you're a national criminal." He laughed, tucking his hands in his sleeves, and continued to walk.
"Right?” She grinned, skipping every now and then to match his lengthy strides, “I do know how to write Auflage."
Sukuna scoffed, slowing his pace so he could poke fun at her from a nearer distance. "That's useless."
There it was again, that little stutter in his breath at the mention of his name. One of the many, he continues to remind.
Even with the chatter of the townspeople, the clatter of their sandals hitting the cobblestone path, the late afternoon breeze singing their melody, he feared that knocking of his heart would be too loud—that it would overpower all the resounding restrictions he so desperately tries to put on himself and he would end up giving in to all this… all this happiness.
"You're just an idiot..." He whispers halfheartedly.
"Hey! Teach me how to write your name." The priestess bounced on the balls of her feet as she looked to Sukuna with a heart full of hope and stubborn determination.
"Shouldn't you be more interested in yours?" Sukuna raised a brow at her, pushing the priestess to move with the rest of the crowd towards the river.
"No. You probably know how to write that but it's not fair that I don't know how to write yours." She shook her head and pointed an accusing finger at him.
"What?"
They halted near the bank of the river. The setting sun sank behind the horizon, painting his face golden; striking the priestess with shadows.
Then she turned to face the rushing river, half her face dyed in aureate light, casting the illusion of eternity.
"How am I gonna find you if you go disappearing on me? I can't write. I can't read, and I can't draw."
Slowly, humans came occupying the fields of grass, scattering their laughter in the once silent atmosphere.
"At the very least, if I know how to write your name, I'll be able to look for you in the future... and find you again."
As the last rays of daylight faded into the earth, she looked to him for what should be no-less than second nature… so why? Why did his soul scream at him to go to her? To be near her no matter what life she lived? To be the one within arm’s reach… to be the one she looks for, the one she asks to see.
How ridiculous her words were. To him who ardently believed that he was born and reincarnated to be the object of everybody’s contempt, that he lived only to hurt other people.
Still… why does she look at him like those didn’t matter? As though they never held importance to begin with. She was the one being ridiculous! Not him!
“Hello? From the magnificent miko of the land to Ryoumen? Is anybody home?” The priestess waved a hand over his face, the one who stared at her unblinkingly.
But Sukuna realizes then that he too was accountable for some of the blame.
“Sit down and pay close attention.” He grabbed a small branch and sat on a log away from the rest of the crowd.
Because even as he harbors these doubts, he still finds himself looking for her. Everywhere. In everything. In everyone.
Through fire and flame, where darkness holds its sway,
The demon king feels something start to sway.
When Sukuna turned to see if the priestess obeyed his command, his soul nearly descended to the depths of hell as he sees her sitting so painfully close to him, staring at the undisturbed earth with such fervor.
As moonlight dances on her gentle grace,
A flicker warms his cold and distant face.
The king began drawing lines on the dirt, glancing at her from the corner of his eye to see if he still had her attention. He did.
兩面
“How do you read that?” She gazed at him in wonder as she pointed to the characters on the ground, written so neatly it would have passed as a calligrapher’s penmanship (the priestess has never seen a calligrapher’s penmanship. This is the first handwriting she has witnessed).
“Ryoumen, you idiot. Now you try.” Sukuna flicked her forehead and handed her the stick.
In her presence he sheds his ancient rage,
And finds his soul anew free from its wretched cage.
As the priestess glanced back and forth from Sukuna’s writing and to her own, the king finds himself sinking more and more into the warmth she gave. When he looked at her, he would often think to himself, how lucky am I to have been right here where you existed. Even now as he drowns his crimson irises in her image, in this time, in this life… he finds himself wishing for this moment to last just a little bit longer.
“There. All done.”
Sukuna peeked an eye open. He wasn’t quite sure what he was expecting to see from someone who hadn’t written anything in her whole life. But it certainly wasn’t this.
“What’s with the scrambled sticks? These look like summoning runes!”
The priestess inhaled a breath of offence, holding a hand over her heart. “I haven’t written anything in my entire life! You’re supposed to be encouraging me to do better.”
He desperately tried to hold back the harsh criticisms flooding his tongue as he grabbed the twig from her hand and erased the characters they’d both written.
“I’d be lying to your face if I told you that you did a good job.” Sukuna gave the stick back to her, looking at the priestess with a deadpanned expression.
“You’re supposed to follow certain strokes not write whatever you want wherever you want.”
He moved closer to the priestess, holding the hand she used to write and guiding it to draw on the ground.
The priestess held her breath for all the seconds she felt him so close to her. She could have sworn her vision dotted from the lack of oxygen flowing in her lungs, but she feared her heart would crawl out of her mouth if she so much as let out a sound.
His hand felt cold over hers, like he was plunged in eternal frost before coming to wake in the vernal freshness of the sun.
Yet to the priestess, he was like a cool breeze during the summer heat, or the anchor in a raging storm, the moonlight in the illusions of midnight.
He felt like home.
And she swore she could have stayed like that for all the eternities to come, caged in his hold, safe from the cruelty of the world, seen amidst ten thousand people.
If only her lungs didn’t burn from the breaths she didn’t want to take.
“On—On second thought…” The priestess broke free from his half-embrace, standing up and fisting the fabric of her clothes, “you—how… how about you find me instead!”
Sukuna’s eyes widened at her yell, he thought for a second that the miko was giving up, that is until he saw the scarlet coloring her cheeks all the way to the peaks of her ears.
“You’re smart, and you know how to read and to write. So—uhm, I’ll just wait for—for you to come and get me… if I get taken away.”
“Okay.”
“It’s more of a situational condition anyway, it’s not like I’ll be—wait, what did you say?” The priestess ceased her pacing and faced the man still sitting on the log, watching her with radiant glow.
“I said okay. I’ll find you in the future.”
She broke out in a face-breaking smile and sprinted to where he sat, beaming down at him with all the happiness the world could offer, “Really?” She spoke in a joyous, hopeful tune.
Before Sukuna could berate her for asking too many questions, something shone from the corner of his eyes.
The king watched as the villagers, one by one, then all together, lit up the objects they held, letting them float into the midnight ether. The lights flew into the sky, disappearing as though they’d become one with the stars.
He once deemed the festivities foolish, looking at them from far away, alone in the courtyard of his temple. Humans throwing their trash into the sky or letting them sink into the rivers. What was the use of such fleeting moments, he would think. For what good is there to laugh and cry knowing it will come to an end sooner or later?
But the humans remained happy either way, even if they knew their lives were as fickle as the lights they set off into the night.
Sukuna looked away, not liking the feeling of something brewing in his chest. He turned to tell the miko that they were leaving, away from all this frolicking, only to find her holding one of those lights.
Ah, why am I like this?
“Hey, c’mon hurry. The light’s gonna burn out.” With haste, she grabbed hold of his hand, placing it parallel to hers on the lantern.
For so long… it was all so strange to him. How do humans take it? All these happy memories will crush them one day, he knows it. What greater heartbreak is there than realizing that these will pass… just as everything else does.
That you will pass… just like all you mortals do. Scattering the lands with all your laughter that it echoes even after you’ve gone. Long after your death, for many centuries to dawn.
“Now make a wish. If the light reaches the heavens, then your wish will come true. Ready?” The priestess closed her eyes, squeezing his hand with ardor.
The light of the lantern painted her face in a warm glow, setting alight the fervency of her desire.
But Sukuna only had one wish.
“Now.” He felt her hand push his to raise the light afloat. “Look at it go! Our wishes are definitely going to come true.”
She watched the lantern ascend to the heavens and Sukuna watched her. For what good was the promise of paradise if heaven was right there.
---
Beneath daylight, the demon found,
His heart for her was tightly bound.
As the days of their journey neared its close, the very last meadow they stepped foot into was half a wasteland.
"Hey, Ryoumen..." The priestess sat under the shade of a tree that had miraculously survived, watching as the clouds drifted by in shapes and sizes blotting the earth with shadows painted in their likeness.
Sukuna sat a little ways off, in the middle of a small patch of flowers. He looked out of place, or so he had believed. To be embraced by life when he only brought death.
"What is it?" he asks, not tearing his attention from what he was doing.
The priestess, innocent and kind,
Knew not the feelings within his mind.
"A shop owner gave me this," She pulled out a large bow and a case of arrows, one she had forgotten about until she was so painfully reminded of their existence (tripping over it as she was packing her things), "he told me that I was somewhat similar to a person nearby at that time..."
Sukuna faltered in his activity, thinking back to that moment she spoke of. One that transpired nearly eleven—no, twelve full moons ago. Once, he would have thought of the time passed as nothing—if you’ve lived long enough, everything starts to blend together at some point. But all these days to him have felt like a lifetime, a lifetime that wasn’t nearly enough.
Similar to me, eh? Very wrong, filthy sorcerer. She's nothing like me.
The priestess threw the weapon at Sukuna, thinking that perhaps he had the answer. But the moment it made contact with his skin, a sharp hissing sound emanated from his skin.
Her eyes widened at the scene, standing up so fast and rushing to his side to cast the bow elsewhere.
"Hey—what... why is there... steam? What? Are you okay—"
Sukuna held up a hand and that stopped her from reaching out for him, "It's nothing."
Sukuna rose from his position and returned the weapon, feeling his hands burn from the contact.
“Hey! Wait just a moment, Ryoumen. You’re hurt, aren’t you?” The priestess tried to catch up to him when the sun had mysteriously gone out, and the scent of flowers invaded her nose.
"Let's go to the village. Might be the last time you'll see a human. You never know..." His voice echoed in the wind, coming from everywhere all at once until it faded to a distant buzz.
In silence deep, his truth concealed,
For she knew not what love revealed.
Her fingers found solace in the circlet he draped over her eyes, a wreath of flowers.
When her vision narrowed to search for his presence, to call his name—ask what he means for every gentle touch, warm smiles, and kind undertakings—she found he was already up over the hill, standing there… waiting patiently for when she’d be ready to depart.
Perhaps then, it all became clear…
Under the azure canvas overhead, painted over with the silver water of light, surrounded by the passing zephyrs, she knew.
The hustle and bustle of commerce from the town strung from one corner to another. Streets were littered with people. Children ran around, keepers and vendors opened their businesses for travelers and residents alike. Banners that vary in size and color were hung all over the place. Laughter and chatter of everyday life danced in the happy and uplifting atmosphere.
It made the priestess smile; it was exactly what she missed most about her town.
"Get yer Ambrosia here! Buy one get one free!"
"Rat poison for sale! Up for free taste!"
"Expired milk! Fit for your cheating husband! Get two for the price of one! Limited time only."
The demon king and the priestess walked through the lively streets. Her hand clutched firmly against the cloth of his light-colored kimono that he only got after the rest of his torn and beaten clothes crumbled and got taken away by the wind.
"Get your portrait drawn by the greatest artist around! 50% off on people with companions!"
The priestess dragged Sukuna to where she heard the calls of the advertiser. His hand intertwined firmly with hers as she dodged and avoided people as much as she could.
"Hi there, onee-chan! Here to get drawn?"
She nodded her head, and the little boy beckoned her to follow him. The priestess tugged at the unwilling hand of Sukuna who stood firmly and unmoving outside the venue.
"C'mon Ryoumen! It's to commemorate the finish of the training thing! This may be the last thing we'll have to remember each other... never know..." She tried to use his own words to convince him, continuously pulling at his arm trying to get him to agree.
Still, he refused.
The priestess sighed, ultimately deciding that it was her pride or this absolute need for remembrance, and she wasn’t going to leave with either so she pulled out the greatest weapons any girl could have... the look.
"Pwease~"
The pink-haired man showed a look of disgust and shivered from the image engraving itself into his head and slammed a hand to cover her horrifying face.
"Alright, I’m going. Just—just stop it with that face."
"YES!" She cheered and circled around him—the space she occupied for herself.
Sukuna silently watched her, a faint smile gracing his usually annoyed face.
What a weirdo...
"Onee-chan, Onii-san, this way please..."
---
"It looks so cool!" The priestess gushed, ogling at the portrait that took almost 3 hours to make.
"It's not half bad. I guess..." Even Sukuna couldn’t put it in himself to deny.
She turned to the little artist, "Do you have a quill I can use?"
The little boy nodded and handed her a spare.
“What for? You don’t know how to write.” Sukuna smirks, looking over her shoulder to see what she was up to.
“Currently not entertaining the jeers of bashers.” She swatted him away and continued to write albeit in slow, messy strokes.
'Ryōmen & (Y/n)'
Auflage, 850
Sukuna took notice of the writings she engraved at the bottom of the paper. Had she been writing? All those times she had her back to me… she was practicing?
"Why Auflage?" He found himself asking. Sukuna knew it was one of the three things she knew how to write: her hometown, her name (which he demonstrated after many, many pleas and cries from the priestess), then Sukuna’s name. But she could have easily asked him to write it for her. The priestess would have only needed to say, and he would have made it so.
She looked up at him and flashed him a beaming smile, "Because that's where we first met, silly."
When did I start seeing you like this?
The gentle breeze of the early afternoon danced around her body, rays of the bright sun highlighting the curves and bumps on her face.
How can you still look at me like that? After knowing me… wasting so much time… on me—
"I will treasure this for years to come! Maybe when we meet again, I can laugh about how you showed up in front of me half-naked!" She lightly chuckled at her suggestion. “The great Ryoumen!”
When did I start thinking that my name had a ring to it whenever you would say it?
"Thank you." The priestess handed the quill back to the boy and continued to wander around the town with her companion.
She held the portrait up and inspected it for the hundredth time that day, "Wow! We look like a couple here."
That I'd do anything for you over and over again if you'd ask me to—if I knew it will make you smile.
Sukuna stole a glance at the drawing with mock disgust, and an evident flush of red dusting his inked face, "A couple of jackasses."
"HEY!"
---
What Sukuna said had rang true. No, not the 'couple of jackasses'. The part where he said that that'll be her last human contact for a while.
It had been three full moons since that last village, twelve since she had set foot in her home. Still, the seconds ticked by as though they were but a grain of sand in the endless desert.
Sukuna and the priestess traveled for a long time, passing by a long, deep ravine, walking through dark, creepy forests, and eerie swamps. As they crossed the distance to his castle, the more he began to feel the heaviness in his chest grow.
The curses lingering in the shadows began to act more unpredictable, fearing nothing, believing themselves to be the strongest.
“What is going on in that head of yours…”
Sukuna diverted his attention from the darkened borders of the woods and towards the priestess who had her hands supporting her head as her elbows rested on her knees.
“You always look so out of it ever since we came here.” She pointed out, tilting her head in question. “If you’re scared, we can just go back—”
“Whoever said I was afraid?”
“You don’t have to say it when it’s written all over your face.”
Sukuna scoffed. Why would he need to be afraid of himself? He could care less. At least, that’s what he wanted to believe.
Still, why didn’t it cease this hurricane of sadness wreaking havoc in his soul?
Crackles of the fire permeated the space between them. There existed no cicadas’ orchestra, no rustles of the foliage, the king even doubted if the zephyrs dared to venture into his domain.
It was just him in a place far too big for a single soul to inhabit.
“Do you think the king ever feels lonely?” The priestess stood and walked near him, not knowing that the person in her question was already at the receiving end of her words.
“So vast a kingdom for there to be no citizen.” She sat next to him, keeping her eyes on the dancing flames.
Sukuna didn’t know what to say. He was the king, renowned in all the lands. Demon king. King of curses. Calamity. He has had so many titles for the past century, be it as a curse or as a human. But he never chose to be labeled by any of those.
He had a name once, just like the rest of them. He once turned to see who uttered it so long ago, he would know he was needed at the mention of it, and he would be reminded of his own self—breathing, living—just like the rest of them.
“Maybe that’s just his fate. To be the abomination in everybody’s eyes.”
But now, his name was buried under the titles he was bestowed, woven in tales of terror, burned in history as the vilest demon to have ever been born. Perhaps he was far too gone in the oceans of his sin to be called by his name.
“No one is born to be hated, Ryoumen.” The priestess nudged his shoulder with her own, “I would know, the head priestess in the shrine I used to work at told me. And even if she didn’t, I’d still think so.” She smiled, seemingly proud of her belief.
“The same way no one is born to be revered by the heavens, no one is born to be the basin of everybody’s anger.” The priestess tossed a few sticks into the fire, watching as it burst forth to blaze once more. “Because that’s just cruel, isn’t it?”
“How do you bring yourself to love a world that did nothing but reject you?”
Sukuna stared at her in wonder. For so long, he lived his days believing that there was nothing in this world for him to have, nothing for him to hold dear, nothing to be blessed with. So, he took what he wanted… even if it already belonged to someone else. It wasn’t fair. Why does everyone have something while I’m here with nothing? Yet here she was, wholeheartedly believing otherwise. As the light of the fire painted her face golden, Sukuna found himself thinking, how could anyone… be as marvelous as her?
“That’s why I’m glad… that I met you. It really feels like a stroke of luck! After years and years of nothingness, nothing but this spiralling darkness, all of a sudden—there was you. I didn’t really know why I was born all those moons ago, but now the answer just seems so simple. Maybe, just maybe… I was born so I could meet you.”
He believes it then, if the world had so selfishly kept it all from him, letting him believe that it didn’t need him… Sukuna will just have to keep living for someone who does.
---
Her words shone like daylight in this never-ending darkness. At the falls of twilight, in the wake of dawn, mists of the afternoon, shadows of midnight, there existed not a single second where her warmth had ceased to be near him.
Sukuna recalls the tender falls of his name from her lips, and all her kind affection. All that happiness, all those adventures, and everything in between. He treasured them all, carving them deep in the shrines of his soul, promising himself never to forsake them, resent them, or throw them away. Even if the sorcerers of the future were to damn him into eternal suffering, he would never forget.
I would rather be pained by the reminder of you, in every corner and every turn, than to live a life without a single memory of you.
Because he knew that after this, there was no going back. There would be no tomorrow. No lanterns to keep the roads alight. No fires to keep them warm. No nagging miko to keep him company.
It would just be him all over again. A single soul in a world that was far too big.
"His place certainly fits the description." The priestess looked up from the sketch and towards the looming temple in front of her.
Towering pagoda-like spires, carved with serpents and grotesque faces, reached for the skies. Beams of darkened wood stood at held the obsidian tiles covering the expanse of the roof. Screen windows were sealed shut, leaving no room for glances as to what secrets it held inside all that ancient malevolence.
There existed no clear route to the palace-like structure, for it looked to be as if there was no need for one. Not a single soul had ventured here in one piece, nor had anyone been fortunate enough to leave with it intact. The grounds were overgrown with thorny brambles, shadowed by the foliage that left no room for the gale to weave through.
An eerie, dim sunray streams through the dense canopy, painting the cracked stone pathways with unsettling patterns.
The priestess looked to be hesitant to go through the thresholds of his home, although Sukuna guesses her reasons were far too different from his. She had probably feared for her life, much like many mortals do… yet he feared that beyond this, nothing would exist. Just like how it had been before he had come across her being.
“Ryoumen I—”
“Move forward, miko. The king is ahead.”
Sukuna led her through the winding corridors of the temple, finding every torch ignited to a fault, leaving no room for shadows to linger. Crimson and obsidian tapestries depicting the waking nightmare of mortals hung from the walls. The air was heavy with the scent of incense blended with something acrid.
"Who knew he was such a collector huh?" The priestess jested, trying her best to give him one of her grins—yet she, herself, found it difficult to perform such a gesture when she was walking under the ceiling of the place serving as the foreboding citadel of demonic power, within the realm where the demon king reigns supreme.
“Listen, Ryōmen—" she faced him and looked at his weary eyes, "maybe we should leave.”
She gave him a halfhearted smile as silver began to brim the horizons of her lashes. “We can just tell everyone that they were mistaken, that the king doesn’t exist. Or that we killed him—anything!” The priestess drew closer to where he stood, clutching the fabric of his kimono, scared of letting go.
“I thought this was your dream?”
"Please…" her words were silenced by the sound of doors sliding open, crashing against the walls with a resounding bang.
No… it’s not. It hasn’t been for a long time now.
The priestess felt her chest rise and fall as her breath slowly dwindled. With a guilt-ridden heart, her gaze trailed upwards, like those lanterns from all those moons before. She found herself desperate to trace the contours of his inked face, memorize the shade of crimson dyeing his eyes, see the hints of warmth decorating the plains of his cheeks. The priestess treasured them all knowing that after today… she will never get to see them again.
You were my new dream.
A searing pain flowered from the beds of her stomach, casting her vision to tunnel to the image of him—so profound, so out of reach… so pained.
“Su…kuna… ah, I finally… got to call… you that…”
In his bewilderment, ropes of blinding white erupted from the shadows of the corridor, binding the king in a heavy hold.
Sukuna clenched his fist in protest, desperate to break away—to catch her before she fell in a crumpled heap on the floor. Only to falter when it dawns on him that this was her scheme all along.
For so long, people called my name in fear, resentment, like I was the very scum that walked the earth.
Sorcerers emerged from the corners, flooding the halls in numbers. Dressed in white kosodes and black hakamas.
“Well done, girl.”
A man rounded the corner, his hair shaded in the likeness of snow, eyes refracting the color of the sky. Sukuna recalls those features, having been inherited from the clan they labeled Gojo.
Sukuna looked to where the miko lay, a hand clawing the floors to reach where he stood, bound beyond escape, while the other was dyed red from holding her wound. A very prominent arrow nock blooming past that kosode she so devotedly wore.
Beneath the stars, the demon grieved,
For love was true, yet hearts deceived.
The stranger knelt to where the priestess was, face down and holding tightly onto her wound as her blood flowed out of her body like waterfalls.
The man fisted the threads on her head and held it up, forcing her to witness the fruit of her crafted scheme.
The priestess, pure, in love so deep,
Had no intent for harm to reap.
Yet to Sukuna, it remained clear as daylight, that she wanted no part in this. Even as her life is held at the palm of another, ready to be taken away, she remained looking at him… like she had always done.
“Your precious demon king, about to be sealed away.” Seizou shook her head back and forth while the priestess could do nothing but clench her eyes and endure the pain.
“Finally, after all these years.” he dropped her to the floor, choosing to draw closer to where Sukuna was bound, “Your reign will finally come to an end—”
Seizou’s words were swallowed by the white-hot pain searing through his chest, blood pooling in the back of his throat.
“Too bad yours will, too.” The priestess twisted the knife, imbued with a thousand curses, deeper into the heart of the man, hilt painted crimson—the color of her life… the color she had come to love so ardently.
“SEAL HIM AWAY!”
But darkened plots from hidden hands,
Sealed his fate with cruel commands.
“It’s over—demon!”
The binds burned brighter, forcing him to revert to the form he was known for. One whose face was so deformed that humans were quick to conclude that he had two, his four arms tearing through the fabric of his kimono—the same one he recalls that she had held on so fervently.
Ah, the miko…
Everything slowed down. Her fingers freed the knife from her bloodied grip, staggering in her place and Sukuna closed his eyes.
As cowardly as it was, he didn’t want to see her turn away in resentment. He didn’t want to see the light, he had once been the center of its orbit, dim to leave him in the darkness. Sukuna, above all else, didn’t want his last memory of her to be one where she looked at him like he was anything but himself.
Humans prayed with their lives clutched so tightly, afraid that I'd be the thief that would take it away. Did they really deem themselves so precious that I'd steal their breath? It's kind of arrogant, really. The ones who declared themselves to be the humblest in the lands had held their souls higher than the heavens.
He was ashamed. Over and over and over again, he believed himself to be foolish—to have fallen so low as to crave the affection of a human. The priestess who was so painfully mortal.
But it remained. Every fervent thought. All the waking daydreams. Glimpses of heaven in you.
When did I get strung in such sappy things?
When did I...
Sukuna, feeling his fingers be burned from his limbs finally raised the curtains of his irises.
The hallways were free from noise, not a single breath in place.
“…hey.”
Aside from the priestess who lay beside his feet, tugging weakly on the seams of his clothes.
"Pretty... aren't I?" She laughs weakly.
"More like strange..." Sukuna could have sworn he heard those words before.
"And pretty."
"Sure, and pretty."
“I’ll… write your name. I promise… and they… won’t look like… summoning runes.” She coughed, casting away the substance that gave her life, no matter how painfully short it was.
How do mortals bear such anguish, knowing all that they loved would meet this end?
Sukuna spoke her name, one tethered with such earnest longing—a desperate plea for her to keep her life—to keep living, far longer than any other human. To outlive these sorcerers who gave him such a fate, even if it was just for a second longer.
“You… finally… called me… by my name.” The priestess smiled, letting her hand fall to the ground.
As the binds grew brighter, encasing everything in white, Sukuna caught the sight of a lone tear falling from the side of her eye, along with the words… “find me in the future.”
---
In realms where twilight meets the darkened sea,
A priestess loved the demon king, though doomed to be.
Their passion burned where stars and shadows blend,
Yet destiny decreed their hearts would never mend.
She fell to darkness, he was bound in chains so tight,
Their love a fleeting spark in endless night.
ao3: if I can stop one heart from breaking
pairing: hoshina soshiro x f! reader
genre: romance, angst
wc: 46.5k
status: completed
He existed in the morning dew, in the afternoon haze, within the illusions of twilight. He was there. In the silence of midnight, in the wake of dawn... he was there.
Hoshina Soushiro was everywhere... except right here.
He existed in every corner of the cosmos—just... not in the space beside her.
Content warnings: pre-canon timeline. hoshina is still babey here (if you read kaiju b-side yk what I'm talkin' about). arranged marriages. miscommunication somewhere in the middle if you squint. awful load of IDIOTS falling in love for the first time. I'd say this would be strangers to friends to lovers (who don't have label lmao). other canon characters aren't really present yet just hoshina and reader and hoshina's family and reader's family. idk what else I missed. angst. this was written in the middle of the night like most of my other works while listening to some face splitting music (whether that's from smiling or crying is up for interpretation).
A/N: this rotted away in my drafts for like six months before I wrote it properly. it also underwent a lot of changes because it was really supposed to be a one shot but look at what happened smh. anywho I hope it's clear enough or that not too many things are missing bcs damn i really cannot re-write this again.
─── chapter list: 11/11 ───
ㅤ♡ྀི ₊ the offer
ㅤ♡ྀི ₊ the catalyst
ㅤ♡ྀི ₊ the sun and the star
ㅤ♡ྀི ₊ the flares of the sun
ㅤ♡ྀི ₊ the chance taken
ㅤ♡ྀི ₊ the breaking dawn
ㅤ♡ྀི ₊ the promise
ㅤ♡ྀི ₊ the unravelling
ㅤ♡ྀི ₊ the vows
ㅤ♡ྀི ₊ the stars...
ㅤ♡ྀི ₊ the present
varka x reader. the grandmaster is coming back home to mondstadt, so what better way to welcome him with than a soul-snatching hug with his two most favorite people in the world?
includes: established relationship (you're married!), established family (parental figures to bennett), tooth-rotting fluff. version 5.6 livestream spoilers (varka character design)!
the letter came at sunrise.
you’d just finished feeding the birds outside your window when a falcon swept down with a scroll tied neatly to its leg, stamped with the knights of favonius seal and smelling faintly of wind and steel.
you fed it pigeon and waved goodbye as it flew back to its owner. you unrolled the letter, eyes scanning the familiar, bold scrawl.
to my better half,
by the time this reaches you, we should be making our final camp just beyond windwail. i’ll be home before sunset tomorrow if the winds favor me, and they usually do, when you’re at the other end of them.
i’ve missed you more than words will let me say, so i won’t waste parchment trying. i hope you’re well. i hope you haven’t burned the house down trying to fix the stove again. i hope you’ve been taking care of yourself half as well as you’ve always taken care of me.
more importantly, how’s benny? is he still the same? has he grown taller? i hope not as tall as his old man. hahahaha!
every time i saw the sun rise, i always thought of the two of you. it’s strange out here, with all the frost and fury of archons who knows, though it wasn’t the monsters or the maps i found myself thinking of at night. it was that kid’s laugh. that clumsy, firecracker spirit of his. and you, of course, always there, steady as a rock, no matter what storm we’re caught in.
there’s something i need to talk to you about regarding him when i get back. nothing bad, so don’t go pacing the floor to tear and wear just yet, but i’ve been thinking, and i want us to have the talk in person. just the two of us first, then all three of us together.
you don’t need to worry. he’s a good kid. you made sure of that.
… alright, alright. i can already hear you teasing me about getting sentimental. let’s blame it on the wind, yeah? damn thing’s been up my ass since i left.
i’ll be home soon. get the stove hot. i’ll take care of dinner this time.
yours always,
varka
and your heart swooned.
“he’s coming back?!”
bennett was halfway into his boots with a fork still in one hand when you told him. his breakfast lay forgotten as he practically leapt over the table, eyes bright with his face lit up like a pyro slime.
“tomorrow?! that’s, like, super soon! do we have any balloons? do grandmasters like balloons? should i polish my boots?!”
you laughed, catching the back of his scarf before he ran out the door.
“slow down, my dear! he’s not expecting a parade, it’ll just be us.” you ran a delicate hand through his white locks.
he insists, leaning closer to your touch, giggling. “but we are the parade!”
you spent the rest of the day preparing in the only way you knew how: tidying the house (a little), burning the stew (a little, just how your boys liked it), and making sure bennett didn’t blow anything up in the path of his excitement.
you barely slept, and by the time the first light hit the mondstadt gates, you and bennett were already waiting, standing just outside the city, the wind tousling your hair and a basket of slightly lopsided sandwiches made by the two of you slung over your arm.
and then, there he was.
varka strode up the path, just as massive and joyful as ever, with his cloak whipping in the breeze, greaves dusty, and that unmistakable grin splitting his face like a battle cry.
“there’s my favorite pair of troublemakers!”
“dad!” bennett sprinted forward first, nearly tripping over himself in the grass.
laughter caught in your throat as you watched him run.
varka swept the boy up in a single arm like he weighed nothing, twirling him once. you weren’t far behind, crashing into his other side. your arms wrapped around his broad shoulders, the smell of steel and pine overwhelming your senses.
“and you,” he said, lowering his forehead to yours, voice warm and rough, “are still the most beautiful thing mondstadt’s ever seen.”
you smacked his shoulder, caught between laughing and crying. “you’ve been back for thirty seconds and already flirting with me?”
“can’t help myself,” he winked.
bennett squirmed between you. “hey, hey! hug quota not filled yet!”
“oh? then brace yourself!”
varka lifted you both off the ground like it was nothing. you shrieked, bennett whooped, and varka just laughed, spinning the three of you once before planting his boots firmly back on mondstadt soil.
it was a hug big enough to make the wind hush.
you wrapped your arms around his neck, whispering into it, “welcome home.”
he held you tighter. “it always was.”
was i the only one who envisioned varka with chestnut brown hair, facial hair and scarring? this lowkey has me wanting to go back to playing just to see them in-game :(
ao3: as long as you'd let me
pairing: nagumo yoichi x f! reader
genre: romance
wc: 1.7k
status: one shot
If anything—Nagumo was the one who thought himself fortunate enough to be granted the chance to be loved by her. Everybody wants her—all the heavens wonder what it would have been like to love her.
And he was the only one lucky enough to do both.
When she met him all those years ago, [Name] couldn't understand why she felt so drawn to him. She could never wrap her head around the idea that tagged along when his image crossed her mind.
There was nothing special about him. Absolutely nothing. He was a face in the crowd. Someone who just so happened to be there when she was standing in the middle of the ballroom. He was someone who coincidentally just wanted to blend in—a dance was a redirecting tactic so it seems.
So why did his eyes look at her like that? How could he dare to look at her with all the stars in the sky and say it was nothing more than convenience? How could he play off this—this... this incessant drumming inside her chest that had her heart wanting to run out of her body and straight to him? How could he look at her like that?
How could he stand there and look like loving her would be his honor? That being on the receiving end of her adoration would be enough to last him this lifetime? Or that being the guy whom she harbored affection for would be the greatest thing he'd be blessed with in this life and all the next?
But he did.
He dared to dream beyond that moment, and it brought him to where he stood now. As if fate had a lasting impression on them.
Nagumo had met her again but this time, he was sure—this time he was sure he'd get it right.
"Nagumo!" A shrill voice called, running as fast as his legs could take him to the assassin who stood before the windows overlooking the gardens. "[Name]—"
At the mention of her name, he had already closed the distance that separated him from the informant.
"What—" his head turned in an uncomfortable position to glare at the man, "did you do to my wife?" His voice was frosted, as if they were plunged into the depths of the oceans that housed all his hostility.
The small man looked at Nagumo in fright, not expecting the assassin to hold his weapon against his person who only ever wanted to tell Nagumo the whereabouts of his beloved. He should have known something was off when his other superior, Shishiba, had asked for his assistance when the blond man had once never even bothered to accept any help from anyone before. The informant thought it would be a simple job, one that would end just like all his other errands: convey the information and be done with it.
Now it seems that his life would be done with before he could even finish saying what needed to be said.
"She—she," Nagumo lifted the man from the ground by the collar, inching the weapon impossibly closer to the area on his neck that could sniff out his life. "She's by the gardens—"
He couldn't even finish the rest of his sentence when the tattooed assassin had already taken off, disappearing behind the corridors with his yukata fluttering in the spring gale. The open window was the only remnant that he was even in the room, and of course the frightened worker who just wanted to do his job.
---
"So," Nagumo gazed at her softly, raising his eyebrow as a gesture for her to continue. "What are you doing up there?"
[Name] looked down at him from the tree branch she sat on. "Oh, you know... just admiring the clouds."
Earlier, Shishiba had asked her the same query, except her answer was far different from the one she gave her husband just now.
‘Why are you sitting up there?’ Shishiba would ask.
‘Waiting for my husband to come by.’ She would answer.
Perhaps Shishiba had informed Yoichi and he came rushing here like his life depended on it.
Nagumo leaned against the trunk and continued to observe her figure from below, threads of [h/c] waltzing to the tune of the breeze, leaves that fluttered across the space that separated them painted fleeting shadows over her face, the heavens housed within those vibrant [e/c] irises.
"Why'd you marry me, Yoichi?"
Her voice held a certain softness to it, as if she feared the answer that was yet to come. Did she think of herself as someone unbefitting of him? Does she label herself unworthy? Or was she in doubt of his affection?
She shouldn't.
If anything—Nagumo was the one who thought himself fortunate enough to be granted the chance to be loved by her. Everybody wants her—all the heavens wonder what it would have been like to love her. And he was the only one lucky enough to do both.
I love you, he would say. And I'll love you for as long as you'd let me.
"What are you talking about, dear?" he smiles, half a mind wanting to climb the tree and be nearer to her, the other half wanting to just stay put and see how nature pales in comparison to her.
"What makes me so special, huh?" [Name] leaned in further to the tree trunk, side-eyeing her proclaimed husband, mirroring the same affection on her face as he had held for her.
Silence was left to drown in the weight of her words, because as he was—Nagumo was unsure with what to say.
He could have named a thousand things—and he reckons a thousand more after that... and it still wouldn't have been enough.
It meant more to him, that day, that moment, all those moons ago.
When destiny tied her fate to his. The day the heavens smiled down on him and allowed him the chance to hold her hand. To dance with her under the guise of convenience.
She never knew that. And Nagumo was most certain that she never will. How could someone as great as her even remember the face of someone like him? Not when so many sunsets have already passed them by.
[Name] released a breath of air, eyebrows creasing as a look of anxiousness colored the hills of her face at his lack of feedback.
For the next minutes or so, she didn't bother filling the unnerving silence left by his unresponsiveness; opting to just permit the sound of rustling leaves to whisper melodies into her open ears.
"Nothing."
What?
[Name] craned her head to meet his stare, whether due to her being startled by his sudden answer or the meaning of what he just replied.
And she thought to herself, was there a proper way to sick a husband in the face when he tells you that there was nothing special about you?
"There is absolutely nothing special about you, my love," was his answer, smiling at the woman perched on the top of a tree branch as if his statement did not just cause a turbulent downpour of emotions in her heart. And he even has the nerve to repeat such things! And call her love! Has he relinquished all shame?
I may not have the most experienced dating life out there but I'm not so much of an idiot to not know that those words are not what you say to your wife! Even if we are married for less than a year!
"Tch. So typical of you to say—" [Name] rolled her eyes at him and looked away, crossing her arms over her chest as she directed her attention to the ducks swimming around the pond.
"It's just that—" he began, tapping the tree trunk in a karate style way and holding his arms out, "without you..." the grown plant started emitting creaking noises and soon enough it landed on the ground with a very noticeable thud, "nothing is special." He whispered, holding the woman who once sat on the now fallen tree.
"Now, let's go back inside... shall we?" he grins.
[Name] couldn't comprehend why she felt such emotions for him.
Yoichi was always so spontaneous and straightforward, he spoke when he felt the need to correct someone and he did so without remorse.
She didn't understand, there were so many people out there who are better than him and yet... her heart continuously longed for his attention, the kind of attention that she once had though she will never get.
In that light, during once upon a time, she had so badly wanted to give up on him... find someone better—still, the more she pried into his soul to uncover his flaws, the more his imperfection came flooding into her sight... the harder she fell.
Every breath he took was magic.
To [Name], every word he spoke was like a spell, hypnotizing her deeper into loving someone like him.
After years of questioning why she had fallen for someone like Nagumo, it soon became clear that she didn't treasure him just because he was good-looking, gods he had such a horrible fashion sense when he danced with her all those years ago... [Name] did not cherish him as she had now just because he had a nice smile, or a certain way with words that would leave her flustered or annoyed.
No.
Sure, she loved all those things about him and she knew that she would come to feel the same way many, many steps into the future, but those were something that could be seen by the world. Those were things that people could see—traits that others were capable of discerning at a single glance.
[Name] liked him because he was flawed, his imperfections were proof that even someone that seemed almost perfect as him, could feel hurt... could be capable of needing someone.
And I once had hoped that the someone that he would need could be me...
So how fortunate am I that I have you here? That you turn to me when you are hurt, or scared, or in need of someone to lean on?
It was nice to feel wanted—even more so, it feels nice when you are loved. But how many people can say that they feel safe? That they feel secure and seen; they cast away all the masks, all the faces shown to the world, every wall is still held up high but a door is wide open for you to enter. To see all the things growing in the gardens of their hearts, and know that you are trusted with something they held dear.
Nagumo could thank all his stars, every wish he had ever cast into the galaxies... but deep down, [Name] knew, she would always be the lucky one.
just a little something because I just realized I haven't posted this month ( •̯́ ₃ •̯̀) I legitimately have no idea what turn this took bcz it's past midnight when I bulldozed my way through this.
the short something story I was working on for Miyuki Kazuya mylovethelightofmylifebooboobearhoneybunchsugarplumappleofmyeyeicingonmycupcake got a little out of hand and now I'm definitely sure I can't post it by the end of the month because well—well it's not finished and also because my studies are killing me ｡°(°.◜ᯅ◝°)°｡ I hope you enjoy this ❤️ I love Nagumo.
ps. to the anon who had requested to me, I promise you it is on the way (pls believe me (つ﹏⊂))
ao3: until there's nothing left to lose
pairing: mydeimos x f! reader
genre: angst
wc: 1.6k
status: one shot
He swore to you that if you waited—patiently waited with all the love in your heart then he'll be back before you know it. He would be gone for a little while, just like how he'd always been all these years... but he always returned.
He always came home.
Always.
Many had called you stupid. Idiotic for tirelessly waiting for someone who was never going to return. But how could waiting be foolish when it's for someone you never stopped loving?
Someone has to leave first. It's a very old story.
"This is Mydeimos, Crown Prince of Castum Kremnos, Son of Gorgo—why must you have such a long title?" someone sighs on the other line, the once proud declaration rupturing to shards of exasperation. "No one told you to recite it all," another voice cuts in, weaving threads of barely contained mirth with the tapestry of someone's laughter. "Leave a message after the 'There is no word for that in the Kremnoan Language'—hey! I was just teasing!"
There's a strange sense that comes with losing someone you love.
"Hello, De... um," a breath stutters in the air, clouding in the little space where the light couldn't paint the walls golden. "Happy... Happy birthday, De. And uh..." footsteps echo in the darkness, bouncing off the faded walls and the upturned picture frames. "I know you're not around to hear this but I'm still waiting—" a choked sob cuts through the silence, tears painting the dusty carpets—and if someone were to listen keenly, the rumble of her scattered heart would resound in the never ending soundlessness of suffering.
In the far side of the room, another teleslate is alit, with the face of a smiling woman casting a glow against the ceiling.
Another breath is taken, careful and tightening... as if someone was pulling at the threads so a heart may not come undone. "You would have been far older today, and we um—we would have finished the pancakes." Pulling and pulling until the seams are dyed with the ichor of the sun god, until all the grief that threatened to flee would still remain where the ache continued to fester. "And I'm just so proud of you for being strong, and kind, and brave... and for being the one to drive the tides away."
Someone crumples to the floor, clutching a fading red robe embroidered with patterns that only ever looked great on him. "You know in a few days I'll probably be calling you again... to talk to you again." A broken exhale shatters the air. "Because that's the day you died."
One moment he's there; he's alive, and he's well and he's smiling. He's smiling—that big, daunting, happy smile he withholds like an oath. He's laughing at the dinner table, telling all about how his mother tongue has no word for such a foolish thing. He's across the room, or down the hall, maybe even hanging the clothes to dry at the balcony.
He's here.
He exists.
He’s okay.
"And in a few days... I'll still be waiting. And even more after that, I'll still be here."
One day he ventures out to protect your world—to protect you.
"But right now... right now I hope that wherever you are," you hold onto his clothes tighter... like it could somehow chain you tighter to the feeling of him. "I hope they have the best parties," you whisper, curling tighter into the space where you could pretend his warmth still existed. "And if they don't, you can always come back... and we'll have one here."
And there you catch yourself thinking, I wish things were different.
"I love you... and I miss you... a lot."
As if all the time the universe had to offer could never be enough... it was never enough.
Because now, the Titans have to break apart the framework of forever just to make room for the rest of eternity… because grief took everything for itself.
So here I am begging you to return, begging you for at least one more moment, one more touch... one more hug. But I can't...
Because one day—one day, there was someone at the door. And there you once cradled that fragile hope that he had finally returned. There was someone at your door, knocking.
Yet when you opened it—when you swing it open in hopes that he's finally home, you see someone in a medical coat or a police uniform, back then you weren't really sure because another thought, something you could hardly believe could come true, had taken root in your mind.
You knew it then, even before anything was said.
And before you know it, you're standing behind a glass wall, getting questioned if the person before you is someone with the same name as him. And you wanted to say no—no that can't possibly be him.
Because he promised he'd return.
He swore to you that if you waited—patiently waited with all the love in your heart then he'll be back before you know it. He would be gone for a little while, just like how he'd always been all these years... but he always returned.
He always came home.
Always.
So how could it be? That someone with the same shade of hair was lying on the cold slab of this godawful place? How could his markings be etched on this lifeless person's skin? How could his promises drift away like the lives he had fought so valiantly to keep?
The head healer asked you again, although you knew exactly that she was privy of the truth: he had broken what he had promised to you. But saying it out loud felt too much like bringing the weight of reality down to your frail, breaking hope—hope that he'll be waiting for you after you return from whatever the hell this was.
You don't cry and you don't falter... because you might as well have laid right there next to him, because all of you had died the moment you nod your head to say that it's him.
I understand. I don't understand. And still, you'll hold your hands over the ears of your heart, so that you will not hate him.
When the day settles into the hours of descent, you return home, saying the words like spellwork 'I'm home' but only the harrowing echo of your own voice greets you back.
For a moment, you're unsure of where you stand; if you're freefalling into the hands of Thanatos or you're stuck in a loop by the chains of Oronyx. Only one thing ever remained: silence.
It was strange not having to brace yourself for the chaos about to unfold at the other side of the door, that you wouldn't have to gather every atom of your patience for what awaited you. How the thing that should have annoyed you the most became something you wished to hear—to see just for one last time.
Because you don't lose someone once. You lose them in all the ways you used to love them.
You search for his stubbornness, for his grit, and his resolve. You look to the skies for his warmth, for the sun to mimic even just a fraction of his comfort—a mirror of his love. You look to the crowd for his voice, his firm, daunting, and commanding call. You tether yourself to his promises—the ones he had always kept until he broke them all at once.
Yet no matter how earnestly you hope for him to be there, to be at the center of ten thousand people, across the vastness of the world—all that remains is the silence of his absence, existing in the space he used to occupy.
You lose him for every moment you wake. You lose him in every breath, every thought... every heartbeat. You lose him when someone speaks his name. You lose him in every scenery, in the laughter he would have loved to join. You lose him infinitely. Grief would take him from you time and time again, over and over until you're grasping for the memories: his laugh, his smile, his face, his warmth, his voice—desperate to have even the slightest reminder of him... even if it would hurt you unendingly.
He was everywhere… except right here.
The space beside you remained cold, free from him. Devoid of the daylight that lingers around him. Forever an empty space he could no longer fill.
Time was the longest distance between two places. That he exists somewhere out there, untouched by the light of the sun you see now. And you exist here, where he is so far out of reach.
Before long you'd find yourself asking: were his eyes an everlasting shade of red like the flowers that bloom on the outskirts of the city? Or were they yellow, a mirror of the sun that continued to rise even after he was gone? Or gray... like how the world looks like after losing him.
You will never stop losing him, even if there was nothing left to lose.
You began counting the days since he left; then you realized that you would continue counting until there were no more days left to count. You would keep the flame outside the door of your house in a world he abandoned. Until even Thanatos, who had so cruelly taken him away... would clap in his awful way for how you held onto a flickering ray of hope that had already ceased to exist.
Many had called you stupid. Idiotic for tirelessly waiting for someone who was never going to return. But how could waiting be foolish when it's for someone you never stopped loving?
He seems to follow me everywhere I go: in the pancakes we used to share for breakfast, the children I see in the Holy City, in the gentleness of silence he loved so dearly.
I did a great job never once breaking down at the sight of his demise... but calling him and never hearing him answer is ripping me apart.
I'm happy to have had you... that the universe let me have you for a while. They gave you early—in its grandest mercy so it seems... because it knew that I wouldn't grow old with you.
“Happy birthday, De…”
not me writing this on notepad in light mode with my dimming bedroom light at 3 AM listening to sad songs because my brain struggles greatly with identifying emotions and that's been killing me for the past week and a couple of years or so 💀 writing is sort of like a safe space where I can depict it in the way my brain sees it and helps me practice with recognizing the patterns.
also my heart absolutely shattered when my sister told me what happened to mydei (no I haven't gotten to that part yet, I deadass teared up in front of her and began to cry and she just stared at me 😭) and I'm constantly bracing myself when I do the hsr quest but somehow it never really prepares me for what's gonna happen 💔
ao3: sunshine arrives with you
pairing: anaxagoras x f! reader
genre: romance
wc: 2.8k
status: one shot
art by: kanann_x on twt/x
I once believed it couldn't be true.
Love.
But I know now that it's real because you exist.
And you are filled with love.
Anaxagoras was certain, even in that little grove in time so long ago. He thought to himself: there was beautiful… and then there’s you.
Anaxagoras didn’t know how to put it into words, which felt strange because people around him usually talked about how he didn’t know when to shut his trap.
He didn’t know what to make of the world when she was near, or how to lasso back the colors when everything starts to drift away until she was all that he could see. When the ichor of the sun god bled in the shape of her, or when the wind sang in melodious orchestras just so they could dance across the threads of her hair; he didn’t know who to be, where to be just so he could feel the planar distance between them dissipate for even the transient of moments.
Just so he wouldn’t have to spend what little time he has for himself wondering how he could have been good enough to be at the receiving end of her light.
She was as radiant as the endless sky, colored in all the shades of life—draped in the infinite freedom far beyond the hands of the cosmos.
Anaxagoras was certain, even in that little grove in time so long ago. He thought to himself: there was beautiful… and then there’s you.
Her smile shone like a thousand suns, the zephyrs catching the ends of her clothes as her sandaled feet cut through the meadows of flowers. Her laughter rang across the plains, resonating over the mountain tops like the world itself wanted to keep her soul here forever—burying a fragment of her soul that she may exist beyond ever after.
Even now as she waved at him despite being so very far away, her sleeves dragged by her frantic movements of delight, Anaxagoras couldn’t see any of those hurtful resentments—the ones he had grown so used to—as if with her… they never existed at all.
“Anaxagoras,” she calls him happily, and every jagged edge of his name scattered with the light of her voice—of the way his name sounded so safe when she was the one calling him.
Her steps were muted as she climbed the hilltop Anaxagoras occupied for himself, and now he broke a piece of that space to give to her.
"Look! This new shop opened up in the village and they were selling these sweet things!" She handed him a small bowl with some milk custard pudding inside. "Try it!"
And there it was again, like he was adrift across the nothingness he knew existed beyond this finite space; that she was the only anchor he had across the plane that didn’t wait for anyone.
Anaxagoras nearly abandoned all his logic, all the things he held in such high regard, because there was no shackling explanation for this. No grounding theory that will make his heart stop its relentless drumming against his chest. He thinks that maybe the seasons gathered by the borders to confuse him—have him see for himself how the world looks like, how the world feels if he was treasured by someone like her.
He didn’t know what to make of it all, it was as if summer came during winter and spring took the place of autumn.
The world paled in comparison that’s why the gods were playing tricks on him, changing up the weather just so it could appear in its grandest form to woo him to their side. Because as he saw it… nothing in this bounded existence could ever be as beautiful as her.
Don't smile at me like that, he wanted to tell her. Don’t be kind to me. Don’t—don’t look at me like that. ‘Like what’, he reckons she’d say, tilting her head in that curious manner Anaxagoras was certain even she had no knowledge she was doing. Like you could love me…
“Hey.” At the sound of her voice, his eyes gravitated to her. “What’s wrong?” Her warm palm drapes over the hills of his cheek, thawing the frosted look on his face.
Anaxagoras had an unpaintable look decorating his being, torn between wanting to live the life he wanted to share with her and restraining his selfish wishes because he knew nothing good would come from living a life with him.
He knew that.
Anaxagoras knew… painfully so, how unnecessary all these feelings were yet they remained. Stubbornly digging their roots to the desolate lands of his mind. He knew and yet he could never understand why his heart ached for every moment he spent without her near, why it rejoiced in joyful praise whenever he laid eyes on her.
If his wishes were self-serving, why was his only thought when he was surrounded by everyone he knew… was her? Beauty meant less when she wasn’t there to share it with him. He discovers something amazing and his first thought drifts to her, that she ought to share this joy with him as well.
“Anaxagoras?”
If all his reason was telling him this was selfish… why did the idea of making her happy bring him so much joy?
A deafening silence settled in the space between them, nothing but the rustling of leaves and grass scattering across the sapphire skies.
“If it’s not to your liking, I can get you something else,” she offers, smiling softly at him with all the gentle assurance that made this feeling of falling through the clouds all the more prominent. Her hand stretched to retrieve what she had given him, worried that Anaxagoras might not be so fond of the popular confection.
Anaxagoras refused to give it back.
He places the small basket behind him, looking to check for certain that it was far enough that she couldn’t take it away. He breathed in, willing everything in the planes of his soul to cease their tremors—all the undeniable flutters and the barely suppressed fires always threatening to set his veins and his face ablaze.
Anaxagoras dared to steal a glance at her, patiently waiting for him to say what was on his mind. Maybe… maybe she could give him an answer. Perhaps the woman plaguing every corner of his mind was aware of just how haunted he was by the ghost of her, of how increasingly difficult it was becoming to pretend that he didn’t want to share this life with her and all the next ones to dawn.
Maybe she could silence the cacophony of uneasiness, have the waves cease their relentless roaring—silence them so they may never echo in the midst of the midnight mellowness. Perhaps she, alone, could bring him peace.
He searched her image, wanting to find even an inkling trace of contempt, a hint of disdain, or a trail that led to rebuke—all the things he has grown to ignore; all things he has gotten good at pretending that it didn’t bother him—if she looked to him with such resentment maybe everything will cease, but there was this twisting feeling in his stomach, whispering withered words about how his heart couldn’t possibly bear the weight; that the world could forsake him, and he would take it… so long as it was not her who abandoned him.
And he found none.
Anaxagoras faltered, such a strange thing for him to do. His oxygen taken away from the coves of his lungs. The words get stuck, his breath freezing in the tunnels of his throat.
Questions were things he loved, all things he treasured. But this… this one was something he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer to.
It was one simple thing, really. One he couldn’t really find the right words to convey until all he could say was, “Why?”
Anaxagoras calls her name, he calls her and he asks her one simple thing.
He refused to meet her stare, far too ashamed that he was even questioning her in the first place. His gaze traced the lines of the horizon where the setting sun was cradled halfway beneath the waves.
Everything in the world was doused in gold, from the leaves perched atop this tree to the snow covered mountain peaks that bordered them from the rest of reality, and finally him—Anaxagoras… Anaxa, whose eyes were like the mirrors of the sky that reflected a garden of neverending flowers. Anaxagoras whose hair was the color of newborn vines crawling on her windowsill… Anaxa who is followed by daylight—Anaxa who shines brighter than a thousand suns.
Anaxagoras… whom she loves more than there were stars in the infinite skies.
“Why are you so kind to someone like me?”
Her heart broke at the sound of his voice; of hearing those words be spoken at all.
She knew of his troubles with others, how they labeled him a lot of things because he was being who he was. She saw how his curiosity was painted as treacherous, a dangerous thing to wield—something to be at the end of everyone’s contempt; that they pushed him to the shadows every time he would touch the light.
She heard the screams, the anger, all the world's away echoed simply because he wanted an answer. She watched as he pondered endlessly, silently wondering what he did wrong… if his question was foolish or if they reacted like that because it was him who asked.
She saw how he broke apart the pieces and reformed them to make something new, she knew of his joys—of the nigh immeasurable happiness it brings him; fortunate enough to share some of this glee with him.
She knew how he once saw the world, feeling like he was stuck behind an invisible barrier, watching everything unfold before him—there, painfully present but never truly belonging.
She looks at him—at Anaxagoras as he tries to gravitate his stare to anything that wasn’t her eyes. She notes the way his shoulders tense, his jaw clenching from how often he swallowed, even the way his entire body moved like he was bracing for impact. Fearful she might be annoyed by him; that she, too, will shut him out without ever telling him why.
But the silence passed and the wind continued to rhyme, and as the last of the golden sunbeams were seized by the ocean, Anaxagoras finally gathered the courage to look her in the eye.
She doesn’t condemn him for his curiosity. She doesn’t rebuke him for his question. She doesn’t get angry. And she doesn’t yell.
She just sits there with him in quiet understanding, gathering all the honest answers she could scavenge in this boundless plane of existing right beside him. She takes his hand in hers, anchoring him before he could have the chance to drift anywhere else, almost as if she’s saying: I’ll cut my heart out open for you and have you live there so you may never inhabit another. I’ll lay it bare for you to take—to break if you must, so long as you can see the way I love you. And by all the gods I swear to you, if you knew just how much I adore you… you will love yourself in ways that will make you forget why you didn’t in the first place.
“Do you remember when you carved a droma for me when we had to sell Milo?” She catches his stare from the corner of her eye and catches that brief glint of recognition.
She smiles remembering the exact moment in time when her family had to sell their droma named Milo. She remembers crying, for days on end she cried, begging her mother to get him back—even promising to forsake all her snack times to buy Milo’s food. She didn’t understand then… why Milo had to leave. She didn’t understand that Milo was going to be leaving either way and that selling Milo was easier than having to see him die before her eyes.
She reckons Anaxagoras knew that, being the smart boy he is. He knew that Milo was dying and that’s why he had to leave, but Anaxa also understood that the droma’s departure also hurt her deeply.
So, a week after Milo went off on his adventure, Anaxagoras showed up in front of her windowsill. The same aperture covered in vines dyed the same shade as his hair. He met her tear-stained gaze and hesitated, fearing that he’d make her cry even more if he were to proceed with this plan.
But Anaxagoras remembers how she stood by the village gate every afternoon waiting for Milo to come back. He remembers how she still keeps his trough filled with water and how she always sets out redsoil in case he comes back when she wasn’t there and he was hungry. He remembers all the times she has welcomed him to look at Milo, how she smiles so kindly at him every time he asked if he could see the droma.
Anaxagoras threw his gift through her window and ran, not wanting to see how she’d react.
“I still have him,” she tells him, fishing out a worn wooden figure out of her pocket.
Now that he saw it, his younger self’s crafting skills were awful compared to his sister’s. His sister offered to help him back then, but stubbornly he insisted that he could do it himself. He did accomplish his quest albeit the rewards looked a little… funky.
She laughs at his horrified expression before settling the little figure between them.
“You might not notice it, Anaxa… but I should be the one asking you that. Why were you kind to me?”
She watches as his brows furrowed, mouth opening and closing as he skims through the archives of his mind for a viable answer.
Twilight veiled the canvas overhead, remnants of the sun’s colors lingering in the space nearest to the waters of the sea.
She didn't wait for his answer, she knew he would not find one just as she could not discover one for herself.
“If you think about it now, we didn’t know each other well enough back then. I was just the girl who had a droma living at the back of her house. I was happy to share him with you, and I knew you loved Milo just as much as I loved him.”
She looked at him, the way the shadows lingered behind him, never quite touching; never truly leaving. Perhaps that was why they were kind to each other.
“We didn’t ask for happiness, just for a little less pain,” she traced the lines of his face, remembering the creases and the hints of aureate kindness hidden underneath the blades of his sharp words. She memorizes the colors of his eyes, the way his hair draped across his shoulder in a loose tie, she takes them all in—kept them buried in the depths of her soul so she may never forget. “And you gave that to me… you taught me to be kind. To give it freely because the world would be a much better place if others feel safe in it.”
They say one cannot be kind and clever at the same time—
But she was.
She was every bit as kind as she was clever. And all the golden sunlight and the melted stars that flow across the obsidian sky bears witness to that truth.
It made him love her more, far more that the gods feared they would have to reform the heavens so his adoration could be caged by the finiteness of this world.
“Kindness… I got it the moment you loved me.”
Anaxagoras mapped the face of the woman he loved, remembering everything he loved—every fragment of her being, all the pieces of her soul. He remembers them all, swore that even if the heavens and the stars collide he would never forget.
He was kind because of her, because she never gave him a reason to think that kindness wasn’t warm smiles and welcoming embraces. She never made him feel like it was a curse to ask questions; gave him no reason to believe that anger was something that came at the price of curiosity—answers at the cost of rebuke.
Anaxagoras turned his head to gaze at her as they crossed the meadows on their way home. A thousand shimmering lights unveiled in the form of fireflies, mirroring the canvas of the obsidian sky.
He watches as she laughs, the sound clear as the waters of the heavens, warm like the breeze that came with the afternoon haze, the fires of her verity threading through the spaces she couldn’t occupy as if someone had bottled all the stars in the universe and cast them free underneath the dome of this planet through the shape of her laughter.
I once believed it couldn't be true.
Love.
But I know now that it's real because you exist.
And you are filled with love.
Kindness is real because I know you exist.
And it gives me more reason to believe that sunshine arrives with you.
I love anaxa so much 😭 I literally returned to hsr after two years for him and luckily I got him and his light cone. also, if he seems ooc or anything it's because I actually haven't met him in-game yet 💀 I quick started the amphoreus quest cuz I'm still on xianzhou last chapter.
But what really had me resonating with him was the fact that other people wouldn't answer his questions, and when he was little he just watched the rest of the world from afar, also that he gets joy from creation (you can probably tell I dumped my own experience there). the droma part though, now that was sad 😭 I gotta admit I sobbed like a baby while writing this. I was coughing too lmao (I'm literally on the verge of getting a cold bcs of the stupid weather changes).
I hope you liked it 💚
shishiba x f! reader :: read previous part here ::
The moment settles between them, comfortable and warm despite the onslaught of the frost. These were the times he hoarded—the small, ordinary magic that follows her like a phantom. When she remembers the things he does, grounding him to the reality that he exists, he is known… she knows him—and that perhaps would be the greatest thing to ever happen to him. That she builds a collection of things… kept a treasure trove of memories that belonged only between the two of them.
Shishiba doesn’t fight the smile that carves its way to his face as he watches her pour one too many sugar cubes into her iced tea, knowing he was gonna be downing that thing in the next few seconds because she was gonna look up at him, smile, drink, then grimace at the taste... and he would find himself thinking, I love you.
The days painted over like the canvas overhead changed from a burning orange to the depths of the ocean’s blues; the unreflecting shadows of midnight. Rain from that night felt so long ago, buried underneath the laughter and joy he never once believed he could be part of… much less be at the receiving end of the bud that flowered into a ray of blinding sunshine.
“I’m back,” he calls into the space before him. For a moment, he could hardly believe he said that, finding those words almost tasting strange.
A few months ago, when the doors of his apartment slammed shut—he’d say those words to the shadows, the large unoccupied space only ever greeting him with the silence of his loneliness. The single source of luminescence being the lights of the skylines, a beacon of life that was so devoid from his own home.
Shishiba has lived like that for so long… far too long that it had him freezing in his steps, the thought of going back to that life rattled his soul more than he would like to admit.
Because here, where her soul inhabited every little corner—his mind had found peace, his heart had known comfort, he found home.
All too suddenly, his voice had no room for lingering, no room for silence, reaching the caverns of her ears in less than five seconds—because she was already standing there, looking at him as if all it took to complete the puzzle of her day was to simply set sight on him.
“Welcome home,” she smiles at him, holding a ladle with one hand as she waves at him with the other.
And he wondered then, how he lived for so long without ever knowing this—how he could have stomached saying his greetings to a place that only ever echoed the sound of silence when there existed this space where all the broken fragments of his being gravitated to make home in a place where she is most present.
The smell of spices burned into the air, his skin taking on a warmer temperature—a dragging contrast to the harsh blades of the winter wind when he made the journey from his job to return here.
He took a moment to breathe in that he was home.
“Don’t just stand there, c’mon!” [Name] tugs at his arm, guiding him over to sit on the chair in the dining room.
Shishiba caught a glimpse of the kitchen as he pads behind [Name] on their way to the dining area: pots and pans scattered all over the place, sauce smudged over the counters, plates and bowls simmering in water by the sink, cabinet doors open haphazardly that if you weren’t looking, you’d slam straight into one or knock your knee into it.
“What’s all this?” He asks, casually leaning over the passthrough to look at the kingdom of madness that was once their kitchen.
[Name] buzzed around the place, rummaging through the drawers to look for utensils to go with what looked like a freshly cooked meal sitting on the clean side of the countertop.
She spared a glance over her shoulder. “Remember when I told you that I used to act and do plays?”
Shishiba felt the frost of winter seep through the cracks of his bones. Of course, he knew… he remembers that all too well. His mind slides through the events that happened right after he finished the job: the theatre shut down after one quiet word from the JAA, and despite the success of the shows, no other investor had the guts to put it all back up for fear of the association’s eye.
He knows that well. Back then he had to choose: shatter her happiness to save the lives of many—including hers, or keep that sunshine and watch it be taken away. And Shishiba would rather live as someone detested by her than live without her at all.
But he didn’t want to parade around like he was a saint deserving of all her kindness—no, that would be the same as playing her for a fool. So, for the past few days, Shishiba has been thinking of ways to tell her the truth. Rehearsing over and over the explanations in his head, assessing what he could tell her and what he couldn’t—still, nothing ever seemed to be good enough, the words catching in the tunnels of his throat torn between guilt and fear of what she might think of him.
So he held it back, kept it stored away in the back of his mind for as long as he could… until it all came crashing down from the most innocent way of her bringing it up.
“It… didn’t work out,” she grins sheepishly, shutting the drawer close completely oblivious to the raging war in his head. [Name] held the steaming dish with one hand, carefully walking over the ornaments decorating the floorboards of the kitchen. “But I figured, instead of pondering over the thought of acting like I’m cooking, what if I just cook instead, ya get me?”
She placed the bowl in front of Shishiba who was now sitting on one of the two chairs in the small room.
“Since you already proved you can make more than pancakes for dinner, I carefully deduced that you’d be the perfect taste tester!”
Shishiba was momentarily struck by surprise from her eager expression, one riddled in such gentle kindness and warm affection.
The rumble of emotions numbed at the sight of her, the hurricane of words silencing, the waves settling in peaceful calmness, shadows burning away.
He swore that if he were to be so lucky as to see that a million more times, he would never be tired of it. He would find himself wanting to see it more and more, for every single passing day, more and more… for every win against death and all that threatens to take him away.
She alone was enough to make him want to see another day.
“Here, here! Try this,” [Name] hands him a pair of chopsticks and nudges the bowl closer to his direction, excitedly occupying the chair in front of him to see his reaction.
Shishiba looks at the dish, the steam rising to caress his face. The food had simple colors—white, mostly because of the sauce and the pasta, green scattered here and there—and freely dotted with huge chunks of onions. Large pieces. Unavoidable chunks of onions.
Ah, Risotto…
He hesitated, the chopsticks already halfway to his mouth, his nose picking out the smell of that blasted vegetable despite all the other things that overpowered it.
[Name] tilted her head in confusion, brows furrowing at the sudden halt from a man who always looked and acted so sure.
“You don't like onions,” she points out, not a question but a realization.
Shishiba stiffened, squaring his shoulders like he was getting ready to fight for his honor. “I love onions,” he protests, the words faltering—rotting away from the acid of disgust lacing his tongue.
“Yer face says otherwise,” she snorts, playfully pointing at his face: a mixture of disgust and a wry smile welding together to form the unpaintable image of his expression. “You look like you’re about to burn the building down.”
There was no trace of anger in her words, just the quiet amusement left in the echoes of her voice.
She draws closer to him—a five-inch dimension separating her face from his. “Your left eye does this little twitch when yer trying not to be rude, did you know that?” She laughs, her fingers hovering over the meadows of his cheek as she exaggerates the unconscious habit with her own eye.
He froze, unsure of what to make of it all—he kept catching himself doing that a lot: staring, just looking at her like he could hardly believe she’s really there. Shishiba could have shoveled an entire field of onions in his mouth if it meant she’d always be this close.
[Name] smiles at him again, she’s always doing that—grinning like there was nothing wrong with the world, as if she decorates the heavens with every shade of happiness. “It's alright! wait here okay.”
Oh.
Moments later she comes back with another pair of chopsticks in hand, scooting the other chair closer to where he was. “I hope you're not too picky about saliva,” she chuckles, carefully picking the onions from the dish. “This is kinda sorta the only thing that made it out alive," she glances at the kitchen seen from the passthrough, the mirror of her mess staring right back at her.
“The rice pudding became rice cement,” she tells him, grimacing at the sight of it still sitting on the pan looking like industrial adhesive—it could probably melt through her sink at this point. “Also we don’t talk about what happened to the bread,” [Name] looks at Shishiba pointedly, though—he knew that her stern stare was all for show, nonetheless… he would respect her wishes of not wanting to be questioned.
She shakes her head as though the shifts of her muscles could rid her of the thoughts of her kitchen endeavours before returning to her task of plucking the onions from his food.
“You don’t have to—” really, she didn’t have to.
“Almost done,” she insists, the chopsticks clipping away at the unwanted ingredients with remarkable speed.
Oh…
Unable to watch her any longer, Shishiba swipes the bowl from the table, hurriedly shoveling the food down his throat—onions and all—and swallows.
“'s fine,” he says, a soft smile carving its way on his face.
[Name] stares at him, bewildered beyond belief, one hand still outstretched as she once tried to steal back the bowl of food, the other still holding onto the chopsticks. The worry in her eyes shifted to take on a different form: warmer, welcoming… shaded with the patches of sunlight.
She lowers her arms gently, an unconscious surrender. And she laughs.
She laughs and everything is shaded lighter, every bit of shadows fading away until all that’s left is the light of her eyes, the warmth of her soul… until it’s just her.
“You’re such a dork,” she tells him, voice saturated in the oceans of her affections.
His world came to a standstill. Every star nestled in the depths of the cosmos had ceased their dance. Blackholes frozen mid-spin. Nebulas that scattered like clouds lulling at the echo of her words. It drifted from galaxy to galaxy, in different timelines, in every version of existence.
There was no rebuke from her, no words directed to ridicule him for what he dislikes, no coercion to try something he didn’t want to.
Just that quiet acceptance for who he is.
I like you.
Shishiba could hardly believe this to be true. All this time he wholeheartedly believed he was asking for too much—set standards so high it felt like reaching for the stars. But no...
She never made him feel like she was asking for anything at all.
Ah, I like her.
There was no need to deny it anymore, not when his own soul recognized that fact and proudly held it close to where he was most vulnerable.
If she cared for him like that... like it was an honor, a privilege, something she did—not because she was forced to, but because it was something she wanted to do... something that gave her joy—something no amount of money... no amount of anything could compare to.
How could Shishiba ever begin to think that he was asking for too much?
She would never make him feel like that.
And in return he would swear that he would never be the cause of her sadness... of the tears. He would never.
Because he loved her. He loved her so...
Shishiba loved her that the thought of hurting her alone would break his heart, render him to tears before he could even bring himself to do it.
He was willing to share every bit of hardship with her. All the tears. All the pain. All the laughter.
He wouldn't even hesitate to risk it all. To him, she will never be a burden. Never an afterthought. Never a liability.
He would make effort feel effortless all for the sake of her. To see her smile. To hear her laugh. To make her feel happy. To let her know she will always be loved. Even in the littlest ways possible.
Maybe then she'll know... that for all the years to come, she would never be asking for too much.
She was someone who worked without complaint, even when there was nothing left to give.
And Shishiba was willing to give everything. She could ask for the stars and he’d lasso every single one of them. She could ask him for the oceans and he’d spend his midnights bottling up the sea. She could ask for the heavens and he’d already be there in the clouds.
He would give so much that she may never feel the absence of what she couldn’t have.
Because he loved her.
And he doesn’t need any other reason.
The days passed him like starfire, the suns melting to merge the scenery to a brilliant blur. His thoughts dispersed across the sky, casting his worries and troubles far into the horizons of the earth where they were oceans and shores away from him.
Nearly three weeks later, she was sitting across from him on the roof of probably the world's shittiest building ever. The neon lights of the skyline faded to the winter night, rumble of the city life echoed in the distance—muted by the space none of them wanted to cross.
Who would've thought, huh? That the ever elusive Shishiba of the Order could be found just hanging around in the most dreadful place known to mankind, eating take out of the kiddie meal from the nearest diner because it was the only thing on the menu he found pleasing.
The obstruction light glowed above them, momentarily painting them red before the emergency light finally flickered to life.
She spread the checkered picnic blanket across the cemented floor, smoothing it over and sat down, patting the space beside her as she looked at him with expectant eyes.
“Ya know, most people would complain about having to eat dinosaur nuggets for dinner,” she eyes him, unwrapping her own takeout meal with careful consideration all the while swatting away the gentle descent of the snow.
Shishiba plops next to her, the warmth of her life bridging the gap between them to make home on the surface of his skin. The cold of the season seemed to dissipate when she was near. “Most people have terrible taste,” he chuckles, reaching for the little box that housed his dinner, biting into a nugget shaped like a triceratops. “Besides, they come with the little sauce packets with different dinosaur labels. Very sophisticated.”
“You kept the brontosaurus one from last time,” she recollects, thinking back to the little sauce packet hung by a magnet on her fridge back at her apartment.
“That’s Arlo, you know,” he replies pointedly, his hair flowing freely in the winter wind.
“Arlo is an apatosaurus,” she corrects, smirking smugly at him. “There’s a difference because brontosaurus are—”
“Okay, Jurassic Park employee I get it…” Shishiba playfully pulls her cheeks, relishing the way she tries to swat him away.
He lets go and she begins to laugh, and he wonders briefly if daylight took shifts ten at night in the middle of winter, the sound echoing in the abyssal nothingness that once bordered him from the rest of the world, the same ravine that couldn’t even echo his name.
He keeps the little pieces of her, bottled them up for a rainy day, treasured them all, willed them to remain there for a little longer—just so he wouldn’t feel so sick from wanting to see her all the time.
“Oh yes, nuggets… very haute cuisine. I’m sure the Michelin inspectors will be lining up to see Dino Diner any day now.”
“Don’t mock the Dino Diner,” he fakes offence, squinting his eyes as snow falls in graceful curtains around her.
“Of course, my lord,” she bows, mimicking a posh accent before breaking off to a laugh.
The moment settles between them, comfortable and warm despite the onslaught of the frost. These were the times he hoarded—the small, ordinary magic that follows her like a phantom. When she remembers the things he does, grounding him to the reality that he exists, he is known… she knows him—and that perhaps would be the greatest thing to ever happen to him. That she builds a collection of things… kept a treasure trove of memories that belonged only between the two of them.
Shishiba doesn’t fight the smile that carves its way to his face as he watches her pour one too many sugar cubes into her iced tea, knowing he was gonna be downing that thing in the next few seconds because she was gonna look up at him, smile, drink, then grimace at the taste... and he would find himself thinking, I love you.
I love you and you don't know, and it's killing me that you don't know.
The scene plays out in front of him like clockwork—and even as she knows that she has done this a thousand times already, she still has the audacity to grimace and make a face and say that’s too sweet.
“I don’t know why I keep doing this,” she coughs, unconsciously pushing the glass towards him.
“You’re such a dork,” he shakes his head but takes the drink anyway.
Shishiba catches her staring, tilting her head sideways in that little manner of hers that never fails to brighten his day, and for a moment he thinks he's brave enough to say it.
Three little words at the tip of his tongue. Three little words that could tell her everything and he would still feel as if he hadn't told her anything. Three little words yet they feel like the weight of the world was on his shoulders.
But he took too long and the moment passes, all the courage he stacked upon one another crumbling at the sight of her wandering gaze.
Shishiba takes the balled up straw paper and flicks it at her, trying to pass it off that it was all he intended to do.
“Hey!” She yells, rubbing the space between her eyebrows where the paper ball hit her. “Real mature, Nugget Boy!”
He raises a brow at her questionable name for him—really? Nugget boy? Shishiba wanted to laugh but one look at her had him doing otherwise.
She was already crumpling the paper, balling it up with haste he didn’t know she could have. “Oh, yer gonna regret that.”
“Am I?” He smirks, dodging her poorly thrown projectile—even if she wasn’t a hundred yards away. It hits his shoulder and bounces to the edge of the building.
“You have terrible aim,” he teases, flicking another paper ball in her direction which misses just as he intended.
“I was going easy on you,” she huffs, already reloading her ammunition by balling up the tissue paper.
They dissolve to a brief, childish battle of paper scraps and laughter, until they were both breathless and the blanket is littered with their weapons and snow.
She was leaning against his shoulder now, and Shishiba wondered if she could hear his heart hammer against his chest.
She laughs.
She laughs and he swore to every good and terrible thing on this planet that he would never want to live another day without hearing it.
And he thinks, after all he's been through, in this moment kept in the deepest depths of his most fond memories—a trove so carefully lined with her image, the figure of her being, and the light of her soul… he would have all the time in the world to say it.
Her voice passes through the snowflakes, a cloud of white taking form above the hills of her lips. It fills the hollows of his being, spaces he never knew existed until she came along and made home in them. She traces the frost that began to coat the blanket, trying to set her sights on anything long enough to pull the courage she spent so long gathering.
“I won't make you guess,” the words hang between them like the snowfall. “I'll tell you now, I like you…” [Name] looks at him, she looks at him and the world stops meaning anything. She looks at him and it all goes to silence, nothing but the words she spoke ringing in the caves of his soul—in the domed nothingness of his once monochromatic life.
She looks at him… and nothing else matters.
“It's sorta embarrassing to say given that we're both adults and all and I have this silly little planet-sized crush on you, ya get what I'm saying?”
Her breath catches and she tries to laugh it off. [Name] wanted to run, she wanted to get as far away from here as possible. Her heart was beating a thousand rhythms, in a million different melodies, far more than what her head could process, fingers shaking from more than the winter cold.
But she remained.
She stayed and it felt like an anchor for him. All those carefully practiced words, midnights he spent looping those words in his head desperately wanting to do it right—say it right… and she beat him to it, stole it right from the vaults he’s kept shut and locked with her honesty.
“You deserve clarity and respect. You deserve to hear that I like you. You deserve to know that. I don't want you to misunderstand. I don't want to confuse you. I don't want you to question what this is,” she reaches for his hand, one that didn’t know where else to be if it wasn’t holding hers.
“I just feel like I need to tell you because out of the many things I can't give you at the moment, this one I want to.”
He steals a glance at her, forced his heart to muster the bravery to face her candor. His heart thrummed with the life of his adoration, banged relentlessly against the walls of its prison like it wanted to run to her—run as fast as it could to bridge the distance so it could find peace in her arms. The gales in his lungs dissipated, leaving him gasping the syllables of her name; eyes brimming with every color—begging her to set him free.
Every star dimmed to darkness, the lights of the skyline blurring out, painting everything in nothingness until all he could see was her.
[Name]’s eyes held no hesitance, no trace of deceit… nothing but her heart laid bare for him to take; her affections his to keep.
“But I have to ask you to wait.” And there it was, the catch that made his heart stutter. “Wait for me, and once I fulfill my promises... we can reach for our dreams together.”
Oh…
She looks at him, never once jaded, not once forceful… just that quiet lingering hope that her feelings be returned—her one simple request be granted. “Loneliness makes you settle, it makes you hold onto the what ifs... makes you wander in the almosts. But I don't want you to feel that love is waiting for nothing.”
It wasn't fair.
She wasn't being fair. No, not at all. He wanted to say that—he wanted to scream out his frustrations, not at her—gods, no. He would never do that. He wanted to yell at whoever made it to be this way. Why did it have to be so difficult?
Shishiba spent so long trying to think of the right things to say, all the great things to tell her... and she just—she just spells out the yearning in his heart like it was nothing.
And there was nothing scarier than that.
Because he knew right then and there, that if she asked him to do anything... he would do it. Not because it was easy. Not because it was convenient or something he was tasked to do. But because she was the one who asked. She was the one to ask something of him. And above all… it was because he wanted to.
Silence blanketed whatever distance was left between them, the life of the city humming from afar. In that glowing dome far in the horizon existed a whole new world, but all that really mattered to him was the one sitting next to him.
Shishiba could feel her watching him, perhaps anticipating a rejection that would never ever come. Within the tiniest space in the infinite vastness of the universe he realizes that no amount of rehearsal could really prepare him for the real deal.
“You don’t have to apologize, [Name],” his voice sounded steadier than he imagined—for once, no ivy curled in his windpipe and pinned his thoughts down, and he turns to her fully, the winter wind dancing softly in the golden threads perched atop his head.
Because he loved her.
“Some parts of life are worth waiting for.”
More than anything else... Shishiba loved her.
I would wait a thousand lifetimes for you…. and you would only ever need to ask.
Her figure sags against him in relief. She was probably thanking all her lucky stars right now, he didn’t even need to ask her if she was… he could always tell from the way her eyes crinkle at the sides, how her smile stretches so far he wonders if it could reach her ears. Shishiba could tell… because the entire sky lights up when she was happy.
She could thank every heavenly body out there, pray to all the gods and deities and give her gratitude but Shishiba knew… he would always be the lucky one.
[Name] reaches into her coat pocket, pulling out a small wrapped object.
“Here,” she places the gift in his palm.
Shishiba looks at her weirdly, but nonetheless unwrapped the present. A small tie pin now sits on the palm of his hand—a tiny thing shaped to take the form of a hammerhead shark. How cute.
“Happy birthday, Shishiba.”
“Osa!” An older girl hastily dropped the plastic bags, its contents spilling all over the floor as the eleven-year-old launched herself forward. Her small body hits one of the corners of the counter in her frantic rush, her arms wrapped around her smaller form just in time to shield the little one out of the way before the boiling water topples over.
The smell of burning skin permeates the air mixing with the steam that rose from the puddle ever growing on the floor—fogging the windows barring them from the world outside. The ringing echo of the stainless pot trying to find escape in the cramped space was soon numbed, and the cry of a young child shatters the silence that followed soon after.
The older girl swallows her anguish, beseeching the ivy in her windpipe to pierce it with their thorns. There was no reason to complain… no reason to break when someone else needed to be soothed.
But Osaragi was already crying—raw, fine-tuned to absolute mortification, terrified sobs only a child could make, something that came from a place of pure confusion and fear.
“Shh, shh, it’s okay. We’re okay.” [Name] whispers, her voice was shaking just as terribly as her hands but she still forced herself to smile at her sister, tried to be as gentle as she could as she cupped the younger one’s tear-stained cheeks. “Are you alright? Are you hurt? Tell me, Osaragi, it’s okay…”
Trembling fingers ran over her sister’s arms, her legs, looking her over and making sure she wasn’t burned.
“Nee-chan…” she calls instinctively just as she always would when she didn’t understand anything. She doesn’t know what happened, why her sister was looking at her with eyes wide in panic, why they still tried to look happy when it looked like she was going to burst into tears.
“I’m here. I’ll always be here,” she keeps repeating, pulling Osaragi to her chest despite the pain that spiderwebs across her body. She was still so small herself but the weight of the galaxy had already been placed on her shoulders—responsible for everything, guilty that she was a step almost too late, desperate to fix what was beyond her control… wanting to know more than what she did now.
“You’re safe now. I got you…”
Osaragi continued to cry, unable to understand anything at the young age of five.
She didn’t understand why the kitchen smelled so bad. Why the floor was hot like the sand at the beach, why [Name]’s voice sounded strange, or why her back felt wet and sticky.
She didn’t understand why she heard soft cries that night, or why there was red paint on the cloth in the trash bin at the back the next morning. For weeks on end, she didn’t know why her big sister walked that way, or why she continued to smile and pretend like everything was alright.
All she knew was something awful had almost happened… and [Name] made it go away, just as she always did.
Osaragi closed her eyes, holding the sleeves of [Name]’s clothes tighter—fearful that a moment of weakness will seep through the cracks of her knuckles and her big sister will be taken away.
[Name] feels the weight of her decision… all the patches of shadows she managed to cast away so that Osaragi will stay a child for a little longer.
Perhaps that was what love meant: putting yourself between the people you care about and all the things that want to hurt them—even when you’re a child yourself, even when you need someone to protect you, too.
The seasons changed, and the moon waxed and waned—summer’s zephyrs floated to the cooling embers of autumn, and the rain that fell in murky puddles and auburn leaves frosted to live through winter before awakening within the vernal embrace of spring.
Many sunsets slipped past the horizons, the twilight veiling over that small home hidden in the countryside. Dawn breaks over and painted the fields in golden light; a thousand times over—with little to no reason at all.
Much like the shifting seasons… childhood—or what was left of it… had to go away too. To make room for things in life, things we don’t want but we have to do anyway.
“Highschool?” Osaragi blinked owlishly at [Name] as she sat in front of her older sister in the living room.
[Name] took a shaky breath, knowing full well this was going to take every ounce of her strength to finish without causing too much pain.
She nods at the twelve year old girl, unfolding the paper to show her the acceptance letter. “You got accepted,” she smiles softly, “at that good highschool across town!”
Osaragi mirrors her sister’s expression before her eyes clouded over with confusion. “But that’s… expensive, isn’t it? Even with the school handling most of the fees.”
[Name] places the letter under the picture frame on the small coffee table.
“Yeah, there’s still things that they can’t cover,” she purses her lips, inhaling a staggered breath as if the oxygen could give her an extra dosage of courage to help her say what needed to be said. “That’s why I found work—good work that pays well… in the city.”
Osaragi’s smile faltered, and that small action alone tugged at the seams of her unravelling emotions.
“In the city?” She echoes, unsure of what to make of her sister’s words. “How… how far?”
“A few hours by train. But Osa—listen,” [Name] reached across the small distance between them, trying to take her sister’s hand but Osaragi pulled away. “I’ll send the money every month. More than enough for everything you need, and we can eat all the pancakes we want for dinner—”
“No,” Osaragi shakes her head, looking her sister dead in the eye with something taking form in the shape of betrayal. “No, you—you can’t…”
“Osaragi, please, just listen—”
“You want to leave,” the accusation permeated the distance between them—seemingly widening the abyssal nothingness that was already keeping them apart from one another. “You’ve been planning this, haven’t you? You want to get away from here. From me…”
[Name] felt her heart shatter. “That’s not true! I’m doing this for you—”
“Stop lying!”
The sight of her usually apathetic sister with silver brimming her eyes had [Name]’s words catch fire in the tunnels of her throat.
“If you really cared about me, you’d find another way! You’d stay! But you don’t want to anymore, don’t you? Because you don’t wanna be here anymore!”
“How can you say that?” [Name] stood up, unable to bear the weight of her scrutiny. “All I’ve done—I’ve done for you! So you could live a better life! Every choice, every sacrifice—”
“Then why?” Osaragi’s tears were overflowing… and it hurt [Name] more to know that she was the cause of it. “Why are you leaving me?”
“Because this job pays three times more than what I could make here. Because this is the only way I can afford what you need—”
“I need you!” Osaragi screams. “Not some fancy school or new things just you!”
“You need a future,” [Name] voice wavered. “You need opportunities I never had. You’re so smart, Osa, so much smarter than me—and you’re kind, and you deserve the world. You can be anything—a doctor, a teacher… anything you want. But not if you’re trapped here with me.”
[Name]’s words felt like a condition, a prerequisite that made her choose—like there was no other alternative. Maybe there wasn’t. Maybe, in the magic of growing up… [Name] made her believe that there was an infinite amount of things to choose from, and that in itself was a dream colored to life because in reality, choosing was a luxury people like them couldn’t afford.
Choosing was expensive—nearly unattainable… and [Name] always found a way to give it to her for free, asking for nothing more than for Osaragi to be okay—for her to live a happy life without ever knowing how difficult it is to be suffocated by the air you breathe.
Maybe… growing up really does mean leaving a few things behind.
Osaragi shot up from her seat, trying to get away from [Name] who was trying her hardest to make her understand. Her hand—desperate to flee from her older sister’s touch collided with the picture frame on the table, knocking it over the edge before the resounding crash seemed to echo with a foreboding finality.
Something seemed to shift between the two of them… like a star dying out to feed the flames of the other.
Osaragi stared at the shattered glass on the hardwood floor with dark empty eyes, shards refracting the daylight that flowed in angled beams—pieces of fractured stone scattered over their smiling faces.
She thought that maybe… maybe growing up means some people grow apart.
Osaragi’s fingers found their way to the photograph. The bright, hopeful eyes of her eleven year old self looked unfamiliar, the person beside her… so much more so.
She looked so happy, so content, so… permanent. It must be the world’s greatest magic show… because not even a year later, that same person was going to leave her all alone.
Anger bubbled in the depths of her heart, and before [Name] could stop her, the sound of paper ripping bounced within the four corners of the room. Osaragi tore it right down the middle—their only photograph together—separating their smiling faces forever.
“There,” she whispers, the two sides of what was once one fluttering in the cold summer wind, sinking to the surface of the earth. “Now we’re already apart. Just like you wanted.”
Osaragi was already running by the time [Name] came to her senses, and the sound of a door slamming shut felt like a talisman sealing her away from her sister. The painful melody of it echoed harrowingly in the narrow halls of their small home—a space in time occupied by the two of them.
[Name] sunk to her knees, shaking fingers gripping the torn paper like her hold—through sheer willpower and begging—could piece that thing together, dare to reach beyond that and press against the shattered pieces of everything that ever went wrong.
But reality didn’t work like that. No matter how much we prayed for it to be different… some things just have to be as they are. It was unfair—a lot of the things in the world were, still… it doesn’t alter the truth that we live in it.
Her hands trembled underneath the weight of it, how unbearably tragic. God… she didn’t want to leave. Everything in her burned the thought of wanting to go away. This was all she’s ever known—this house, this town… this life, Osaragi—everything she loved existed here, everything she wanted to protect.
But protection meant sacrifice… didn’t it? It means doing the right thing even if it hurts… it means sacrificing some things so we can make room.
The job in the city paid more in a month than what she could make here in five. And that in itself was a difficult thing to accept… because no matter what she does here, no matter the sleepless nights she pulls, the jobs she works—it wouldn’t be enough. She would be making her sister’s life harder, and she would have to ask her to abandon so many things. [Name] would have to ask her to leave the chance of living better just so she can spend her life just surviving day by day.
[Name] wiped away her tears, pocketing the picture of Osaragi’s smiling face before she marched up the stairs.
She pressed her palm against the wooden door—a flimsy thing yet kept [Name] worlds away from her like a dimensional barrier.
“Osa…” she whispers, her throat threatening to close in on her. “Please open the door.”
Silence.
“I know you’re upset. I know this feels like me abandoning you—” her voice falters, and she could have sworn the last pieces of her resolve dissipated. “But it’s not, I promise you—I promise you it’s not.”
Still nothing.
[Name] rested her forehead against the door as she breathed in a shattered breath and closed her eyes.“I’m scared too, you know. Scared of being alone in a strange city. I’m scared that you’ll forget about me or that someone will hurt you, that I can’t protect you. I’m scared that I’m making the wrong choice,” she breathes in again, trying her best to keep her voice steady. “But I’m more scared of you ending up like me—working dead-end jobs, never getting the chance to be everything you could be.”
“Go away!”
“I love you,” she tells her, tears streaming down her face—a final plea to make her understand. “Everything I do, I do them because I love you.”
The silence stretched on, nothing but faint shifts in the wind telling that her sister existed beyond this space. [Name] wanted to scream—she wanted to yield, wanted to just stop trying to make all of this go away. She was tired too, she wanted someone to try for her too, she wanted to breathe—breathe even just a five seconds worth of oxygen without feeling like she was being crushed from the pressure of trying to be everything that her sister needs.
She began to hope that maybe—just maybe… her sister had fallen asleep, that maybe in the morning, they could try again, find the right things to say without hurting each other.
But the frost of her words came with an echoing finality…
“I hate you.”
And as the moon crossed the distance of the sky, how it beheld [Name] whispering apologies to wood and silence—how those words let loose on a whim would haunt her for the rest of her days, have her stare at the horizons flooded by the neon lights asking the stars: Are you doing well? Are you getting enough sleep? Have you eaten yet? No matter what she did, where she went, who she met... [Name] always thought about her—with an eclipsing permanence…
Even as the midnight sun descended to the breaking dawn, even when she saw the rustle of her curtains the next morning, even as she sent the money the following month—just as she promised, even when the moon shone through the patched-up curtains.
Always.
Even as the patches of sunlight begin to fade.
The tears of the heaven fell in crystalline star drops, coloring the city with the weight it cradled for so long. Lightning split apart the skies as thunder rumbled in the distant skylines, rainwater flooded the street, flowering in puddles scattered by the beating of a thousand footsteps.
Even in the midst of spring showers, life remains flourishing in Tokyo. Everything was still bright—blinding, casting the illusion that nothing within this dome of light could ever cease. Every sound rounded the corner, echoing for the briefest seconds before they’re swallowed by the spider-webbing orchestra of everyday life.
“How much further till we reach the station?” she asks, pulling the ends of her jacket impossibly closer as the rain began to intensify. Her teeth chattered with the cold, accompanying the rumble of the trains travelling across the city.
“Maybe about five more minutes,” he stares at her from the corner of his eye, bag draped over the mountain of her shoulder—one he insisted on carrying but she was far too stubborn to let him do it. “We can wait somewhere if ya want,” he suggests, fingers itching to just swipe that darned thing weighing her down.
“Nah, I’m quite fond of the rain,” she grins at him, reaching out a palm to catch the tears of the sky.
There was something nearly binding that came with the seasonal rain, how—on some occasions—the slightest rays of golden sunlight would cause them to refract the colors of the universe. The way they would fall almost infinitely—like it would be the last they’ll ever live so they have to make the most of it.
There was beauty in falling so [Name] believes.
And Shishiba believed there was beauty in her .
In [Name] and all that she was, even when the downpour threatened to douse her in eternal frost. How the warmth of her happiness seemed to ward the storm that came unannounced. The light of her smile pierced through the clouds that loomed when things weren’t going as planned. When the pull of her gravity felt a little too strong for him who wanted to stay in orbit.
And I’m quite fond of you…
They walked in a bubble of silence—the rest of the world tuned out that they might remain in a space where only the two of them existed, where they could at least pretend that a hundred thousand footfalls didn’t swallow theirs, where they had all the time in the world.
“Shishiba,” she calls to him, stopping in her tracks—the city blurring past her in a plethora of speeding trains and hurrying footsteps and scattered umbrellas. “Thank you…”
He turns to face her, just as he’s always done. “For what?”
She seemed to be at a loss for words. What did she want to thank him for? Why was she even thanking him?
“For eating with me at the rooftop,” she blurts out randomly. “For helping me fix the leak by the door. For—”
Ah, there were lots of things she wanted to thank him for—to repay him even if it was just for a little bit. So, so many things she wanted to talk about, so many more things to show him that she loves him…
“—for being you.”
He smiles at her, he smiles and [Name] swears to all things good and bad that it was simply one of the most beautiful things she has ever seen.
And she thinks, after all she's been through, in this moment kept in the deepest depths of his most fond memories—a trove so carefully lined with his image, the figure of his being, and the light of a thousand city lights… she would never go a day without wanting to see him.
His voice passes through the rainfall, a watercolor of the surrounding colors melting in the pools of his irises. It fills the hollows of her being, spaces she never knew existed until he came along and made home in them.
Time fractured—the hollering panic of the other block flooding the gates of her eardrums. And in the distance—amidst the fluttering bokeh of the skylines she sees it, something that sunk into the meadows of her fear.
Her eyes flickered back to him, perhaps he, too, felt the foreboding sensation creeping up his spine but she was already a step ahead of him.
It’s better this way. It’s better this way… it will be better this way—
The physics was simple—tragically so, one singular push; strong enough to get him out of the way, heavy enough to keep her there.
Shishiba crashed against the pavement, the umbrella he held falling to the concrete sidewalk, vision spiralling into panic—raw, unadulterated panic. Fear. Something he swore he kept locked and hidden away in the darkest corners of his soul.
Her voice was still as clear as the waters of the sky, crisp like the early morning breeze in the days of the fall when the zephyrs would ruffle the strands of his hair, the fires of her touch spider-webbing throughout the corners of body as if someone had bottled summer’s lightning and cast it free in the coves of this damned place through the shape of her fingers.
She was there…
…in the middle of the road.
She—she wasn’t… moving…
And he was breathing—painfully alive in a way that made his stomach churn because he knew he wasn’t supposed to be here.
When the haze diminished, his body moved like clockwork, rushing to the space she occupied—where she lay like a canvas painted by the reaper. A painful inferno rages in the caves of his lungs, burning the oxygen he needed to breathe. His heart racing far too fast for his head to keep up, the gales in his lungs stolen just from the missing glance his way—the same one he’s gotten used to—the same one he’s been desperately hoping to get, his eyes blazed with every color, creeping up from the sides of his vision, darkening everything else until all he could see was her—[Name] lying in the middle of the road like a broken doll, the ichor of her life mixing with the pouring rain.
Blood painted the lilac of his dress shirt, the delicate cloth marred with the scars of death and unanswered salvation.
“[Name]!” Shishiba yells, his voice raw and desperate—cutting through the storm and the chaos of sirens and panicked sorrows.
He calls her name over and over again. Uncaring of the glass that pierced through his skin, of the rain that ruined his clothes, or the blood that curled around the hills of his cheeks. He gathers her into his arms, trembling at the feel of just how frighteningly light she’s become, how the winter wasteland had already begun to ravage her soul.
“Shi…shiba?” Her voice calls through the rain, searching endlessly like she was stuck and couldn’t find her way back.
“I’m here. I’m right here—” he answers, brushing her hair back, feeling his hand go through her hair that was drenched with more than just rainwater.
She reaches a shaking hand to hold his face, her palm coated with a frost that felt like a stranger. “You’re okay…”
“Yes—yes, I am… and you’ll be too—” he tells her, he tells her those words over and over again: it’s okay, we’ll be okay, I’m right here, he would say it so much Shishiba began to believe he was doing it for his own sake.
“That’s good…” she replies, eyes hazy and unfocused, her ears blurring out the sounds around them—the approaching ambulance, the gathering crowd, the rain that seemed to grieve her fate.
And it hurt to see her going away. It hurt so much to see the light in her eyes begin to dim—like the last bits of starlight fading to oblivion. It hurt to see her struggle, to see her suffering.
“No. No you—you can’t… you can’t do this to me. Please… you can’t just—” his words came in overlapping begging, desperate and pleading, as if he could somehow bargain with fate—praying for the heavens to never take her away.
“Hey… hey it’s okay…” she tries to smile, but he could see it in her eyes that she was in pain… that it was taking everything in her not to scream and cry.
Shishiba took it all in, everything.
“Shh, don’t—don’t talk, please… it’ll be alright—” he pressed his forehead against hers, feeling her shallow breaths against her skin. [Name] shook her head weakly and placed her bloodied hand on his—the same one that grounded her to this fading reality. “No… listen—”
The feel of her skin against his, what little warmth seeped through her fingers and descended on his skin. He tried to remember the color of her eyes, how they’d shine when she sees him walking through the door. He tries to remember the sound of her laughter, the very melody he’s heard a thousand times—the same one he wanted to hear a million more times and know he’d never get tired of it.
“Please, [Name]—you can tell me later. I’m gonna get ya to a hospital and we’re gonna—you’re gonna be… we’ll be okay.”
“Listen to me… please,” her voice was growing fainter.
He tries to remember her voice—his name when she was the one who’d call him, when she speaks to him with all the kindness in the world. Shishiba maps the reminders of her being—the anatomy of her soul, every memory, every moment, every single thing he ever shared with her… he kept them all, burying them in his little island—far from this wretched reality so that no one could take them away.
“Okay.” he surrenders.
“I kept it. I—” she coughs, every word struggling to get past the ivy that was poisoning her throat.
He holds her tighter, like he could somehow press against the fractured pieces of her life—keep her soul from leaving him if he clung to her long enough.
“... I kept them all. Every memory of you, the—the sauce packets, hair ties. Yotsu—” she coughs again, the sound was painful and terrible, ”He… was right. You are kind. And you… you deserve the world.”
Her eyes were always looking for him. She was always smiling at him like he hung the stars in the sky—as though he painted the colors of the sunset, tore apart the skies to make room for twilight, as if he was the one who kept the light for midnight, shattered the shadows to give way for dawn.
The sound of the paramedics faded to gray, as did the rain and all the things that wanted to take her away.
“I was happy… when I—when I was with you… so, so happy… and I think I never told you that enough.”
He would clear the galaxies for her, weave all the sunshine and all the patchwork curtains, and the onions and risottos, and everything that she is into the tapestry of his mind—swore that even if heaven and earth would collapse on him, he would never forget.
“Thank you… for everything. For letting me love you… thank you…” her eyes were losing focus, but they found his gaze for one last time—there was probably nothing left for her to see… and yet she still found him effortlessly.
“Take her to the moon for me…”
Because he knew that after today... he would never see her again.
His own philosophies sounded so cold—how vulnerability is something people like him aren’t allowed to feel. So heartless. The words he spoke so long ago to his master felt like thorns, almost like he was looking at him from beyond the hundred miles that kept them apart with something akin to I told you so.
Years of killing hardened his resolve, made him numb to the joys of everyday life…
Was there a world where this didn’t hurt? Was there a place where this didn’t happen? How could he explain it to his heart whose first and only thought right now was oh, I need to tell [Name] about this. She needs to know… and everything will be alright.
If he travels the earth, if he goes to the ends of the horizons—hours upon hours behind this place, will she still be alive there? Where does he need to go? What did he have to say? How was he supposed to be?
Only tell him the way… and he will make it so.
But real life didn’t work like that.
No matter how much we prayed for it to be different… some things just have to be as they are. It was unfair—a lot of the things in the world were, still… it doesn’t alter the truth that we live in it.
Because the way Shishiba sees it, no matter how much we want it... no matter how badly we want to reject the future ahead of us...
Some stories... just don't have a happy ending.
There were many things Shishiba did not like.
The leak by the door. The neighbor's flower bed. The unclean second floor windows above the convenience store in the middle of the block.
He hated the unkept theatre on the other side of the city. He didn’t like benches by the park. He disliked the overly busy crosswalk near the train station.
And he detested the rain.
He didn’t like the detergent that smelled strongly of flowers. He hated the taste of onions, the way it sank into the plains of his tongue like venom. He hated getting hurt and going back to where he resided with nothing but the cold air to welcome him back, a mocking congratulations for seeing another day. And most ardently, he hated it when normal people got involved in something as uncivilized as killing—when their lives are disrupted by the world of assassins and destruction.
Shishiba hated a lot of things… more things than he could count on his fingers.
Often, he would find himself thinking just how on earth did it ever come down to this? That he would find things underneath the finite vastness of the skies to hate—to spell curses over, when during once upon a time, he looked forward to the days he would see them.
How did the world he had once seen through a kaleidoscope of colors turn so unbreakingly black and blue? How could a city that echoed with the chatters of everyday life—bouncing over every turn and corner—be so unbearably silent? How should his heart take it when the place scattered with a hundred thousand people feels so agonizingly empty?
He believed it would stay like this for a while—a good long while he supposed.
If he was lucky, maybe he would find a way out of it. If the heavens would permit it, perhaps a droplet of the sun could find its way to him, for a chance to thaw the frost carving its way through his soul. And if destiny was kind… maybe—just maybe—it could go out of its way to answer his call.
Shishiba didn’t believe in gods. He didn’t believe in the stars—in wishes. In hopes. They were foolish as they were childish. Killers had no need for such fickle beliefs, much less allot time and space in their lives for ungrounded optimism.
But for this one… just this one time, he would do it.
For his only desire, for the one thing he wanted to keep more than his life, he would. He would pray to every god. He would catch all the stars. Whisper to the heavens his wish over and over and over again just to make sure the deities above could hear him. He would tell the skies and the earth and the oceans of his wishes… and maybe then, at least one of them could hear him out.
Just this one time and he would never ask anything from them ever again.
Just once.
For this one soul. For just one life. For her… who had so been easily taken away from him.
I never told her a single goddamned thing. Not a single one... not the assassin, nor these wretched emotions that haunts me to this very day. God... I didn't even tell her my name. There was nothing for her to remember.
For [Name] whom he loved more than anything in the world.
What did she think of me during those moments? What a foolish thing to ask. How could she even think about me... when there was nothing to remember.
For [Name]... who had long returned to the worlds he could never reach.
Yet she told me all that there is about her. I could talk about a hundred thousand different things that I loved about her and I would still never run out of things to say. I could tell every single person in the world about her and it still wouldn't be enough.
How sick could destiny be? How could retribution find its way just when I was on the brink of giving it all up? How eager were the heavens to punish me—that they had to take her away? The only person I wanted to keep. The one thing I was willing to break the order for... the only one I had. The one person, [Name]... who was so easily taken away from me.
How ironic. A man who was trained in a hundred thousand ways to take a life, someone who couldn’t see the value of it… had learned its meaning from someone who knew nothing but how to cherish the time she was given, someone… who had so been easily taken away.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy anyone could live through would be the heartbreak that came after being loved.
How the feelings never truly fade. How they linger like the shadows that followed daylight. The way they remain in all the things you see despite them returning to the worlds so far from reach. That the once joyous hymn your voice would sing is nothing but a distant echo—something you couldn’t even replicate no matter how hard you try.
The cycle of the stars continues; days fade into nights as the dawn breaks the darkness yet… he remained—remained in this endless desolation that came with the emptiness that somebody left behind. Because there was this space in his heart that someone could no longer fill, how it would stay like that because he refused to let anything but the memories linger… because there’s nothing left.
That you would hold on to the pain, to the heartache, to every goddamned reminder of it because it’s the last thing that still exists.
The tragedy of being loved, woven by the threads of fate… written by all those who have been loved only to have been left behind.
I haven't known her for long but she existed in all the places I loved. She was there in everything that it was hard to see them without her. She was there for all the times I've cried... and the thing was that—for a good long while, I could never picture her leaving.
Because nothing could have ever been more hateful than failing to save the one you love. To have been left in a world where another has gone…
I could never see her living a different life. Wholeheartedly, I believed that she was never gonna get taken away. That she could never die...
But she did.
They couldn't even give me enough time.
I just got you... so why do you have to leave so soon?
Not a single second to spare. Not a minute too late. Not even one more day. The universe forbade me from that... all the means to have her longer. All the ticking seconds gone in a single moment.
A rainfall. A Thursday. A crosswalk.
Gone.
Just like that.
Footsteps thundered against the concrete pavements, like the leaves of the trees as they descended from the heavens, leaving the trees barren in their wake. Branches, dyed by the color of the earth, reached for the never-ending canvas overhead, painting shadows on the amber-littered city spellcast to move a hundred times faster than the steady pace of the countryside.
The air was cold, winter once again looming over the borders of the seasons. It seems as though seven long years could never truly numb the ache festering in the bowels of his heart—what was left of it at least.
Not now—especially not now…
“Shishiba-san.”
Is this retribution? Did she get it from you? Shishiba has been called many things in his life, his name would be the most prominent. Still, to be called so familiarly brought a stinging pain to his eyes, pierced straight through the walls he had spent so long trying to piece back together.
A young woman weaved through the currents of people in downtown Tokyo. Threads of flowing obsidian trailed behind her, blanketed by the veil she had worn so devotedly since so long ago. The briefcase she’d gotten from someone in the past was held so dearly between the bars of her fingers.
“Osagari, target’s up ahead.”
But Shishiba would not have it. Not now—not when the ghost of someone he loved desperately always came back to haunt his every waking moment, in everything, in all that he did—she would exist.
“Careful of civilians.”
She would continue to live in all of this because Shishiba would never let the memory of her die.
In the blues of the heavens, the cold of autumn, in the warmth of spring, the pancakes he would eat for dinner; the suit jackets that smelled of flowers, hidden behind the hangers of his clothes—unused since the day she left.
He would paint her in this world, place her image in everything that he may never live without the thought of her.
No matter how much time willed her to be forgotten… he would make sure she would never truly disappear.
Even if it was at the price of his protoge’s anger. At the expense of getting killed by his student. By the hands of this strange farmgirl—Osaragi, the one person [Name] loved more than anything else. The person she would have risked everything for to protect.
“If any of them get caught in the crossfire, you’d be grilled by the JAA.”
Maybe that’s why people like her were fated for transience—destined to leave the world so early, so that they may never have the chance to see just how cruel life could be. That they may forever remain untainted by the wickedness of humankind.
Beautiful things don’t seem to last very long… and those who have come to love them, Shishiba who had left a trail of blood for every step he took, was the one left to remember just how easily kindness could leave.
To be reminded of how cruel and unjust fate could be… to have let two souls meet, when there was no way for them to be together.
Losing her felt like losing the sun. As the world is doused in the colors of twilight, left to settle in the wetlands of the night—people close their eyes to pass the time, yet there he remained, waiting patiently for dawn to break… and it will.
Only this time, she will be nowhere near.
Not on the second floor of the convenience store, not at the benches by the park, not in the theatre that took an hour’s commute.
She wouldn’t be near, and she wouldn’t be here… and it wouldn’t matter how long he scavenged the city—tear apart the world to search for her, drain the oceans to look for her there, it wouldn’t matter.
Because the place she went to was unreachable.
It’s hard to stay in the city she used to occupy. It’s hard to see the things she used to love. And it’s even harder to see the passing suns knowing she wouldn’t be there.
He believed it would stay like this for a while—a good long while he supposed.
Until then, until the pain is numbed with time and the memories are blurred by tears and blood, it would stay like this.
Until one day, he views the world once more through patches of sunlight.
A/N: HOLY MOTHER OF CHEESE THIS TOOK THREE MONTHS it's been sitting in my gdocs staring at me to finish it 😭 but I had to be careful not to write rashly bcs I didn't want to accidentally write on a case study shared document. deadass cried in my dorm room as I wrote some parts of this, and cried even more when I wrote in the middle of the night in my own room 💀
to be honest, Shishiba was like an npc to me when I read the manga 💀 he was just there and I was here like 🧍♂️🧱🧍♀️ so our paths never really crossed. then I watched the anime, then I heard the accent and GOOD HEAVENS ME FJAHJFDJKASHKAS yeah I fell in love. there's something so inherently, downright diabolically captivating about that Kansai accent 😩 also, ik it doesn't snow in september... but it worked with the scene and I just didn't know what to do but just roll with it 😣
ao3: patches of sunlight
pairing: shishiba x f! reader
genre: romance, angst
wc: 33.9k
status: one shot
Shishiba clenched his jaw. You need to get your shit together. There was no room for this, no space in his life for fickle affections—'I'll make room', such was the weight of the sentiments nestled in his heart, inescapable… tied to all the songs it sang in the dead of the night. It was within the confines of his body, tethered to the arteries and veins that kept him alive, cradled in the protection of his muscles and the bars of his ribs—you’d think his heart would think of him, put him above all else… but harrowingly, it only ever echoed the shadows of her smile, mimicked the color of her laughter, delighted in the thought of knowing she was near.
So agonizingly full of her it was blasphemous to even call it his own.
A great many things existed that Shishiba had come to love.
He liked the vending machine by the supermarket—the one that always so conveniently had those fancy orange juice in stock. He loved the quiet neighborhood with the well-kept flowerbeds, flourishing in a plethora of colors—as if the painters of the heavens had descended to color them whole, or a good gardener took care of them every day. He liked the quiet playground that was always cluttered with children, their laughter and joy painting the azure canvas overhead.
Shishiba liked it when the curtain of clouds parted and the world he sees is littered with patches of sunlight.
He loved Thursday mornings, the only time of the week where it was neither too lax nor too hectic which meant he was always free to do what he wished. He liked autumn, it brought forth the meaning that his birthday was near.
And he loved it more when everything faded to silence; a rift in reality where he could at least pretend that he lived a normal life—not that he would ever wish for one—that he wouldn’t have to hop around the city because settling somewhere is dangerous and foolish, because for a moment… he could just be Shishiba.
Shishiba liked the predictability of his routine, the way he could have just about everything in the palm of his hand without having to worry about getting disrupted or being hindered by sudden pauses.
But life had a funny way of knocking down the things he had spent so long building—whether that would be the finely curated dishes he would eat (the ones with no onions) or the gaping ravines in his life that couldn’t even echo his name.
A shrill cry shattered the bubble he unknowingly caged himself in, fragments of his inner thoughts scrambling to reach the far horizons, fleeing from his iron grasp.
One moment, his hands were hidden in the pockets of his pants, the next—a shadow painted the place he occupied for himself.
And before his head could wrap around what on earth was going on—
Thud.
A weight crashed on him.
Forceful—like a comet plummeting its way past the five layers of the atmosphere… slamming straight to the earth to carve its way into the soils of the planet—to the contours of his life.
His reflexes—sharpened and polished far greater than the hammer he held close to his heart, and pocketed somewhere in his jacket—had him moving out of his way before he could restrain himself and have this foolish little cleaning imp fall to her doom (a puny six foot drop). His arms looped around her figure, securing her who—quite literally—had fallen into his life… marring his soul with streams of blinding sunshine that he wanted to take a step back, shield his heart for what was about to come.
Still… even after all of that, he remained grounded… basking in the light of her existence.
The person blanketed in the warmth he called his own had her eyes closed, bracing for a fall that was never going to happen—no, not when his own body had gone out of its way to betray him just to make sure she would be alright.
A white, now grime-covered, bandana covered the expanse of her forehead, face painted grey from the dust.
Underneath the autumn skies, when the light of the afternoon sun had slipped past the curtain of clouds, the sight of her became saturated in patches of sunlight.
Her weight against him felt strange. The way she fit just a little too nicely in his arms. But he didn’t have much time to think about the oddly unreasonable pattern his heart was doing, nor the acid burning through the organs in his stomach, not even the way the horizons of his fingertips felt like they were on fire.
Because not long after—an uncomfortable cold doused the frame of his figure. This is not my day. The stench of cheap detergent and dust came flooding his nose, much like the way the dirty window water came seeping through the fabric of his socks… and his very expensive suit.
The bucket that used to hold the substance (now spilled all over Shishiba) landed on the ground with a resonating thump, bouncing over a few times before rolling just beside his feet; an exposition to the story of what the world like to call ‘tantalizing the thursday of a hitman’.
Shishiba blinked the water out of his lashes, gazing down to see just who exactly would be the one to pin the blame onto for his current predicament.
Staring right back at him were the eyes of what he could only describe as a puppy waiting to be scolded and was already planning on ways to coerce its owner into forgiving it through sheer pouting and faking patheticness—well, unlucky for her, Shishiba was immune to such underhanded tactics.
Unknowingly, Shishiba tightened the hold he had on her. Glaring fiercely at the figure in his arms who was trembling—whether from fear or embarrassment, he couldn’t tell.
If this woman thought she was gonna get away from trying to assassinate him in the middle of the day through the use of such cheap, unoriginal strategy then she had another thing coming because he wasn’t someone so easily—
“I AM SO SORRY!”
… swayed.
Shishiba momentarily forgot how to breathe.
“Oh—oh my goodness. I gotta call my—no, no we can handle this. No biggie. Uhm, oh gods yer drenched,” the lady rambled on, wiggling free from his grasp to which Shishiba impassively complied to; having her fall on her backside straight through the cold, hard, window-water covered pavement with an oomph.
She quickly scrambled to her feet to bow to him. “I’m really sorry! I—I didn’t mean to, honest! I was just cleanin’ the windows and then the ledge gave out and—and gravity—then this and the water—”she frantically gestured to the windows above the store where, surely enough, a roof tile had gone missing, as if that alone could be enough of a reason to explain how she’d gone from scrubbing glass to falling straight into his arms.
Seeing as the stranger wasn’t having any of it, she begrudgingly pursed her lips and lowered her head in shame and embarrassment.
He had this stony look on his face like he wanted to disassemble her being so he could hide her in different parts of the city where she could never be pieced back together. Like a limited lego set people coveted. The glint in his eyes could not be mistaken for anything other than annoyance—would he really go so far as to kill her for this? Surely not, right?
At the sight of the mess she had made of him: red dusting the apples of his cheeks (most profoundly from anger), the globs of dust hanging off the golden threads of his hair, and the shallow breaths he took as he tried to regulate his heartbeat.
He must be really upset.
His suit—his expensive looking, once cleanly pressed, suit had been drenched, dirtied, and ruined completely; doused in murky, dust-laden window water.
[Name] felt the cold creep its way through the trunks of her spine again, and before it could reach her brain stem and have her freeze where she stood, she got down on her knees once more, forehead kissing the pavement, unrelenting until she attained his forgiveness (or until she was sure that he wouldn’t file a lawsuit against her).
“I’m sorry! Really I am—”
Shishiba thought this woman was apologizing too much. She said she was sorry far too many times that sooner or later he was going to believe that her name was sorry. It was just a suit—his suit that cost him nearly half his last job’s payment. Truly, he felt aggravated that it was ruined after just one wear but he didn’t think that was something worth sacrificing one’s dignity over and go as far as bowing to get his forgiveness—
“If you’d allow me to pay you back—no, I can’t afford that—” when Shishiba snapped out of his daze, the lady had already gotten up, standing before him in all her average height glory.
She was still apologizing, her fingers partially hanging off his dirty suit sleeve. Her hands trailed forward, like her touch could magically revert the ruined fabric to its former glory—and Shishiba had half a mind to believe that it could—only to have hesitated half way.
“You’re drenched! And your face—”
Shishiba felt his eye twitch.
What was wrong with his face? Did she have a bone to pick with him over what he looked like? Why would she be upset that he was ugly?
“—you looked so mad. I would be mad too! But please don’t be mad, I swear I wasn’t trying to—”
Oh.
Her hands flailed in the air as if the skies above held the solutions to all her problems.
Shishiba wanted to say something—anything—just so she wouldn’t take him for a pushover, or someone who was upset (even if deep in his heart he truly was). But her apologies took up all the space between them, littered the atmosphere with every possible plea for forgiveness that it was difficult to try and let it be anything else.
He was left to stare as she talked animatedly, her words going through one ear and out the other simply because he knew she would be rambling about the same things over and over and over again.
Her sincerity scrambled the emotions he had once felt.
I should be angry, his thoughts echoed distantly. I want to be angry.
Still, he could not conjure the emotions. He couldn’t even feel the drive to be in such a state. Could it be the weather? Or could it be her? This tiny, puny, weak little lady who was shaking in her shoes like a wet dog, eyes darting everywhere to see just how far her silly mistake had cost her—well, him. The lady who could take up all the space underneath the heavens and Shishiba wouldn’t even think twice as to let her do it… and he didn’t even know her!
There could only be one explanation for this…
She was a witch!
“I—I can fix it!” She declared, tugging on the edges of his clothes.
What?
“I’ll wash it!” She insists, smiling at him eagerly, nodding as if to encourage him to let her do this one small thing. “I ruined it, so—so by the rules of fairness and equality I should clean it! I’ll do it properly! I promise! Ya wouldn’t even tell the difference!”
Shishiba stared at her, internally wondering if she had fallen to the ground too hard. His first thought was to let her do as she pleased, which in itself was not right—witch I tell you.
He purged the foolish thoughts in his head, he wanted to refuse. Yes! Refuse. That sounds a lot more accurate.
But he took one look at her—just one—and his knees felt weak, his heart thudded against his ribcage, and all the world felt lighter. The sunbeams punctured through the wall of clouds, the summer gales crossed the borders of the seasons straight through autumn where he currently breathed, on the surface of the planet he inhabited… the space before him was shaded with patches of sunlight.
He wanted to argue; say that she shouldn’t go so far out of her way. Shishiba knew that she’d fight him on this matter—not in the way that involved violence—but under the morals that she would not relent until her conscience had been cleared, in the desperate-to-make-it-right kind of way.
Before his head could descend from the dreamscape he had unconsciously traveled to, he found that he had already taken off his suit jacket.
Just how willing was his body to listen to this woman that it couldn’t even wait for him to finish articulating his thoughts?
“I’ll do a good job! You can count on it,” she smiles at him, one so blindingly warm and eager that he nearly fell over.
How long was it since someone smiled at him like that? As if he couldn’t have been farther from the words said about him, told in the darkest corners of the city, shaded in contempt, riddled in every tone of fear and malice.
Shishiba knew he didn’t have to show up to get his jacket, he didn’t even have to give it to her at all… he could just take it right now and be done with it, get someone else to do it—someone who would not look at him in such a way.
Yet he made no move to take it from her grasp.
Seriously, what the hell is wrong with me?
“Ah—” she exclaimed.
What is it now?
“You’re still a mess,” she pointed out, and with a sheepish grin continued the rest of her words. “Wait, I have a spare towel upstairs—oh, and a shirt! Wait here, ‘kay? Don’t go anywhere—” she stumbled over her feet, still holding onto his suit jacket, looking to and fro the staircase and to him. “I’ll be right back!”
Shishiba took a deep breath, closing his eyes as a ray of sunshine hit his tired face.
Today was supposed to be no-nonsense Thursday, a day where nothing could deter him from his carefully planned out day. But here he was, standing in the middle of the sidewalk, semi-dry from the window water, thinking just what kind of offense had he done against the world that he would be given an overly-enthusiastic lady as punishment.
He found himself sighing, so much for being immune to charms. He crumbled in less than thirty seconds—and that was being generous!
Shishiba wasn’t always like this.
He was pragmatic. Took things seriously, with no room for shenanigans or any other unnecessary things. It was always simple and straightforward when it came to him.
But now, even he couldn’t even find the answers to the questions he had for himself. So, with a heart fluttering with the autumn gale, he let the duck-printed towel hang freely from his neck, shifting underneath the cloth that hugged his body too tightly.
“Sorry, this is the biggest shirt I’ve got.”
Shishiba swore that he was never gonna show his face to that woman ever again.
She could keep the jacket and his dress shirt, and in return he was gonna keep the childish towel and this ugly shirt—as well as his peace of mind knowing that she would be nothing but an unfortunate encounter buried deep in the past.
The blond hitman weaved through the currents of people in the subway. Hands stuffed in the pockets of what was left of his initial outfit (his pants)—only because he refused to take anything else that was offered by her.
He already felt ridiculous enough as it is. He could hardly breathe through the fabric, fearing that if he accidentally inhaled too sharply, it would tear apart at the seams. He was fine with that, really… he was. He’d been subjected to worse circumstances, but in all of those, there weren't any witnesses—none alive to tell the tale at least.
It’s fine, he told himself. It was just a stupid shirt. No one was looking at him… that part wasn’t completely true. How could people not look at him when the damn thing was so brightly green! Screaming the words, someone who loves me very much went to Kyoto and got me this shirt. For heaven's sake Shishiba was from Kyoto! It made him want to bury himself six feet under and never resurface.
He was going to kill that woman. Not literally of course. But he was going to kill her one way or another.
Then again, how could he kill her when he was never gonna see her again anyway?
Shishiba took a slow breath, everything would be alright. He just needed to get back to his accommodations, change, and leave all of this behind—pretend they never even happened.
No one even had to know.
He’d just make the conscious effort to avoid that part of the city, and anything and everything involving window washing, convenience stores, and overly kind women who fall from roofs.
As he boarded the train, he got this nagging feeling that something was off. A sort of dull itch in the back of his mind that no amount of thinking could scratch.
The train intercom announced the next station, two stops until he would get to his temporary living arrangement. Still, even as the huge chunk of metal rumbled to life, glided across the magnets, and shifted for every turn… he could not shake off the incessant tugging that he left something behind.
He reached for the hammer in his pocket, a sort of habit he had developed over the years—only to find it wasn’t there.
Shishiba froze.
Where the hell did his weapon go?
He couldn’t have left it at the extraction site, no—he wasn’t stupid. He took it with him everywhere he went! It was an extension of himself… a piece of who he was! And he always had it in the pocket of his—
The jacket.
His suit jacket.
The one drenched in murky, disgusting window water.
The same jacket currently sitting in her hands.
With his hammer in its pocket.
Shishiba had handed over his jacket without thinking—no, it was worse than that… he gave it to her eagerly. Like a dog! Handed it over like a daydreaming idiot.
He was so caught up in her stupid smile that he didn’t even stop to think—
Of all the things I could leave behind…
Shishiba wanted to curse the world, he wanted to yell, perhaps strangle the next person who puts onions on his food. His thoughts rang loud—louder than the echo of the train doors hissing open, a lot more irritating than the unrhythmic resonance of footsteps rushing to get out. The hills of his brain hurt from thinking about his foolishness; a lot more prominent now that the full extent of his stupidity came crashing down on him.
But the mirror of her strange smile resurfaced like a dead body—one he had been eager to bury in the poisoned grounds of his malice. The shine of her eyes blinded his judgement, rendered him speechless for a few arbitrary seconds… unable to think, hesitant to raise any other thought for fear that he could never conjure her image ever again.
Suddenly the clothes that hugged his figure felt warm; no longer trying to suck the air out of him, the noise around him dulled; dying in the caves of his ears. The hurricane of conviction harrowing the corners of his head had faded to nothingness.
There was a strange sense of calmness at the image of her.
And in the grandest shifts of beliefs—one even Shishiba had a difficult time trying to accept—the thought of seeing her again did not seem all that terrible.
Shishiba felt like an idiot.
Which was strange because people around him usually told him he was very smart.
No matter how he looked at it—twisted, turned, shattered and reformed the prism of his thoughts… Shishiba could not summon any viable explanation for what on earth had possessed him to depart at the ungodliest hour of the morn just to go sit on the benches nestled in the park near her neighborhood as early as five in the morning.
Most people weren’t even awake at that time yet there he was, idling underneath the chestnut trees like he had nothing better to do in his spare time.
Shishiba never frittered. He never did anything that couldn’t benefit him. Never went out of his way for anyone if they could not serve him well.
So what was the meaning for all of this? Why was he here and not on the first train ride back to headquarters? Which notion had set off this endless spiralling domino of kind smiles and gentle gazes and melting voices?
Why… why am I even here?
Shishiba clicked his tongue, slumping further where he sat. The cold metal of the bench clawed through the fabrics of his well-pressed suit, shackling him to where he was. And even if the cold didn’t bite and nip at his skin, he was sure his head would force him to bear witness to how the sun passes through the sky right here… where she was near.
For my hammer. My weapon. My jacket. My shirt.
When the rays of the rising sun slipped past the skyscrapers, dispelling the shadows of the nights, coloring the earth in a golden hue, it was then that his sapphire irises caught the sight of her: smiling at the people that passed her by, bowing to the old couple who made conversation with her, the flowers under her care looked as if they were dyed a thousand times more—shining underneath the patches of sunlight.
Suddenly, all the reasons he tried so hard to justify seemed meaningless.
Shishiba could buy a thousand more jackets, a million more shirts… even—as horrible as it sounded—get another hammer.
Those things were so painfully easy to replace; the world made them easy to replicate.
Yet, in all the places he’s been to; all the people that he had met… there was none like her.
But there could only be one her.
Just one lady who would have the nerve to spill water on him and agonizingly beg him—convince him that she could make it right. Only one could have been so daring as to smile at him like that. No one smiled at him like that! And none in the world could ever give him that look, one that was so dreadfully endearing… like he was the farthest thing from cruelty.
And it made him believe—even if it was only as short as the sunshine in winter—that maybe, just maybe, this time… things would be better. In a world that didn’t wait for anyone, where people are made for transience, moments treasured for fear of them getting taken away… she was someone he hoped could stay for a little longer.
Shishiba should have known better, he knew he should have known better. He was a trained assassin. A cold-blooded killer. And his profession will forever keep from him the feeling of living a normal life.
He knew that.
Shishiba knew and that’s what made it difficult.
Because as he stood at the corner of the convenience store, a single step away from basking in the light of her soul… all he wanted to do was cross the line that bordered her world from him.
Mercy appeared to be the one thing the universe would never have for Shishiba; faithfully kept it from him like a secret anyone would die for just to protect. But this one time—for the final time so it seemed, he wanted the cosmos to go out of its way… to grant him the bravery of leaving—of staying away.
He could have been somewhere—anywhere else and he would not rise to complain, so long as it was not here. In this place where he was in danger of orbiting her. Here, where he was so close to slipping away.
Underneath the saturated autumn skies where the smell of the earth surrounded her, zephyrs of the season waltzed around like stars, a soft tune echoing from the ravines of her soul—it dawned on him then… that his prayers had not been answered.
Shishiba felt it in the way the warm ichor of the sun god poured on his skin, in the way that the shoulders of strangers passed him by, in the way that his heart rejoiced at the sight of her face—the same one that had him forgetting that he still needed to breathe.
At peace.
Warm.
Unconditionally vulnerable.
It was something that didn’t belong in his world. It was something—she was someone who didn’t belong in his world.
So why was he here?
Why was Shishiba standing so still in the center of the sidewalk? Why had he emerged from the shadows to gaze at her a lot more clearly? What was he thinking? How could he abandon all that he has ever stood by just for the ephemeral of chances to see her?
And yet she tore her gaze from the innocent flora… to see him.
The sight of her made him hesitate.
Shishiba found himself thinking these ridiculous thoughts of: Would she be disappointed? Will she be angry? Cower away at the sight of me?
But she smiled.
The sincerest, biggest, most stomach-churning smile to ever befall on mankind.
And everything fell silent.
Shishiba thought then, she might be crazy. He felt like he had just been sucker-punched right in the gut, perhaps been blasted through ten floors of a building and got hit by a car all in the span of seven seconds.
Maybe I’m the one that’s crazy.
“You’re here!” She beams, as if seeing him here was always meant to be. She hurriedly placed the rusted watering can above a window sill and walked over to stand closer to him, greeting him a happy ‘good morning’.
Shishiba could only stare at her, only remembering to return the sentiment when she continued to gaze up at him with those unsettling eyes of hers.
“Right! Uhm your jacket,” she blurts. “Wait a sec, I’ll go get it.”
A part of him kind of wished she forgot about that or at the very least, was not the first thing she thought of when she saw him. It was brainless of Shishiba to think so.
If she had forgotten about it, wouldn’t that make his efforts go to waste? And what else was she supposed to think about when she saw him? Shishiba didn’t know her; she didn’t know him.
There’s nothing for her to think about.
Get a grip! This isn’t the time to play house, he reminds himself. Shishiba clenched his fists so tightly that the peaks of his knuckles had been painted the color of snow, he bit the insides of his cheeks, the familiar metallic taste digging into his tongue like poison.
You just need the hammer—your weapon.
He went so far—straight out of his alignment—just so he could stay grounded to where he was, that may not wander into the backyards of her orbit; worse, willingly revolve around her like the earth does to the sun.
Footsteps thudded against the wooden stairs, shattering his daydreams. Shishiba prayed the world would make this easy for him—for Shishiba who feels so powerless in front of this… this creature.
“Here!” She stood in front of him once more, all the same picture the gods of yesterday had painted… only this time, he was not covered in that awful liquid. The suit jacket he had spent half his salary on was sitting on the palm of her hands, arms outstretched as if she was offering him a treasure like no other. Like he could not hurt her.
Shishiba stared at her.
Then at the jacket.
It was hypnotising. Must be witchcraft. All it took was a few centimeters of occupied space, a breath that falls short, eyes that fail to hide their true colors. Things so simple, tragically mundane, but to him who had lived a life that was not that—it was all it took.
You’re an assassin.
At the resonating reminder, Shishiba hurriedly swiped away the article of clothing; afraid the faintest remnants of her touch could set him aflame.
His unexpected rush had her faltering. Shishiba wasn’t blind, nor did the years of his work fail him, no matter the effort she put in trying to cover up that she was startled, it did not escape his eyes.
You’re a hitman.
She smiled again, tucking her hands behind her back—successfully hiding her reddening fingertips before he could have the chance to scrutinize her.
[Name] was not a fool. She knew a year’s worth of working three jobs could never cover the cost of that suit jacket. She knew that the moment she took one look at him, even after having been covered in her mess, that he… he belonged in a world beyond her own.
So when the water she used to wash the fabric had bled to a murky grey, when her nails softened from saturating in the water for too long, the skin of her fingertips wrinkling, hands throbbing from trying so hard not to ruin it… she did not stop.
She couldn’t.
One word from him could silence her forever; ruin her chances to live a better life.
She had to do it right.
People like her could only have so much room for mistakes, while people like him… they didn’t have to deal with things like these.
Something tugged at him when the sight of her strange expression came into being. Sure, he had prided himself in observation but Shishiba was not a mind reader. He wanted to ask what bothered her, if there was someone making her life difficult, he wanted to ask so many things… and that scared him.
You’re a killer.
He feels the heavy weight of his hammer, nestled underneath the fabric of his nice-smelling jacket—cleaner than it had any right to be, all signs pointing that it had been cared for… more than it had ever been in his possession.
Everything he had returned for was here, cradled in the coldness of his arms. Still, the soles of his feet remained frozen at the light of her warm stare.
Shishiba needed to leave.
Now.
There was nothing good at the end of this road. He knew that. Shishiba saw how his mentor took this very same path, how it led him astray; made him wander around—made him weak, the man he held in such high regard.
Shishiba is a killer. Someone who made a living off of silencing the living, making sure they never see another ray of sunlight ever again.
And this creature—this… this woman.
She was soft.
And good.
And kind.
She was everything that he never deserved in the first place.
She was meant to live a life far away from people like him, surrounded with laughter and joy, waking up to live an honorable life—free from the blood, the danger, the unforgiving cycle of kill or be killed.
Away from everything that he was.
So he did the only thing he could do—the only other thing he was good at aside from killing.
Shishiba turned and began to walk away.
“Not staying for tea?”
The world really went out of its way to make his life harder than it has to be.
Her voice was soft. Quiet. Crossing the ravines of his life as it harrowingly echoed the smile he caught from the corner of his eye. Hopeful. As if the thought of him leaving was the last thing on her list; if it was ever written at all.
Shishiba didn’t dare to turn around. Didn’t dare challenge the threads of the fates he once believed could never exist.
If he did…
“I have places to be.”
…he would lose.
Shishiba hesitated, a single second in the grand vastness of the cosmos. He lingered, and that moment alone was enough to fracture a piece of his cemented heart.
“Okay,” she says, a little too cloudy.
There was no expressive protest. No resplendent bitterness. Not even an overdramatic declaration of anything else that could change his mind and have him yield to her requests.
Just… just that quiet acceptance.
As if it was nothing out of the ordinary—that people in her life came and went as freely as the leaves that waltzed to the melody of the wind.
Shishiba pressed against the crack in his defenses, inhaling deeply like the oxygen he breathed could plaster something against the walls that slowly came tumbling down.
And he walked away.
This time—this time he was sure… he was never gonna see her again.
Fate really liked to sneer at Shishiba in the face before and right after it foils all his plans; looking down at him from its place above the stars with that ‘hah, in your face’ expression he swears he could just feel nipping at the back of his head.
I’m cursed. I’m very much cursed.
Shishiba wasn’t one for believing in luck nor was he so adamant as to put faith in the gods but this—this was just going too far… even for someone as heretic as him!
Despite being lost in his own theatrics, Shishiba still caught wind of the conversation being exchanged a few rows in front of him, excited in the kindest words; assuming in the worst.
“Have you seen this show before?” the woman inquires.
“No, but I heard the new actress is quite the character,” her companion whispers back just as eager. “Something about her style had the director smiling for days, so they say.”
Shishiba tried his best to come off as uninterested, still… the way his shoulders squared at the mention could hardly go unnoticed.
“One of the other actors said she came from Kansai, accent slipping and all. One audition and the director cast her on the spot.”
Accent? She has an accent? Was he really so caught up in everything else that he would fail to hear the sounds of his home? Or did the idea of home altered completely when fate descended the sword of the heavens upon him?
“Maybe it’s the novelty of it,” the woman snickers. “You know how those Kansai folks are: loud, brash, always trying to be funny. She probably thinks she’s charming with all that country twang.”
Shishiba felt his eye twitch, hands forming into fists, jaw clenching tight enough he swore he could’ve turned his molars to dust. The casual disdain in their voices struck a chord he was certain couldn’t have hurt as much as when he was once at the end of it.
He had spent years practicing—trying to perfect the standard dialect for his work simply because his very first employer once called his way of speaking strange and unique. Shishiba knew what it really meant: you don’t fit in and you need to change.
It wasn’t about his skills, what did speaking have to do with who he was as a hitman? It didn’t even affect his performance so why would it matter—how could it matter when all his targets would end up dead by the end of the day anyway? There would be no one left to tell the tale of how he spoke in a way that was unfamiliar to them.
At some point, Shishiba had come to realize that it wasn’t about competence or being as efficient as possible. It was about power. Domination. The subtle shift in attitude that desired to plunge identities fragment by fragment until who they see is the embodiment of their ideals, until the unfamiliarity slips away, and any and all forms of deformity is diminished.
Because some people simply did not like those that were different from them.
Yet he kept the retaliations to himself; took it all to heart and spent an ample amount of time trying to overwrite the language of his tongue. But the familiar taste of it still lingered in his private thoughts, slipped past him in moments of stress or fatigue… still branded him as an outsider in Tokyo’s elite circles.
Shishiba was strangely numb to the poorly hidden discriminatory acts against the people from Kansai, he would be a fool if he still let it get to him… but here he was, getting upset because some nobodies he could kill in less than two seconds flat were looking down on somebody they haven’t even met simply because she came from a different part of the country; spoke in a way that was not similar to theirs.
The irony of it wasn’t lost on him that he was now silently defending the very woman he’d been desperately trying to avoid. Someone who was so painfully similar to him in so many ways yet still be very strikingly nothing like him at all.
He spared a glance at the lotto scratch card, there were three pictures: a theatrical mask, a movie strip, and a clown—maybe I’m the clown.
It’s been roughly seven days, thirteen hours, fifty seven minutes, and eight seconds since that unfortunate encounter with she who shall not be named.
From that day forward, the blond assassin made the great, conscious effort to avoid any and all forms of dreaded and unwelcome contact with her. The horrendous shirt he attained as some sort of inescapable form of her being lay at the foot of his wardrobe, buried under an ocean of fabric so that it may never see the light of day ever again… lest he risk the chance of her haunting him for the rest of his days—that she would be once again behest him into gravitating into her orbit, fall into the needless sense of wanting to see her all the damn time.
He went as far as rounded an entire block, took on different assignments—one which had him commuting to the other side of the city—even as immeasured as walking underneath the awning of every store front.
Yes, he would reach for the heavens if need be, beg even the gods to set him free from this—this wordless storm wreaking havoc in his once lucid thoughts.
But here he was, staring at the ichor of the sun that bled in the shape of her.
There was no inkling doubt about it, Shishiba was sure of it. If the glaring smile of the clown on the scratch card could reflect anything at this very moment, he was certain it would be his image.
How could her reign reach even this place which was bound for desolation?
“You’d call this divine intervention?” she proclaimed on stage, staring at her co-star with so much conviction it nearly made Shishiba envious—”That I would see you in everything despite all my efforts to hold the thought of you at bay?”
He was sure… always, surer than even the fortune tellers of the world. But here, underneath the stage lights of a theatre, he felt far more foolish than the man he was supposed to kill.
“Or am I…” she lingers, turning away from the actor to gaze at the audience. “Am I simply building up the bravery to draw nearer to you?”
For who could ever declare war against the armies of destiny and expect to win?
Shishiba beseeched his stare to orbit away; stare at anything so long as it was not her.
The lottery scratch card crumpled underneath the pillars of his fingers. He took the job because it paid well, because the target was a scumbag embezzling the JAA’s money, amusing himself in such fickle, meaningless, useless past times like theatre. Shishiba took the job because it was far from her and all that she could be—all the good and the patches of sunlight.
This garbage dump is an hour away even by train.
He ran the tip of his tongue over the back of his teeth in annoyance, his knuckles ghosting over the handle of his weapon, tucked away in the safety of his expensive suit jacket. Really, if wasn’t there to put an end to this, people would believe he was an investor for this romantic tragedy.
…so why is she here?
Before he could chain himself to where he stood, his feet had already made the journey to dissipate the distance separating him from the light of her.
From a place closer to the heavens, Shishiba could see the full extent of her being. He was no connoisseur in the making of such beauty—but then again, he only thought it beautiful simply because she existed in the center of it all… scattering the painted colors of the stars like the patches of sunlight.
Her voice was as clear as the waters of the sky, crisp like the early morning breeze in the days of the fall, the fires of her emotions spider-webbing throughout the corners of the theatre as if someone had bottled summer’s lightning and cast it free in the coves of this damned place through the shape of her words.
She was good. Far too good to be kept underneath such dull luminescence, to wear fabrics that were losing hue they could pass off as gray—far too good to be a casualty for a stranger’s actions; shoulder a debt that was never hers to pay.
He faltered—an occurrence so rare that Shishiba had to have a full second for himself to assess what the hell just happened.
Hesitance was a deadly thing to have. Doubt would tear him from the inside out before he could blink to retaliate.
Indecision was a curse, not a blessing.
Look away—find your target! Look away!
The words cycled through the tracks of his mind like a prayer; wanting to pass it off as a command simply so he could will his soul to be anywhere else to be where he was supposed to be, so he could trick the rest of his body to leave this place… to leave her as she is.
When the curtains fell and the lights dimmed, only then could Shishiba gather the flames of his resolution and ignite the hypnotising spell she had cast on him—haunted him even when she was still so very far away.
Just as the haze diminished, his gaze dragged behind him like a disobedient child; bubbling a sick yearning to catch even the ends of her hair as she crossed the borders of the curtains to get to where she would be further away from him. Even as he blinked, the afterimage of her danced behind his eyelids, an unending act of desperate defiance that would not leave him even in the absence of light.
Shishiba clenched his jaw. You need to get your shit together. There was no room for this, no space in his life for fickle affections—’I’ll make room’, such was the weight of the sentiments nestled in his heart, inescapable… tied to all the songs it sang in the dead of the night. It was within the confines of his body, tethered to the arteries and veins that kept him alive, cradled in the protection of his muscles and the bars of his ribs—you’d think his heart would think of him, put him above all else… but harrowingly, it only ever echoed the shadows of her smile, mimicked the color of her laughter, delighted in the thought of knowing she was near.
So agonizingly full of her it was blasphemous to even call it his own.
The target was still alive. What a disgrace. If the mirror of his soul from three weeks ago could see the state he was in right now, he reckons he would be the first to die by his own hammer.
Shishiba caught the image of that rat, seated high above the rest, smug and oblivious that he was nearing the last acts of his life. It wasn’t burdensome to whip out a gun and shoot that bastard dead. Hell, it wasn’t even too much effort to cross that distance and claw his head off with the back of his hammer.
It could all end right now.
Shishiba could spare himself the theatrics and get the job over and done with.
But his hand wouldn’t move.
His feet would not take him to where he needed to be.
The conviction he once felt driving him to this dead end mission had long since dissipated underneath the glare of the stage lights.
And he found himself—for the very first time—thinking that there was no way to accomplish this. Should he call someone else to do it? Hah! Why would he do that?
Shishiba was certain that if he called Nagumo to do it, that fiend would never let him live it down.
Then… how about Sakamoto? But Sakamoto was already frolicking between the borders of quitting and staying on the job.
There was always Oki… Oki is an asshole.
Shishiba had to do it. His pride as a hitman was on the line.
He gritted his teeth. He will not be an idiot.
Shishiba forced his body to operate, for his limbs to submit to his commands of movement. Like a marionette, he weaved through the hallways, careful not to let any soul see him, he walked past the dressing rooms, waited until the group of actors crossed the threshold before he would continue on his way. Before he could take another silent step away, he heard a burst of laughter echo from one of the slightly opened doors.
“And ya know what he said ta me?” A voice, thick and heavy with that familiar lilt, carried over to where he stood as clear as the saturated skies of his home, not a hint of shame or hesitation. “He goes, ‘Can you tone it down with the accent for the second act?’ and I told him, ‘This is me tonin’ it down! The director didn’t say anything ‘bout wanting to say it the way you folks say it.’ then he got so angry and walked away!”
People’s laughter rang in chorus, although one voice in particular—one could not be hidden underneath the rhythm of others, no… not if Shishiba was the one listening.
“So that’s why Yamato-san was raging earlier!”
“He’s always so uptight about the words like he owns the script.”
“Probably got it from his father or something. I heard he was some big shot at a company and ran the place by forcing his ideals on his employees.”
“Ha! Finally got a taste of his generational medicine. Our very own rising star totally put him in his place!”
Shishiba found himself lingering, drowning in sentiments she spoke with acceptance—the way she unveiled her thoughts through her words without the trace of shame that had once clouded his own speech.
There was something intriguing about her defiance: the fiery tenacity to go against everything that wanted to rewrite who she was.
“Doesn’t it ever bother you?” another voice asked, this time laced with worry.
“No,” she answers eagerly—Shishiba swears he could almost see that sunfire smile of hers, the light her eyes would carry. “I wouldn’t change who I am to fit to some superficial standards. If anythin’, it saves me the effort of weeding out the people worth my time.”
Shishiba felt an uncomfortable twist in his chest. All too familiar; opening the scars he once had thought he’d sealed away. Envy. Although this time, this time they bled truly. The kind that spoke with a promise, to never shy away, to never hide, to never again change who he is just to be accepted. He would break the shackles he dragged for so long; branded him as a perfect weapon, untraceable, no one.
He forced himself to move on. There was a job to do and it wasn’t going to unravel all by itself. He had to go, Shishiba had to leave right now… else he might never compel himself to go away.
His fingers found solace in the familiar frost that covered the handle of his weapon. From where he stood, just a little past the archway that would lead him to the balcony, the hitman felt something tugging at him.
His heart was doing that thing again. That stupid, idiotic ringing like he was some teenager sneaking around the campus trying to get a glimpse of his crush. You imbecile, move!
Do your job! He reminds himself, forcing the words to echo in the hollows of his skull.
“Excuse me,” a gruff voice intercepted him, it belonged to a man in a security guard uniform who eyed him with suspicion. “This area is for cast and crew only.”
Shishiba adapted a casual stance, easing the tension that lingered in the joints of his shoulders and smiled politely. “Sorry ‘bout that. I’m lookin’ for the producer’s office—can ya tell me where he is?”
The man’s expression changed. “Another investor? He’s by the balcony, just up the stairs. He’s expecting someone.”
“‘Preciate it,” Shishiba nodded and moved towards the place he already knew. At least now that was one less person off his back.
As Shishiba nears the balcony, he hears the producer’s voice, loud and crude… every bit as flagrant as he was told he’d be, speaking on the phone.
“That actress is my ticket out of that damned place,” he boasts. “Once this goes big, I can wash all traces of JAA money clean as a whistle. They wouldn’t even be able to trace where the money came from not if they want the public to criticize them anyway.”
A pause.
Enough for the rage to simmer in the poisoned meadows of his malice.
“Of course I’m using her! Do you really think people like her will last in this work? Once my name is out there on the screens I’ll have the bigshots lining up to be part of my shows. No one’s gonna remember some country girl whose only value is her face.”
Something cold and dangerous washed over his being, icing him from where he stood; a shadow in the darkest corner of the balcony.
Some people truly did not value their lives, just take this shitstain as a model. First he made an enemy of the JAA, and now he pissed off Shishiba; every bit of hesitation had melted away… replaced by the burning flames of his ire.
Shishiba tells himself this was the reality. This is how everything would end if he’s the one involved. It wouldn’t be like the stories he saw on TV, or the play she would enact—no. If he is given a role on the stage of the world, it would end in bloodshed… whether that would be by his hands or another, someone will eventually get hurt.
And with practiced expertise, he locked it all away.
The sunshine, the laughter, the smiles… he forced them down the abyssal nothingness that bordered him from the rest of the world, the same ravine that couldn’t even echo his name. He pushed them all down, willed them to remain there for a little longer—just so he could do what he was supposed to, just so he wouldn’t hesitate, just so he wouldn’t falter.
He slipped a black mask to shield the lower half of his face, pulling his hair back in a neat ponytail that made him look like an entirely different person.
His movements were swift, silent, deadly as the scythe death had carried around—practiced and well accounted for, routinely in the kindest word; numbing in the worst.
When crimson stained the already wine-red carpet, and the curtains rose again to continue the performance, he was already descending the steps that would lead to his escape.
He walked through the building’s service corridors painted in his head like a national treasure. As he rounded the corner, Shishiba nearly slammed into the person walking on the other side; barely catching himself before he could trample upon the stranger—
“Are you alright?”
Oh, you have got to be kidding me…
For a moment, [Name] could do nothing but stare at the masked stranger, the blond threads perched atop his head gleaming like starlight underneath the fluorescent lights. He was tall. Tall in the way that she had to crane her head to get a good look at him, eyes as crystalline as the ocean waters she adored to a fault.
“You can’t be here,” [Name] shook her head with a small smile. Her voice took on a different form than the one she projected on stage—free from the spellbinding script, true… unbreakingly tethered to all her heart and soul. “Are you lost? This place is for cast and crew only.”
Shishiba’s daydream shattered at the weight of her words. He clears his throat as he conjures the lines he constructed with great effort. “Just lookin’ for the exit. The main doors were too crowded.”
“Oh,” she whispers. [Name] hoped that he didn’t catch the way all the gales left her lungs the second he spoke in a way that felt like home. “There’s a side door that way.” She points to the end of the hallway. “It leads to the alley.”
“Thank you,” he echoes, commanding with every molecule of his strength to adjure his body to move—carry the strength to gravitate away.
Before he could take a step forward, [Name]’s judgement dragged behind her like a disobedient child and her gaze found him once more. “Sorry if this is weird but, have I—have we met before?”
Yes. Yes we have. You are so hauntingly familiar that it’s making me sick.
“I don’t think so,” he musters. “I would remember.”
[Name] smiled at him again, a curve of the lips that shone in an incandescent light—infinitely far more genuine than anything she showed the world from the platform. “Just thought you looked a lot like someone I know,” she shrugs, pursing her lips like she was trying to stop something from coming to life. “Well… I bid you adieu, good sir.” She playfully salutes him with a laugh. “Enjoy the rest of your day. And…”
Before she could disappear around the corner, she looked back and grinned at him. “I hope you enjoyed the show.”
The sound of her footfalls echoed within the barren hallway, resting in the littlest of coves that he was certain that they would live there forever. The ghost of her warmth lingered for a little while longer, and when Shishiba was sure he had taken them all for himself, he allowed one simple truth to escape from the borders of his lips.
“More than you know.”
As the crowd left one by one through the threshold—big enough to never delay anyone who attended, when the last of the stage lights had bled obsidian… when the lackeys of the person he had killed found the body and planned to chase him down, Shishiba was already long gone.
He would take that arduous way back to where he resided, make the one hour commute back, walk underneath the eaves of the sidewalk, avoid any and all sorts of ladies washing the second floor windows.
Shishiba would do it with the weight of his actions heavy on his chest. His reflection on the train window staring back at him—washed-out, liminal, as though the glass and every color of the sun’s prism didn’t know what to do with him anymore.
He found himself repeating that one simple exchange he had with her. When she’s scattered in everything good, all the things that were kind and gentle… every bit the soul polished to this marble sculpture freed from the constraints of the earth. The light as she had spoken to him, looked at him like he was just an ordinary man and never the depiction of people’s nightmares, the contempt in their stares as they called him a monster.
A moment he didn’t deserve, a gift he had selfishly taken for himself because beyond her… he didn’t know where to be.
Would she return to that place? Look for the key to her dreams? Would she grieve for that animal? Would she ask the world questions why it decided to pause her chances of making it big?
Would she try her best to uncover the secrets? The truth? Trace the bloodstains and find Shishiba waiting at the end of it?
She wouldn’t know why.
“Next stop, Shibuya Station. Next stop, Shibuya Station.”
She would never know who… yet Shishiba was already grieving for what he would become in her eyes if she ever did.
The world could curse at him, tell him he was a monster unfit for anything good. They could label him as anything, be the very object at the core of their contempt. He would take it.
A nearby passenger whispered to her friend. “Did you hear about what happened at the Nisshoku Theatre? The producer for the show was found dead on the balcony.”
“No way,” her companion gasps. “Did they find out who did it?”
“They’re still looking. But the director was interviewed earlier and said the show will most likely be cancelled.”
“That’s horrible. Everyone was looking forward to it too.”
“Right?” the passenger agrees, sighing at the unfortunate ending the story had come to. ”I hope they find the killer and deal with that animal.”
Shishiba tuned out the conversation, willing it to merge with the ocean of chatter surrounding this hunk of moving metal. These people knew nothing.
So many lives would have been compromised if that bastard had gotten away. It wouldn’t have been solely because of the show—it would have been about killers, murderers, thieves killing and assassinating civilians; getting caught in a fight that was never theirs to win.
So many would have gotten hurt, injured… or worse.
The world would move on. People will weave stories to their liking. But he doubts they would ever see the truth.
For now this was the reality.
But she didn’t know—she didn’t know and that was enough for now.
She didn’t know and he secretly hoped she never does.
It was alright. He wouldn’t get angry—he wouldn’t even be upset over it. The media could paint his persona as envious, selfish… every bit the monster they would believe him be. It was alright.
Shishiba would do so as long as it wasn’t her.
Because now, when the aureate kindness of the setting sun had painted his face… there was this unyielding yearning in the bowels of his soul that longed for nothing but to see her again.
There were a great many things Shishiba had come to realize.
One, there was no other vending machine in the vicinity of the city that housed those fancy orange juice boxes other than the one near that godawful street—that one specific supermarket he spent four days actively avoiding at all cost, only to fall short on the fifth day when he couldn’t take it anymore.
Two, his living space was beginning to oddly reek of blood and shadows which was of course, the norm, but what felt most strange was the feeling of annoyance at the lingering scent of death that traced his steps.
And three—perhaps the most damning thing of them all—he was honestly considering going to a therapist or a shaman—either one was alright so long as they could get rid of the image of scattered sunshine haunting the raven bleakness of his mind.
A chorus of laughter and cheer broke past the wall of daydreams.
He stopped the mindless march he had unconsciously fallen into, gaze drawing nearer to the shore where the sound flowed, warm and maddeningly comforting as if all the hardships he endured for all the years that passed him by had dissipated, rendered to an unimaginable form, a distant hum.
The skies of his world became saturated in a golden light, a haunting sense of familiarity so it seems.
The blues of his eyes traced the melody, finding a clump of children huddling around a woman in the middle of the park. Their voices layered over one another, each one binding for the attention of the one whose hair fell in a waterfall of [h/c], tiny hands tugging at her sleeves, pleading the only way that children could: unrelenting, chaotic, profoundly difficult to intercept with simple reasonings or blatant refusal—weirdly convincing.
Light of the autumn sun slipped past the curtain of clouds. There, in the midst of the scattered sunrays… at the center of the patches of sunlight—there she was: looking like a summoning pole surrounded by little ducklings hovering about.
Her eyes shone in an incandescent light, glimmering in a way that stars could only envy; smiling—the kind of grin that made things in him stir uncomfortably; set ablaze, doused in an ocean of color, tied together by the laughter that echoed in the horizons of his soul.
Shishiba froze.
Underneath the rustle of leaves and the rhythmic tunes sung by the breeze, far from the hold of frost and yuletide, he remained as crystalline as the ice blanketing the north.
How could she still smile like that? How could she still laugh like that? How could kindness still follow her like a damn pest?
There were a great many things Shishiba had come to realize: going out of his way for such an inescapable entity was useless… completely, hopelessly, useless because at the end of the day, his gaze, his reveries, his very being still gravitated to the thought of the one thing he went great distances to avoid; hauling the chains of his desires to yield was ineffective, in fact, it only ever caused the monster to yearn for more… break the restraints he spent years cultivating for the slimmest of possibilities to feel at ease.
Really, because when the canvas overhead is painted in the colors of the night, when the space before and beyond him is a little quieter, there… in the eyes of the skyline when the light of the city reflected in the pools of his irises—there he sees that the world didn’t end.
It wouldn’t end if he would surrender to the one thing he wanted more than anything else in the universe.
Shishiba is startled back into reality by the cold burning through his chest… literally. Something wet and earthen had begun to seep through the fibers of his—Shishiba sighs—very expensive suit.
Mud painted the lilac of his dress shirt, spider webbing to the lapels of his jacket. The delicate cloth now marred with scars of brown and green.
His ether-dyed gaze traced the remnants it left on his clothes down to where it met the ground, falling in a crumpled heap with a nimble thunk.
I am going to beat the shit out of who—
“Are you alright? I’m so sorry, sir! I didn’t—I wasn’t lookin’ and—”
The world shifted. And all at once, everything fell in a rhythmic sense of autumn and patches of sunlight. There, where the flowing light of the heavens kissed the earth’s mortal grounds, Shishiba found himself face to face with her: eyes fracturing in frantic rush, dyed in the colors of absolute mortification and concern, face flushed with embarrassment making her look like a cat caught in the act of some harmless mischief.
Would it be strange if he were to say that he was kind of happy that it happened? Should he be worried that he was just a little bit glad that he was at the end of such an inconvenient occurrence? Would he be smited by his own consciousness if he were to confess that the sight of someone making her way frantically towards him had caused his heart to beat so traitorously—as though it wanted to cut open his chest and meet her halfway?
Did she recognize him from the theatre? Does she know him from the other month? From the supermarket? The stranger across the street?
Does she even remember him at all?
Shishiba couldn’t even be bothered to acknowledge his ruined clothing, buried underneath the auburn and crimson soil of his subconscious. This would make it the second encounter where she had inadvertently ruined his clothes… even still, he couldn’t bring himself to mind.
A part of him prayed that she knew him even if it was by the most inconvenient name like: ‘the guy I spilled dirty window water on’ or ‘mr. too big for my green Kyoto shirt’ he would even accept ‘Thor’.
He would take it—welcome them with a grateful heart so long as it means he wasn’t completely alone in the realm of this affection.
It would be unfair if he was the only one drowning in the oceans of her image. When he was nearly crushed by the weight of her ghost… how could he live to see another day if he were to know she had not been bothered like he had been?
“I hope you don’t start thinkin’ that I’m doin’ this on purpose,” she smiles at him sheepishly, her breaths coming out through ragged stutters from nerves.
Shishiba wanted to shout in joy, jump up and down and tell the world he had won (even when he hadn't really won anything at all). It was a strange chain of thoughts considering his co-workers usually labeled him as level-headed and aloof, viewing the world through a thick patch of ice.
You remember me…
“I’m not so sure,” he replies coolly, crossing his arms over his chest like it could have his heart cease its desire to split open his ribcage with a knife and run straight to her. “It’s going to be really difficult to try and convince me ya aren’t.”
[Name]’s jaw would’ve hit the earth’s core if it wasn’t so stubbornly attached to her face. Does he really think of me like that? “W-Well—in my defense…” she sputters, her eyes darting everywhere vying for a way out of the subtle accusation.
Shishiba disguised his chuckle with a cough, pursing his lips and mutedly turning his head away to hide the smile threatening to tear at his face. “Now you’re just makin’ excuses.”
“I’m sorry! I really am, honest! I didn’t mean to—”
Her words fell short as she took a single step forward and lost her footing on the wet grass. Shishiba’s body moved before his mind could force it to restriction, his arms reaching to catch her before she could descend to the earth.
Honestly… what are you doing to me?
For an arbitrary moment lost to the deities above the stars, they stayed that way—suspended in time… her in his arms, his heart in his throat.
“Sorry—”
“Yer already ringin’ my ears with the apologies,” he interrupted, the cadence of his soul coloring the words he bled to life. “How about ya thank me for catchin’ ya first?”
There was a strange sense of freedom that lingered when he didn’t feel the insecurity filter in. Shishiba saw no rebuke in her eyes… no matter how dazzled they had been, they could’ve fractured, scattered to a thousand colorful pieces and he was sure he would never find a single shade of disdain.
In a single moment woven in the slimmest threads of time, how wonderful it was to have known for certain that his soul would be safe in her existence.
“Oh,” she whispers—“Oh, yes! Yes! Uhm thank you for catching me uhh…” she scrambles to her feet, dusting away the imaginary dirt from her clothes. “Sorry, I seem to have forgotten your—”
“Shishiba,” he breathes, clearing his throat; ignoring the way everything seemed to be doused in a world of frost the moment she took a step away from him.
I've had enough…
The mention of his name cast a light on her face; shining so brightly it could rival the sun in the morning, the moon in midnight… have the gods piece together another universe to house the rest of the darkness.
Every time I see you, everytime I think of you… I get tired of trying to find reasons to stay away.
“Thank you for catching me, Shishiba-san. And uh… sorry about—” her eyes traced the contours of his shirt… ruined once again because of her foolishness, this time she held herself to the vow that she was no longer going to make any more excuses. “If you have time to spare now, I can fix your shirt! It won’t even take long I promise! It’s the least I can do—”
“Ya don’t have to, ‘s fine,” he replies with a carefully measured tone; controlled to what his heart could permit.
“No it’s not!”
Shishiba was taken aback by her vehemence. Who knew such a kind creature could house such fervent morals…
“I mean—what I mean is that,” realizing that she could no longer salvage what had become of their exchange, she sighed—a sound laced with utter defeat. “Please?”
Curse me now. Just kill me now…
“I don’t want you cursing my existence to the wind or—or make me a story during dinner time telling everyone about the lady who cleans the second floor windows and falls on strangers. I’d be a laughing stock and I’ll never live that down for the rest of my life!”
She continues to talk animatedly, portrayed in a manner that it filled the silence that once occupied the space between them.
The lady gestures vaguely towards the direction behind him where a row of apartment buildings and small stores lined the road beside the park.
Shishiba recognizes that place. Whether it was delight or disdain, he could never quite put his finger on it. “I just live over there—really not far at all! I have a washing machine upstairs and I’m not a psychopath or have been admitted to any crime or registered in a mental ward if that’s any assurance and—and I’m… I’m rambling, aren’t I?”
Shishiba was amused, and it showed in the way that the stony valleys of his lips had softened and broken into a faint smile. He never realized how strangely endearing it could be to find someone who looked like the child of the sun trying to justify that she had done nothing worthy of divine rejection to someone who could very much be held between the planets and be faced with retribution for the rest of time eternal. “Yeah… ya kinda are.”
She laughs, really… she laughed. And everything around him took on a different color, fractured them into a kaleidoscope of light and sunshine.
God, aren’t you something…
“So…” she drawls, a hint of hope shading her face. “May I take your jacket to clean now, Shishiba-san?”
“I’m tellin’ ya that you don’t hafta,” he tells her, his voice coming off rougher than intended, doused in the oceans of where he was most intimate, where all that he knows inhabited—all the syllables torn between his restraint and the desire to follow her to anywhere she might lead.
Shishiba watched her face fall ever so slightly, like she was already conjuring every right thing to convince him to let her help him. Her eyes—damnably expressive, held no restraint, no hesitation—clouding with something he could hardly push himself to stare into. And his resolve crumbled like the leaves crushed from the weight of his affection.
“Please! My Ma will kill me if she knew I made a fool of myself in the city and she’ll force me to come back—”
The desperation in her tone awakened something in him, tugged at something he never knew could exist. And the thought of never seeing her again, of her being sent somewhere he couldn’t reach, of never running into her within the mundane predictability of this metropolis, caused an unwanted feeling to disrupt the waves crashing in the underside of his stomach.
“Okay, okay I get it! Here,” he surrenders, shrugging off his jacket from his shoulders with a resigned sigh. The chilling zephyrs of the fall bit at his skin through the thin fabric of his dress shirt—the one most affected by destiny’s intervention. But the frigidity of it thawed at the sight of her warm expression.
“Oh thank the heavens!” She gladly took the garment from him with reverent hands, as though it was some precious artifact and not an expensive but ultimately replaceable piece of cloth. Her fingers carefully traced the color of the earth, eyes telling the stories of how she could try to get it off without ruining it. She gazed at it with so much consideration that Shishiba felt invisible, an unfamiliar sensation—jealousy, perhaps, that an inanimate object could be at the receiving end of such gentle, tender attention from her.
She turned swiftly, wanting to run off towards the line of buildings that bordered one side of the park. A few steps in, she halted, her body going rigid as if she had been struck by lightning. She pivoted back to look at him, still standing underneath the trees that rained the colors of vermillion and amber… and smiled welcomingly at him.
“Would you like to come upstairs to have some tea—” her nose scrunched up in close thought, ”—do I have tea?—or coffee—” another pause, ”—oh I think I ran out of that yesterday—uh uhmm how about some water?”
The storm of words tangling in the planes of her tongue, unfiltered and so painfully honest he swore he could almost see them coming into being, coaxed something dangerously bordering the lines of adoration… something he didn’t know until this very moment that his usually guarded heart was capable of feeling. And then, as if whispered directly at her by the threads of fate, to completely break down the foundations of his defenses, she flashed him a cheeky smile—crooked and imperfect and painted in all the colors of what made her human; absolutely devastating in kindness and the patches of sunlight that scattered across the earth.
Shishiba had to fight off his laughter. How strange that the world could make such wonders—how the deities he had spent a portion of his life speculating about their existence could be at the end of his gratitude. That there he was, standing in the midst of the park in his shirt—probably ruined beyond repair—and still could not find it in himself to conjure any rebuke… just this kindred affection that longed for nothing but to be where she is—to follow where she goes, to take her up on the offer of a glass of water.
He nodded and said, “Yeah, sure, water is fine,” careful to reign in the way of his tongue, to maintain even what could be an atom of the composure he spent so long trying to engrave into his being where his origins made him an outsider.
Then, almost as if there was something that should’ve come first but was overlooked, she looked over at him and added, “I’m [Name] by the way,” she smiles, “just thought I’d let you know that,” and the light of it nearly breaks his resolve all over again.
Somehow, seamlessly… Shishiba found himself weaving into her life effortlessly. Like the sun: warm, bright, rising unfailingly in the east where everything seemed to be shaded brighter than everything else—right here, where she was most present—as though it was always meant to be.
He’d catch her figure at the other side of the street and no longer felt that creeping anxiety threatening to hold him by the collar. He’ll smile at her with no hesitation, with no fear of getting burned by the sunshine, or douse the fire that brings her to life. Shishiba could be anything, he could be everything, yet with her, he chose to be who he was. Nothing but him.
And how great it was to know, to feel with his entire being that he was safe with her.
He found himself taking every twist and turn in this labyrinth he built around his heart just for a glimpse of the luminescence he had once been starved of—the gentleness he could only dream of during once upon a time.
The rumble of thunder rattled the earth as lightning drew cracks in the canvas of the heavens, splitting them open to have the tears of the gods descend like stars upon the planet, leaving the sound of the echoing pitter-patter in their wake.
Whispers of the midnight zephyrs resided on the other side of the windows, hidden by the yellow curtains that separated her domain of slumber from the rest of the world. Her form buried underneath the oceans of fabric, the tangles of her hair mirroring the wades of grass scattered across the plains and valleys of the sea.
Frantic hammering against a wooden frame cut through the silence of the night, the clouds of the unannounced storm still looming overhead. The digital clock on her bedside cast an eerie blue glow, staring at her like a pair of all too familiar eyes; numbers shouting 2:17 AM.
[Name] roused from her slumber, blinking the sleep from her eyes, wondering if the sounds she heard were figments of her dreams—
KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.
A part of [Name] wanted to remain in the warm valleys of her bed where it was safe, where she could at least pretend that someone wasn’t rapping at her door with such frantic urgency, or save the last of the sleep she was losing as the knocking slowed in haste until there was nothing but the silence.
For a moment, she wanted to believe whoever creep was waiting for her had relented, and as she was about to succumb to the calls of slumber, her daydreams were shattered at the resonating sound of the frantic knocking.
She sighs, knowing there was infinitely no way out of this than to see what the heck was going on so early in the morning.
The floorboards were freezing against her bare feet, emitting a creaking sound for every careful step she took, past the carefully stacked boxes, the single picture taped to the wall, torn apart at the center where a glimpse of obsidian could be caught where the fault lines separated her from the figure of someone else.
[Name] steps over the small basin pooling over with rain water, seeping through the cracks in her ceiling. Her fingers found anchor on a frying pan, raising it close to her chest just in case.
With slow, calculated steps—a stark contrast to the reverberating exigency from behind the door—[Name] craned her head to peer into the peephole.
A familiar figure stood in the doorway, golden tresses clumped together by the rain water, his usually pristine suit jacket tied around his shoulders, his dress shirt folded to take haven above his elbows.
Shishiba.
[Name], albeit confused at his questionable taste in hours for house visitation, quickly put away the frying pan. Her heart thudding against her chest like a horse ready to chase down the sunset in the most dramatic way possible, her numb fingers found the locks—one that didn’t work, one that did—prying the door open the second she got them to yield.
“What are you doing?” She questions, crossing her arms over her chest to try and keep in what little warmth she had going for her against the biting frost of the sudden storm.
Shishiba stood there, towering over her frame despite being hunched over the narrow hallway, rain dripping from the golden threads perched atop his head, with his forearm bracing against the threshold of her door as his other hand found solace on the side of his abdomen.
“I am in pain,” he whispers, voice struggling to pry its way past the ivy stitching through his lungs.
[Name], still dazed from his sudden appearance, found herself asking: “Do you mean like emotional pain or—holy moldy cheese that's a lot of blood!”
Where his forearm found support against her door frame, the other was vying with all its might to keep the flow of life cycling within his body. The once ivory cloth stained with more than just rainwater, the traitorous droplets racing down the horizons of his fingers.
“Pain. Yes.” His voice was a fleeting echo, fighting against all odds to try and not look as scattered as he felt.
Shishiba sways slightly, perhaps from the patches of blood that he lost, and [Name] reached over to steady him, hand dawning on the mixture of water and blood.
“What happened—no nevermind that! Bathroom now!” Her voice rose higher with urgency, every hint of sleep vanishing in the face of absolute horrification and panic.
[Name] leaned him next to the wall as she hurriedly closed the door, rushing towards the bathroom to get the water running.
Despite his horrendous condition, the blond hitman still found himself succumbing to the towers of principles he has always lived by; meticulously taking off his shoes by the entryway, wobbling as he tried to maintain balance while removing them and keeping himself upright and somewhat alive.
[Name] ran past the entryway, noticing from the corner of her eyes what he was putting himself through and let out a sound bordering the lands of exasperation and worry.
“Don't—ahh! Forget about the shoes!” She grabbed him by his good arm and began to drag him to the bathroom, careful to avoid the basin catching the leak of the storm outside. Her arm wrapped around his waist, taking as much of his weight as her small frame could support.
Inside the bathroom, she eased him onto the closed toilet lid, his body sinking down with a heavy exhale of relief, finally free from the strain he’s been enduring. Shishiba leaned against the wall, momentarily closing his eyes.
Who would have thought, huh? That there would come a day where the elusive, viewing the world through a thick sheet of ice, detached member of the Order, Shishiba… could find heaven in one of the smallest bathrooms in the world? Heaven was an understatement, what use was a superficial imagery conjured by the beliefs of humankind when paradise was already here? In the form of a raging, panicking, kind-hearted woman called [Name]?
Heaven had already manifested in the shape of her.
“Why did you wait for so long?” She scolds angrily, pacing around the small, nearly cramped space looking for the things that could help him. [Name] pulls out a first-aid kit from the cabinet, hands trembling as she settles it above the bathtub.
“I didn’t want to be rude.”
She spares him a pointed look before turning her attention to fumble with the clasp of the equipment.
“To who? The ghosts in the walls?”
Shishiba smiles faintly at her measured annoyance. No matter the layers of spite she uses to coat her words, her eyes told him everything: the worry, the fear, the look of wanting to make it all better, to have everything be alright, to take the pain away… to make sure he’ll be okay.
“Mmm, ‘ve been knockin’ on the door for fifteen minutes,” he hums, eyeing her through half-lidded eyes with that same curve of the lips cradled with every drop of adoration nestled in the depths of his soul.
“You should’ve knocked harder!” She turns to him with a wet towel, brows still furrowed in ire from his actions. “Yer face must be so thick to still have the guts to worry ‘bout manners when yer dyin’?”
He laughs, relishing in the feeling of the cold water washing away the grime on his face along with the trailing touches of warmth that came from the pads of her fingers, that is until the sound trips on its way out of his throat from the jabbing pain of his wound.
“I’m not dying… just a little scratch—ow, hey!” Shishiba flinches at the sudden pressure put on his injury.
“Just a scratch—” she mimics, ”Gods, ugh men.”
[Name] lets out a sigh, seemingly cooling down from her anger but the crease between her eyebrows tells him otherwise.
Shishiba found it endearing that she was worrying about him—that she would care enough about him to remain here with him when she could have turned him away; never to have opened the door at all.
“Okay, okay… easy now,” he coaxes her, his freezing hand hovering over hers as she cleans his wound.
“Don’t tell me to calm down! You could’ve… if I hadn’t—” her voice falters at the thought of it alone.
If she hadn’t woken up from his persistence, would he still be able to greet her when morning comes by? Would she find him slumped over her doorway colder than the rain that threatened to take him away? Would she even find him at all? Would she spend the rest of her days wondering where he went? Questioning herself, the universe, the patches of sunlight where he had gone, asking the universe for the way to him, to where he is because her mind would not relent until she knows for certain that he was—that Shishiba…
His expression thawed at the light of genuine concern painting her face. His hands that floated above the lands of her figure descended to take refuge on her wrists. “Hey, I’m okay. Really, I am.”
…that he was alright.
Shishiba’s words were soft, calming, and it made [Name] feel silly. He’s the one who needs support, he’s the one who needs to hear such words… most ardently, he was the one who needed to be calmed down.
But Shishiba was still the one who made the sun dawn on her. He was the one who thawed the frost, made the waves still, had the winds come to silence. He was the one who tied a lasso around the fragments of her thoughts that were scattered across the heavens, reeling them back in the form of gentle assurance.
Silence blanketed what little distance remained between the two of them, huddled beneath the bathroom’s fluorescent lights with the pitter-patter of the rain outside echoing in the quietness their lack of words left behind along with the occasional hiss of pain from Shishiba.
He watched her work, sure that her movements were a lot more fluid than if he were to do it on his own, even in her recently awoken state.
“You don’t seem fazed by this,” he comments, staring at the way her hands never faltered even as he shifts and winces from the pressure she applied.
“Sorry,” she grimaced, looking at him to make sure he was alright—to what he could manage to an extent at least. As much as she would have loved to never cause him pain, she knew that kindness in that light was going to get him into even more trouble.
Shishiba had to endure the hurt because pain in this light would be kindness itself.
“Ya don’t have to apologize all the time you know?” He points out, it was her strange habit that he took note of from the very first day they met.
At first, he assumed that perhaps her constant apologies were caused by the little mishap they found themselves tangled in, but as the moon waxed and waned, and the sun had settled to dusk and dawn, there, in that little space in the grand vastness of the stars, he sees that it is engraved in her very being.
“Sor—” she caught herself, shaking her head like it could rid of the heat creeping its way up the mountains of her neck. ”Right… uhm, okay.” She bandages the cracks of his skin, cautious of any blood that might seep through the ivory cloth. “Only ‘cause my sister gets hurt all the time.”
“You have a sister?” Shishiba’s brows lifted in surprise, in his haze-induced state he forgets to reign in his curiosity—to put a cease on the all too inevitable pull of gravity towards her orbit.
[Name] hums, a small smile lingering on her face from the memory. “Yeah, she’s still a kid so she gets hurt a lot, especially because she plays with the old saw at the back of the house.”
“There’s a saw at the back of your house?” Shishiba’s voice raised in alarm, although he was quick to back down from the prodding pain that spiderwebbed from his wound. But the genuine curiosity about the existence of another figure in her life was all too evident in his expression.
“Be careful,” [Name] warns, pushing a hand on his shoulder to get him to ease. “No—not this one, back in the farm.” She continues her work, pushing in the first stitch followed by the next.
“I’m guessin’ ya know by now that I’m not from here. You speak like me even if you try to hide it with all that Tokyo flair.” [Name] snuck a glance at him and gave him a teasing look.
Shishiba’s mouth curled into a smirk, caught red handed at his own deception. He was so sure that he was hiding it well… but perhaps she was just better at knowing where to look.
“In any case,” she continues, grabbing the plasters, “my sister is a wild child, always runnin’ around and chasing the neighbors’ kids, falling off the fences, getting tangled in the machinery. And she does all that with that eerie deadpan face like it doesn’t bother her at all!” [Name] attempts to mimic the face she spoke so fondly of, but she was doused in too much sunshine—far too kind to pretend to be anything else—any traces of nonchalance was still saturated in the colors of light. “That’s why I volunteered when a buncha city people did outreach programs to teach first aid. Consider me the valedictorian because I was first in line there.”
He watched her talk with unbated adoration, taking in the way her cheeks would shift when she talked and smiled at the same time, unable to decide which one she’d rather do so she did both at the same time; all the words that had the honor of touching her lips cascading like waterfalls.
The world was blanketed in the veil of midnight, street lights lining the roads of a city that never sleeps. More than a million people lived in this city but he was the one to have found himself here… where she was close, remained near to her underneath the spells of slumber.
How lucky was that, huh?
“I kinda guessed ya ain’t from here,” he smiles… mirroring the way of her tongue with the same melody he grew up playing. “I mean, who but Kansai folks pour window water on strangers—ow!”
“That wasn’t on purpose,” her eyes widened in horror, hands frozen mid-air at the prospect of hurting him again—“And I already said I was sorry.”
Shishiba bit the insides of his cheek to ground himself to reality, everything felt blurred all of a sudden—the colors of the room merging to nothingness, the rumbles of the earth halting at the mouth of his ears.
It took all he had left to keep gazing into the light, to keep looking at her simply because he found solace in her eyes that harbored so much warmth; to strain his senses to hear the sound of her voice, to follow it home like a guiding star.
“Yes, yes… I know. I was just teasin’,” he reached to hold her face—to remind his soul that she was still here, that he wasn’t conjuring her image in the midst of his desperation. His touch laden in gentleness no one would expect from a killer like him, fingers stretching over the hills of her cheeks, thumb gently rubbing the space underneath her eye. His pupils blasted to the brim by the adrenaline keeping him awake… but his stare remained solely on her—like there was nothing else to see… nothing else to stay awake for.
“You never mentioned ya grew up on a farm,” he whispers.
“Well ya never asked,” she replies softly, trying her best not to lean into his hold—pretend that her heart isn’t doing all sorts of things to light every vein and artery in her body on fire, cast everything into a raging inferno like it could mimic the feeling of having him close. “‘Sides, not exactly a thrilling conversation starter—”
“But falling on strangers is?”
“Hey!” [Name] feigns offense, but her amusement could not be reigned in by her false displeasure. “It’s certainly more appealing than squaring up to talk to you and say ‘hey, buddy’—” buddy? “—’did you know I can milk a cow with my eyes closed?’ There just isn’t a world that exists that could work like that.”
“Ya can milk a cow with yer eyes closed?”
“No,” she grins, “but I got you to smile so it’s worth it to pretend that I could.”
Shishiba cracks a chuckle—but it catches in the ivy ever growing in the tunnels of his throat, reeling him back to a grimace from the prickling nerves rattling his body. His vision doubled, seeing her split into layers, the noise shattering towards the ceiling; shoulders sagging as if the weight of the world rested on his back.
Desperately, he tried to piece them back together, force the drifting images of her to unite… so he smiles—she saw through it all the same.
He calls her by her name, fighting every bit of poison trying to haul him back. He calls her like a prayer, says her name like a song. Shishiba only ever needed to call her, to come to her… and she’ll be there.
Always.
“You need to rest,” she reminds him, carding a hand through the blond threads perched atop his head. “And change clothes, I’ll go get ‘em. Stay put—” she rises to her feet, the frost of the tiles creeping up from her soles. Shishiba could almost feel them for himself despite the fact that he was already slipping past the borders of consciousness.
“Not like I can go anywhere,” he attempts sassy comeback but it only came out as an enervated quip.
“Don’t play smart,” she points a finger at him, wanting to mask her concern with sternness. “I mean it, try not to move too much.”
“Yes, ma’am,” his voice was softer now—nearly compliant. If any of his colleagues saw him like this: rough edges smoothened to a fault, the ice thawed away underneath the bathroom light, heart worn on his sleeves… they wouldn’t even recognize him; wouldn’t even dare call him by his name.
He was so far from the cold-blooded killer he saw looking back at him from the mirror. How is that so? How could someone hold so much kindness that it saturated everything inside him that he found unworthy? How could she be so warm and bright and good all at once?
She returns after a few minutes, allowing him to change into something more comfortable; standing so near so that if he ever needs her, she’ll only be a call away.
“[Name],” he calls her again.
“Yeah?” She turns slightly, catching the sight of him in her peripheral. The shirt hangs loosely on his form—which was nothing short of a miracle.
It never crossed her mind that someone could look at her like that: as if she painted the sunsets and coaxed the moon to rise for the tides, like she threaded the clouds and parted them for sunlight.
Shishiba, underneath the veils of the midnight sun, he looked so… human.
[Name] didn’t understand the thrum of life twisting in her ribcage. Was it because he looked good like that? No… oh, heavens no. He was nearly dying a few moments ago. Then… was it because he was someone familiar? An anchor amidst the foreign lands of Tokyo where their origins made them outsiders?
There were many things about him she didn’t know. So many things about him she wished she knew. And so many more things she hoped he’d tell her. But she would not force him—no.
Here, where he could look his most vulnerable, show his exhaustion, let his soul roam free… she would not burden him with her selfish desires.
Shishiba was flawed, just like her—just as every human on this planet… he, too, crumbled, shattered, lost his footing every once in a while. And she guesses, that was the reason she was drawn to him.
His imperfections were proof that even someone that seemed almost perfect as him could feel hurt... could be capable of needing someone.
And somewhere deep inside, she had hoped that the someone that he would need could be her.
“Thank you,” he tells her.
[Name] feels her cheeks ignite, the gravity of his stare bearing down on her a little too much. Her lips parted to say something back, racking her brain for the right sentiments to convey without laying her heart out for him to see.
“That’s what I’m here for.”
Moonrise and sunsets blurred over one another, draping every second of the day as watercolor bleeds over paper. It showed in the careful patters of his steps around the tiny living space, underneath the luminescence and the carefully placed bandages, softening of his irises—the color of the ocean that melted like the clouds.
Strange how something born out of catastrophe could take form into something akin to a haven… it is paradise.
Suddenly, every corner of her once solitary existence had a reminder of another soul—a piece of him. Another toothbrush by the bathroom sink, slippers next to her own, pillows on the couch and a neatly folded blanket.
Shishiba existed in the same orbit as her. At first out of necessity… before long it became something he didn’t know what to call.
Aureate light flowed past the yellow curtains, one which he noticed were patched up by many other fabrics—a mirror of her soul it seems: pieces of other people threaded by fate, woven into her soul.
Kind beyond reason, warmer than summer, permeated with the patches of sunlight.
The leak in the ceiling had been fixed—the assassin’s doing once he saw [Name] leaving for work. It was the single rarest day that she wasn’t hovering over his soul like a bee, asking if he was in pain every five seconds or so.
Shishiba found it endearing at first, happy to be at the receiving end of her attention and affection, but then she forbade him from doing any work because apparently she didn’t want him to ‘over exert himself and accidentally reopen his wounds’ despite the fact that a few weeks has already passed since his little accident.
He looked over to see the outline of her body rummaging through her fridge… even if there was really nothing to scavenge through. He knows. He was in the same position as her earlier, staring into the void hoping that something will magically conjure from the weight of his gaze.
Shishiba almost wanted to laugh—to be here, to have existed in the same space as her… gods, when did he get so lucky?
He swears, if everything within the JAA falls into ruin right now… he was sure he’d choose this domestic dilemma of deciding dinner over rushing through the neon-lit streets of the city to where all that chaos exists.
“What do you want for dinner?” [Name] calls over her shoulders, voice slightly muted by the distance separating her from Shishiba who was now leaning against the threshold leading into the kitchen.
“Anything is fine,” he answers.
[Name] lightly kicks the refrigerator door shut before turning to face him with a deadpan expression, hands on her hips as she desperately tries to keep her facade running. “Hate to break it to you, Shishiba but anything isn’t on the menu.”
Shishiba could feel his mouth twitch upwards, and he was doing nothing to stop it from doing what it wanted—not when he yearned for it, too.“What would you recommend?”
“We have instant noodles, instant coffee, instant—”
“Anything that isn’t instant?” He cuts quickly, knowing her well that if she could live off of her easy-to-go meals, she would do it.
Her face brightens, and for a moment he wonders if the sun also took shifts at seven in the evening; just from the twinkle in her eyes, she could pass off as a star. “Pancakes,” she beams, words doused in the clouds of hope and wonder.
“That’s still instant,” he points, but his tone was gentle—teasing, really. He pushed himself from the doorframe and took slow, deliberate steps into the kitchen, closer to where she still smiled like all the stars were laid before her; a walk to forever drift into her orbit.
“Nu-uh,” the smile remained on her face as she shook a finger at him, already walking towards the cabinet where the mix was stored. “Ya hafta cook it on a stove, with fire, and butter! So it’s not instant.” She stood on her tiptoes, patting the space to feel for the box she was sure she’d kept stashed somewhere in there.
How could he ever bring himself to say anything against her when she was grinning at him like that? Like he mixed together the colors that painted the skies, as though he weaved the threads of sunlight…
He moved forward once more, smiling thoughtfully to himself. I wouldn’t mind living like this. Shishiba stood directly behind her, reaching above her hand to grab the pancake mix.
“Pancakes it is,” he concedes… just like that. Utterly unable to deny her anything.
Soon enough, the small space grew warmer, the scent of sweet and home drifting across the kitchen.
She stood at the center of it all. He’s said it a thousand times by now, and he knew he would never get tired of it. She felt like the sun. Everything faded into darkness, the fairy lights hung around the place blurring into little dots—like stars, like fireflies, like everything existed just so they could pale in comparison when she looked at peace, underneath the heavens where he could see her in her truest form, unguarded… colored with all the patches of sunlight.
He would have never imagined this kind of life for himself. Never. He wouldn’t even dare to dream of it.
But now that he knew what it felt like, how it was like when you come home to find someone waiting, to see someone smiling at your arrival, to hear her asking him about his day… he wanted nothing more but to stay here forever.
And as the moon moved across the obsidian sky, they found themselves on the small balcony of her apartment.
Things in the suburbs held a striking difference from the towering skyscrapers of downtown Tokyo. For one, there were no blares of the cars passing by, no needless chatter echoing from every turn and corner, and no prying eyes.
“What brings you to the city?” Shishiba asks, looking straight into the distance where the glow of the skylines shaded the ether with a warm glow.
[Name] clutched the blanket tighter, a small shield from the biting cold of the incoming winter. “As much as what the city could bring to me.”
Shishiba stole a glance at her, the distant neon of the city that never sleeps reflecting in the pools of her eyes, casting the illusion that her eyes were shaded with every color of the universe.
“That’s not an answer,” he replies, hair fluttering in the melody of the season’s gales.
[Name] laughs, shoulders shaking from her amusement. She steals a glance at him, smiling in the way she always did as she makes the effort to tuck her knees into her chest, balancing precariously on the tiny folding chair. “Well, just like what the rest of the country folk come to the city for. Money. Jobs. A better life.”
“Just you?” Shishiba pressed gently, knowing how to read beneath the colors of her words—search the depths and the heights of her being to see what she truly meant. He was getting awfully good at that, a skill [Name] loved and hated at the same time.
“Ran away from home.”
“Oh,” was all he could say, taken aback by the gravity of her honesty.
“Bet ya didn’t expect that, huh?” She chuckles, flicking the tips of her fingernails with one another… just so she could have the excuse to not look him in the eye.
“Didn’t take you for such a daring move,” he admits softly. Shishiba wanted her to know that he wasn’t there to judge her—even he was a school dropout, a lowly street thug before his mentor found him—he wanted to know, to understand… and if she wanted to talk then he would listen.
“No one did. Because I left in the middle of the night when everyone was asleep,” her breaths escaped her lungs in white clouds, the tense in her shoulders gradually slipping away for every second that passed the two of them. “It was easier that way, no tearful goodbyes, no begging to stay, no chances to hesitate and look back and decide to never leave.” Her fingers played with the loose threads of the blanket, curling them over one another.
Shishiba nodded, giving her the space to decide if she wanted to tell him more. The life of the city echoed in the far distance, the luminescence warding off the glory of the heavens, cars buzzing in the distance.
Even if he hadn't been back there in a long time, Shishiba knew that this chaotic beauty of the city was nothing like the quiet haven of the countryside.
“Do you regret it?” He asked, unable to bear the thought of her drowning in the silence.
“No,” she replies far too quickly, eyes finding anything attracting so long as it wasn’t in his general direction.
“Liar,” he tells her, no accusation in his voice, just a gentle coax for her to rely on him more—to help him understand.
“Oh? I’m not lying.” [Name] straightened her posture, meeting his gaze head on—daring him to charge her for an offense.
“You are. You’re doing that thing you do with your fingers, twisting them all around like they’re unconsciously trying to run away from you.” He points to her hands, which she tried to hide behind her back… but it was already too late.
[Name]’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “What a perceptive man you are, Shishiba-san,” she repositioned the blanket, sinking deeper into its warmth like it could cage her there forever, perhaps even hold the magic to freeze this moment, to never let it end.
“Did you leave someone behind in your hometown?”
“I did,” she nods, eyes casting over his direction for a glimpse. “And I guess that’s where the regret comes from.”
“Your boyfriend?” Shishiba tried to keep his tone neutral, pass it off like he didn’t care if she’s got someone waiting for her back home. She was beautiful, after all. Anyone would be lucky to be loved by her. Somehow that thought had something tightening in his chest.
[Name] laughs, heartily this time, like he just told her one of the funniest jokes of all time… and then she shakes her head. And Shishiba swore he had never felt a greater relief than what her denial had brought him.
“My sister,” she admits, a smile… one so bitterfully crafted drawing on the canvas of her face—telling the tale of love and loss woven so intricately you could not see one without the other.
Her eyes grew distant, staring far off into the horizons like if she did it for long enough, she’d warp past the thousand miles that kept her from her family… and she’d be back to where the sun rose in flowering gold, far from the depths of the graveyard of the metropolis.
“I used to cut her hair,” she continues, her voice taking on a softer tone. “She would drag me down the stairs to grab the kitchen scissors so I could trim her bangs.” [Name] mimicked the action with her hands, ghosted over her forehead as she pretends to snip at the hair. “She told me I was like an otter because I was always running around trying to help everyone.”
Shishiba smiled, seeing the image all too clearly. It was easy to picture her as an enthusiastic helper… because she is one.
“Then she said that she was gonna work twice as hard as me so I wouldn’t have to work anymore, she’d be doing all the hard stuff so I can take it easy. And after all that, we’ll build a house on the moon… and we could eat ice cream everyday for breakfast. Have fancy sushi for lunch. And as many pancakes as we could for dinner.” Her voice drifted further the more she tried to tell the memory.
It was raining, just like it always did in that part of town—a dead end thing at the end of the road deep in the forgotten history of Kansai. There were nothing but rickety old buildings everywhere, a single convenience store at the center of the plaza, the school that served both elementary and middle school kids.
[Name] should have been—what? Second year middle school by now… but here she was, crouching in the darkened corner of a bus stop in the torrential downpour of autumn.
She saw them earlier, her old playmates back in elementary… back to a time when the air didn’t weigh like a hundred wavebreakers held together by a frail breaking thread.
They walked into the small restaurant, a tiny thing that everyone knew. She begged and begged the owner to let her work there a few months ago, saying that she needed the money so she could support her sister—which was true… beyond stars and sunshine, it was true.
Yamanaka. Hiori. Yuuki. People that looked so familiar but were worlds away from her. While they complained about the work given by the teachers at school, talked about the culture festival happening next month, how handsome Amane—Ayato—whatever the heck his name was, all [Name] could do was press her back against the wooden wall, clutching the washcloth tightly to her chest and chanted… over and over and over again: I wish things were different.
I wish it didn’t have to be this way. I wish I didn't have to work. I wish—I wish that… I didn’t have to… that I didn’t have to take care of you—
“[Name]?”
She craned her head to meet the eyes of Shino-san—the kind lady who let her work in the establishment.
The old woman asked if she was alright, because she was crying. [Name] was crying.
Even now, underneath the awning that barely covered her from the rain, the tears remained flowing, just like how the heavens flooded the land with the weight it could no longer carry.
The skies were lucky… oh so very lucky. Lightning splits the bubble and all the worries go away, all the roars of thunder are silenced after the storm and the clouds are free to go. But there wasn't anything like that for her, and it killed her inside that there wasn’t.
Because she was still a kid, too. [Name] loved her sister… really, she did. But wasn’t she allowed to be tired? Was she allowed to be angry? Will the world rebuke her if she wished that things were different?
The percussion of the storm continued to play and thunder encores in the distance. [Name] buries her head in her arms, her tears falling as freely as the rain that descended like starfire. She felt small, a tiny drop in the vast ocean of life; a kid… trying to play grown-up in a world that demanded she’d succeed at it—because failure meant failing as a sister, failing as a guardian… failing as a human.
Something changed, and before she knew it—the drops hitting her back had ceased, yet she still saw them falling in the rice fields ahead. Shadows merged with her own inky figure painted on the muddy pathway, and she looks up to see a familiar small face peering down at her with worry simmering in those usually apathetic eyes.
“Nee-chan,” she calls softly, a little girl just over seven with a voice barely audible over the rain. She held the umbrella over her sister’s head, water trickling down her long obsidian locks, soaking through her school uniform.
And the guilt hammers down [Name]’s heart harder than the storm.
[Name] calls her name, the words trembling out her lips, sewed together by the same threads trying to mend her shattered heart. “How did you—”
“I waited for you, nee-chan,” she admits, and from the faint light of the stop, [Name] sees her small lips quiver—like she was trying not to cry, trying not to break… trying not to crumble in front of her big sister. The countless hours of peering through the window, willing the shadows to take form in the silhouette of her sister so she could push open the door and welcome her home.
She steps closer to [Name], stretching the umbrella over her head even if it meant she got wetter in the process. “You didn’t come home, so I came to find you.”
Ah… how could I ever think of that? How could I weigh you against the world? How could I think of you as a burden… how could I—
[Name] hurriedly wraps her arms around the younger girl’s frame, the umbrella falling to the rain-soaked earth with a gentle thud, mud painting the back of [Name]’s shirt. “I’m sorry…” she whispers, hugging her tighter.
She repeats those words over and over again—as if trying to placate the storm that fell on the earth.
“It’s okay nee-chan,” she pats her back, unsure of where the apologies were coming from. “I’m not angry.”
[Name] sniffs, pulling away to look at her sister’s face: round and full-cheeks, washed through by the rain but was still so painfully her. “You’re not?”
“No,” she shakes her head, patting the hill of her older sister’s cheeks. “Because I love you.”
[Name] felt her throat tighten, and right then and there… she has never felt more grateful that it rained; even for a short long while, under the illusion of heaven-gifted treasures, her little sister couldn’t see her tears.
“Nee-chan,” she calls again quietly, her grip on [Name]’s hand tightening just as they turned the corner and onto the path that would lead them home. “Do you see the moon sometimes?”
[Name] tilted her head, confused by the randomness of her sister’s question. “The moon? Sometimes, I guess. I can see it from Shino-san’s kitchen. Why?”
“I read about it in one of the books at school,” she looks up at [Name]’s face before craning her head to search for the heavenly body across the obsidian canvas overhead, her voice morphing to take that hopeful admiration children often had when talking about the things that colored their imaginations. “It’s bright, and pretty. It’s very far away, even farther than the sky… so nothing bad from here can reach it.”
[Name]’s steps staggered, she wasn’t sure if the ground was breaking off from under her feet or her own body was trying to brace itself from whatever was coming next.
“Maybe…” her voice grows softer, a lot more thoughtful for a seven year old. “Maybe when this rain stops, I can show it to you. And then…” she paused, unsure if the words could fill in the space that separated her from her sister, bring warmth to the calloused hands that held her own with all the gentleness in the world. “And then I’ll take you there, nee-chan.”
All the wind in her lungs got knocked out of her, chilling the lands of her lungs in frost and inferno—piercing through all the guilt trying to make home where her equanimity could not reach.
“Take me there?” She echoes.
The little girl nods solemnly, tugging [Name] along the dirt-ridden path. In the distance, she could make out the lights of their home; kept open so [Name] could find her way back.
“To the moon,” she said simply, as if there couldn’t exist a force greater than what she wanted to believe was true. “Where it’s quiet and safe…” her voice hushed to a whisper yet burned with that fierce determination—the kind that could move mountains, one that believed impossible things could bleed into reality through the sheer force of love. “Where no one will ever hurt you ever again.”
[Name]’s voice was thick with tears she couldn’t shed. “Really?”
She smiles brightly, completely ignorant of the impossibility of her promise. “Just you and me, nee-chan. Where no one can make you work too hard, and you wouldn’t have to be sad, or worry about anything ever again. I’ll work really hard so you can live a good life, too!”
Her little sister, at the young age of seven, couldn’t possibly understand the absurdity of it all—how far fetched and unimaginable it was. Was this her definition of a good life? How could she think of it so easily?
Perhaps she knew… she knew it because someone loved her so much that there was no room for sadness to fester in. There was no price for this—no equivalent for the sacrifices her sister makes to let her be a child, just to make sure she never has to worry about anything because [Name] will find a way.
She understood that when someone is important to you, you don’t just bring them home from the rain—you promise to take them somewhere safe, even if that somewhere was as far away as the moon.
"I wanted to take her with me. Give her a life outside that dull, mundane, same-old nothing that we knew for so long. I wanted to give her something to look forward to. Something that doesn't end with her lying on her death bed without ever knowing the world.”
[Name] worked tirelessly, worked with whatever was in that town—forsaking any and all sorts of normalcy to take on the weight of responsibility far too heavy to bear on the shoulders of a child.
Choosing was a luxury… certainly one she couldn’t afford—that among the many more things she could only look at from afar.
Surviving was hard… living—much more so. Still, only one thing ever kept her going, and that was for Osaragi to live a better life… far more than what she had known.
[Name] looked at him, eyes brimming with the silver light of her tears. “I wanted to take her with me... I really, really did. But I—I would be making her life harder. I would have to ask so much from her, things that shouldn't be shouldered by someone so young.”
Even if it was difficult; during the day when the scrutinizing eyes of others secretly judged her worth, determined her fate for themselves, muttered under their breaths that she was worth less than the pigs kept in the den.
At night when she comes home to the lights still open, a lighthouse of safe grounds in the unforgiving oceans of adulthood—a little girl playing grown-up—when the silence seeps through the cracks of her heart, battered and bruised, held together by a thinning thread drenched in heartache… even when her tears refracted in the moonlight, stained the floors burned through with so much suffering wondering if it would ever end.
Even under the veils of the midnight sun, cradled in the breaking dawns and the ever lingering twilight… the endless agony of trying to figure out who to be, how to be strong, finding the way when your limbs were dying to take a break, praying for an arm to reach into the darkness and guide you out.
“I won't do that to her. It's okay if she'll hate me, or if she never forgives me for leaving her. It's okay... if she never thinks about me at all. I won't mind. I won't get angry. It's okay.”
She had to live, she needed to… because a younger soul was relying on her. Someone soft and kind and lovely still had so much of the world to see…
There was no reason to break when there was still so much more that needed to be done.
“As long as I can work hard to get her out of there, I'll live through her hatred. All my hopes for her is that... she'll be happy. That she’ll come to love the world and all the things and people it has to offer. That she’ll look towards tomorrow and smile. If I can give her a better future... It's okay to get tired, it's okay to get a little lost. It's okay to be a little sad now."
Because blood, sweat, and tears were things she was willing to pay to give that girl a life worth living.
Shishiba’s hand hovered over hers, he stole another glance at her—scattered to a thousand pieces, hurting to an extent—and all his hesitation vanished. His colder hand draped over hers, anchoring her back to where he is, where he assures her that he exists… that she doesn’t have to bear it all on her own anymore.
"If she can look to tomorrow and feel the need to see it, that's all I need," she whispers, wiping away the tears with her other hand as the one cradled underneath his remains there. Home, I suppose…
Then, almost like a switch was flipped in her brain, she smiles up at him. "You should meet her, oh man you're gonna love her! She's having this phase where she dresses up with this long veil and carries the old brown case I bought from a garage sale.” She gestures excitedly, painting the words with her hands and expressions.
Just from how she talks about her sister, Shishiba could almost see her taking form, doused with all the love of the sun. He wonders then… how the child she speaks so fondly of had come to be, how she would take shape when she’s lived in the warmth of the patches of sunlight.
“I even saw her wearing that black dress I thrifted sometime back,” she continues, laughing fondly at the memory. “But if she's happy with that I'll try my best to support her all the way!" The smile on her face lit up the entire sky, and Shishiba found himself wanting to meet her sister more and more.
"What's her name?" He asks, genuinely curious—eager to put a name to this girl who means so much to [Name].
"Osaragi," she speaks it with so much love, so much kindness, draped in a thousand layers of warmth … and if it wasn’t already called adoration, Shishiba was sure that Osaragi could be a fitting name of it just from how much tenderness had been intertwined with her memory.
"I hope I get to meet her," he tells her, meaning it more than he expected to.
"I hope so too," [Name] smiles, squeezing his hand once more, relishing in the warmth of another soul.
Suddenly, the skylines felt a little gentler, the wind a little more familiar, her heart beating to the rhythm of his own…
A familiar place of home so it seems.
How many chances has Shishiba been presented with to end all of this? To sever every and all connections he has with her? How many outs has he been given? Chances to leave without compromising his identity?
Far too many to count, so he believes.
He could pack up and go and all he would have to do is wake before the break of dawn—just before the sunbeams are angled above the stained glass that hung just above the patched yellow curtains. He could disappear from her life as easy as missing the train ride to her stop, once and for all cease passing through the threshold of her little home just as the news for the night finished airing.
All he would have to do is retreat back to the shadows, away from the daylight, far from the patches of sunlight she brings to this world.
But he was still here.
He was still so painfully present in her life.
So agonizingly near to everything she was, selfishly holding her close—far too close that he feels the world he’s known for so long slowly catching fire, dissipating the nightmares that lingered in every step he took.
Maybe this was the very thing his Mentor spoke of—how everything falls apart once he finds something far more valuable than taking a life; keeping hers.
Shishiba could give it all up… he could bury everything with the seconds that passed him by.
Yet he remained in the borders, fearful of the light… hesitant of the shadows.
Even now as he sits in the darkness of the theatres watching her try to reach for something he had once taken away from her in cold blood—even if he keeps telling himself that it was for the greater good… the needles of his guilt continue to pierce through his conscience.
The memory of his encounter with the landlord resurfaces, haunting him for the seventh time that week. It wasn’t something he was supposed to hear, and most earnestly it wasn't his intention to eavesdrop… Shishiba just so happen to be there at the most convenient of times—stranded in the darkness, there he catches the patches of sunlight.
He returned from a recent assignment early, hair still damp from trying to wash away the traces of his little excursion when he caught wind of the conversation from around the corner.
“She’s never late with rent,” a gruff voice sighs to someone—when no one replied, Shishiba deduced the landlord was speaking to someone on the phone. “I tried to tell her she can pay half since the unit isn’t in the best condition but she insisted and it was really hard to say no when she looked like she was gonna cry.”
Shishiba hears shuffling from the far end of the hallway, perhaps the other tenants descending the staircase but he didn’t pay mind to that, what really took away his attention were the words he hears next.
“That girl works three jobs. Cafe in the mornings, office cleaning on some nights, and that theatre thing on weekends. She sends most of it back to her sister in Kansai, barely enough for herself.”
Shishiba feels like he’s been hammered to his spot. The frost creeped up from his fingertips, crawling its way to freeze over what he’d been trying to outrun.
“Far too kind, that one. She brought some soup over for Mrs. Satoyama when she heard the old woman was sick, then just yesterday I saw her hauling up the groceries for the mother who lives on the third floor in the next building. Week before that she was helping Old Man Raichi with the plant box… again. Never asks for anything else.”
Three jobs. Three goddamned jobs. And she still had that same smile plastered on her face every single day. How many hours of sleep is she getting? How early does she wake up? All those nights she arrives so early… how many of them were because she was thinking about him? That she was being kept away from everything by someone who couldn’t do shit to deserve even an inch of her affection.
She never complained… never made him feel like a burden. She just went on with what the world threw her way and made room for him in a life that was already stretched too thin.
Why…?
Why does she smile like there was nothing wrong?
“Shame about that producer issue—”
Shishiba wanted to yell. He wanted to put his fist through the skull of the next person that pisses him off. He wanted to cough it all up—confess his sins to her, kneel and beg for forgiveness he didn’t deserve, call out to her to let him stay. He wanted to curse the world… but above everything, he wanted to curse himself.
The weight of his hammer, a phantom in his movements. He reached for the weapon tucked away in the pockets of his jacket… but what enemy could he strike down that could fix all of this? Who will he silence to bring back the hours of sleep she’d lost? Where did he have to go to find all that he’s taken away from her?
“She was so excited about that opportunity, she practiced for weeks. Then it was called off and no one else wanted to take the stand. Broke her heart, though you could never tell from the way she goes on fighting.”
He keeps iterating, over and over and over again… it was for the best. It’s the right thing to do. The producer was smuggling the JAA’s money—the scumbag wanted out and he thought that was the way. It was a necessary evil. It’s the right thing to do.
But seeing her now, saturated in this theatre’s scattered light… how she gleefully invites him to share a part of her world, to have him see her as she morphs to a different being—cast away the mundaneness of her ordinary life… how could he weigh her happiness against the lives of a thousand others? How could he measure the worth of her smile against the torrential downpour of blood that could’ve been spilled?
It was cruel to make him choose. It was punishment to make him take sides. More than that, it was unfair that the heavens had the nerve to rebuke him for the choices he made when they gave him no other way.
[Name] would not ever force him to choose between the world or her… because she’ll force him to choose the many.
Oh, if only it were as easy as that.
If it were up to him, he would let this godforsaken world burn for her.
Shishiba wishes he could tell her.
More than anything he wished he could be true… just as she had been nothing but honest with him. He wanted to tell her so many things, so many stories, so many more of who he is. He wished he wouldn’t be met with the face of someone hesitant to ask about his day because she knew he would not be able to answer her. He wished he could give more to her rather than telling her to blindly trust him.
He wishes… more than anything, that he could be the man she deserves.
He wishes he didn’t have to hide from her, not his job, not his name… gods, even this—even this dream of hers, Shishiba wishes he could be part of this. He wishes he didn’t have to pretend to be clueless—that he already knew about this.
He wishes that he could tell her.
That he already knew… he knows and that’s why it makes it so hard.
Because this is what brought him to her… and yet it’s still the very thing keeping him from falling completely—a collar to his throat, digging straight through his windpipe.
From a place closer to the heavens, Shishiba could see the full extent of her being.
He was no expert on the standards of beauty—but then again, he only thinks something is beautiful simply because it reminds him of her… because she existed in all things beautiful, and all things beautiful existed with her, scattering the painted colors of the stars like the patches of sunlight.
Her voice was still as clear as the waters of the sky, crisp like the early morning breeze in the days of the fall when the zephyrs would ruffle the strands of his hair, the fires of her emotions spider-webbing throughout the corners of the theatre as if someone had bottled summer’s lightning and cast it free in the coves of this damned place through the shape of her words.
She was good.
She was nice.
And she was kind—devastatingly kind in a way that made his heart ache because he knew he didn’t deserve any of it.
Perhaps then, the reason for his hesitance becomes clear—and Shishiba falters. His heart racing far too fast for his head to keep up, the gales in his lungs stolen just from a single look his way, his eyes brimming with every color, creeping up from the sides of his vision, darkening everything else until all he could see was her—an occurrence he finds himself living far too many times in the past months.
If I look away… will I ever see you again?
The words cycled through the tracks of his mind like a prayer; wanting to pass it off as a fleeting thought simply so he could believe—even for a moment—that he was still strong enough to walk away, that his soul was still capable of wanting to be anywhere else but here.
So he could trick the rest of his body to leave this place… to leave her as she is.
Before the curtains could hide her away, her eyes gravitated to where he was—a hundred different people were present… and yet she still found him effortlessly.
How was he supposed to deny it now?
How was he going to convince himself to leave? To desert her and never look back…
How was he supposed to pretend that he wanted to be anywhere else but here? Where she was close. A call away. Where he could hear her sing in the kitchens.
How was he supposed to look away when her eyes were always looking for him? When she was always smiling at him like he hung the stars in the sky—as though he painted the colors of the sunset, tore apart the skies to make room for twilight, as if he was the one who keeps the light for midnight, shattered the shadows to give way for dawn.
When she looks at him, she could easily see a thousand different things… but she still chooses to see him as he is.
When the red cloths fell and the lights dimmed, Shishiba is left to gather the ashes of his thoughts, mourn the loss of daylight and welcome the rise of the shadows—igniting the hypnotising spell she had cast on him—haunted him even when she was so very far away.
And there, between the spaces she couldn’t occupy, Shishiba’s wonders if she could still bring herself to look at him like that if she knew the truth.
When as the haze diminished, his gaze lingered in the space she used to occupy, keeping him rooted to where he stands like an obedient dog waiting for his owner to return. A painful yearning bubbles in the caves of his lungs, wanting to catch even the ends of her hair as she crosses the borders of the stage to where she would be anywhere but near him.
Even as he blinked, the afterimage of her danced behind his eyelids, an unending act of desperate defiance that would not leave him even in the absence of light.
If she knew just how bothered, how haunted, and how ugly he truly was… will she still look at him like he was every good thing the world offered?
How could he bring himself to tell her? How could he build the courage to push her away? To break the illusion of his daydreams to make room for the harsh winter of reality?
How could he bring himself to just let go when all he would bring her would be misfortune and unhappiness.
His honesty will bring her peace, bring her all the good things she deserves and more. It will take her away from the killing, from the threats—from death… away from him—from Shishiba.
And he didn’t know what would hurt more: live with the thought of hurting her more than he already had, or never live with her at all.
That was the thing when someone lies. It starts with something small, something trivial until he’s eventually met with an inter tangled mess of fabricated realities; the threads of his stories choking him not to say anything, preventing him from coughing up the truth for fear that the make belief would shatter.
If she were to wake one day and realize her mistakes, then it would just have to be the monument of his retribution.
He would take it, so long as it was not right now… here, where the fervent longing in his heart blazed for nothing but her. Burning so fiercely, blinding any other thought, because he didn’t want anything, not the world or anything, to take her away from him.
Shishiba clenched his jaw. You need to get your shit together. Every corner of his skies had already been decorated with the lives he took, littered with the tombstones of all he has ever lost.
And he would not let this be one of them.
He would clear the galaxies for her, make room for the sunshine and all the patchwork curtains, for the onions and risottos, only if it would mean she’ll be right next to them.
Shishiba would house all the happiness in his little island—far from the life he’s led so that no one could take them away—not now… not when he wasn’t ready to let them go.
I just got you… so please… stay a little longer…
read the next part here
I tried holy fcking shit I really tried to post this in a single go but tumblr wouldn't let me😭 1k block limit is a hindrance to my glam frfr 😔💔 the wc is for the entire fic—Imma just split this up bcs good heavens me I do not want to change the formatting
these patches of sunlight are for those who work hard for the people they love, for the ones who wait until someone is ready for love, for the people who try to change, for those that have loved and have been left behind whether. may the light pierce through the wall of clouds and color your worlds in patches of sunlight.
ao3: we keep this love in a photograph
pairing: asakura shin x f! reader
genre: romance, fluff
wc: 1.2k
status: one shot
She has changed his wallpaper countless times before, and Shin knows she will do it a thousand more times in the future. He only wished she wouldn’t change it to something silly—but it was always something silly when it comes to her.
“[Name]! I told you to stop doing this!”
Shin’s footsteps echoed in the living room where he sees the culprit and cute little Hana-chan sitting in front of the fan letting their hair be blown in every direction.
The sight had him stopping in his tracks, it still takes him by surprise so it seems—that the ever elusive [Name] of the research lab so long ago could be seen in the light of day laughing and tickling little kids as if she was born to be surrounded by every droplet of sunshine.
He felt his phone vibrate, shattering the spell she had wordlessly cast, hauling him back to reality where he remembers that he was upset—yes… upset!
“Doing what, Shin?” [Name] looks over her shoulders with that teasing look, knowing damn well what she did.
Shin grumbled, willing himself to remain annoyed—beseeched it to stay for a little longer before he is overcome by the desire to smile and walk over and stamp her face with his lips. He fights with the fires of his blood trying to ignite the meadows of his face yet he feels the tiniest of sparks creep up his neck—from his grievances or his flusteredness, he remains unsure.
“This!” He raises his phone and points at the screen where it displays his unnattractive pictures from back in his ‘rebellious phase’ as she had so crassly labeled it.
“Aww, but you look adorable,” she chuckles, glancing at him then back to Hana. “Shin-kun looks cute, doesn’t he, Hana-chan?”
[Name] continued to smile warmly at Hana, but when she turned to look at Shin, that smile morphed into something else: teasing, amused at best. Oh, she knows full well that Shin in the picture was anything but adorable.
For goodness sake he looked like a gangster two years ago! [Name] was there, as she always has been, and she was always poking fun at his choice of clothing so he knew she was riling him up just now!
“Hmm!” Hana nods enthusiastically as she jumps down from [Name]’s lap to circle around him. “You look cute, Shin-kun!”
Shin’s shoulders sag in utter defeat, knowing that nagging [Name] about sneakily changing his phone wallpaper was a battle he was never going to win. “Thank you, Hana-chan.”
[Name] has changed his wallpaper countless times before, and Shin knows she will do it a thousand more times in the future. He only wished she wouldn’t change it to something silly—but it was always something silly when it comes to her.
Most of the time Shin doesn’t even know where the image comes from, only being notified about its existence when it inevitably becomes the first thing he sees when he uses his phone. Like that one time he sees himself picking his nose… when did [Name] even take that photo? Or that time back in the lab almost fifteen years ago when a mushroom got stuck in his hair, how did [Name] even get a hold of that?
They were embarrassing… and they came at the most random times, too! There could be a month-long interval before his wallpaper is changed, other times it’s only a matter of days.
Until one day, he caught [Name] in the midst of her crime.
“Aha! The culprit herself exposed in the act!” Shin points dramatically to where she sits by the foot of the sofa, but [Name] doesn’t look at him… only keeps her focus on his phone as she stares at something he couldn’t see.
Shin cautiously stepped closer to her, warily craning his head to see what she was so fixated on—and it made him want to yank his phone out of her hands.
He felt the ink of his life rush to paint his face scarlet, the fires of his blood igniting every organ in his body as his hand covered his face in a desperate attempt to shield his embarrassment.
“You kept this?” She asks, craning her head to try and catch his stare… but all Shin did was look at anything that was not her.
[Name] laughs, propping herself up to her feet so she could bridge the distance that separated her from him. “And you keep telling me I’m the sentimental one,” she grins, booping his nose which only had him plunging deeper into the oceans of his flusteredness.
“W-Well—I… I mean—you…” Shin tried to retaliate, tell her that she had it wrong or that it was photoshopped. But the evidence was clean on her hands, engraved in the roots of his memories, bottled for safekeeping in the meadows of his soul.
How could he bring himself to tell her that it wasn’t what it looked like when he was right here being all embarrassed because she just so happens to catch him using their very first date as a wallpaper?
Shin remembers it clear as day. He still knows where that place is: the little corner cafe next to the park where the neighborhood had flowers blooming most vibrantly in front of the convenience store. He remembers the feel of the sun, the bite of the summer wind, how the frost of winter crossed the borders of the seasons to take home in the horizons of his fingernails, make home in his nerves and rattle his body to the core.
“I like you,” he tells her all those years ago—hands trembling underneath the table as he grips the fabric of his clothes.
His eyes don’t waver, they don’t falter—not even for the slimmest of moments—if he was willing himself to scrape past this through sheer will alone he doesn’t know. But in the littlest corners of his ribcage thunders the hopes that her ever-perceptive eyes don’t linger long enough to notice.
Shin doesn’t know how much longer he could last underneath her stare.
What’s worse is she probably doesn’t even know of the agony she’s causing him: how the ravaging drumming of his heart makes his head pound, the gales in his lungs falling short of what he needs because she was taking them all away just by being near, how his vision saturates to a thousand different colors because she was there to refract and mirror every shade of the cosmos.
He could take on assassins—fight them day and night if he must, infiltrate the JAA a thousand times over, he’d drink a hundred poison bottles… he would do all of it and she would only ever need to ask.
[Name] laughs… and Shin thinks it might just be the prettiest thing he’s ever heard in his life.
“You probably say that to everyone.”
“Yes,” he echoes breathlessly—enamored completely from the sight of her smile, one so tangled with her lips it almost made him jealous that it gets to be near her all the damn time. “I do tell everyone that I like you.”
“I’m happy to know I’m loved by someone who tells everyone he likes me,” [Name] teased.
Shin groans, burying his face in the crook of her neck, unable to take any more of her taunts. If he could explode right now he reckons he would. Just from the feel of his blood rushing far too fast for his brain to catch up, casting his very being to flames that burn hotter than the sun, his ears catching fire from her laughter, heart drumming like a war song in his chest… gods, he was so in love with her.
I AM ALIVE RAAAAAAAAAAH🏋️🔥 school has been monopolizing my time so much for the past months: midterms, case studies, competitions, more case studies, finals, even more case studies, and assignments. I only managed to conjure this short fic in such short time bcs it's the end of the month and I haven't posted anything yet aside from my craziness 💀 thank you endlessly for your support 🫶
