woundsandwisteria

[woundsandwisteria]

Masterlist

🩶 Sanemi Shinazugawa

The First Time He Let Go

My Wife Wouldn’t Like that

Not With the Door Open

🌊 Giyu Tomioka

My Wife Wouldn’t Like that

🔥 Kyojuro Rengoku

Both Flames (pt 1)

When the Ember Stirs (pt 2)

My Wife Wouldn't Like That

💥Tengen Uzui 

(Coming Soon)

🌅Yoriichi Tsugikuni

What Remains

[woundsandwisteria]

I have an idea for you: say Sanemi and reader are trying for a child and have been for a while, which leads to the reader blaming themselves because they aren't successful so far, only for Sanemi to figure out that a Kakushi has been poisoning the reader so they can't. How would Sanemi react from the start to end?

Sanemi comes home bloodied.

Not the dramatic kind. the kind that tells you the mission went long, not loud. His haori is torn at the sleeve, white fabric stained dark where it clung to skin too long. The smell of iron follows him inside, sharp and familiar, cutting through the quiet of the estate.

You hear him before you see him. Heavy footsteps. The soft click of the door sliding shut.

“Sanemi?” you call, already standing.

He answers with your name, low and tired, and the edge in it disappears the moment he sees you. His shoulders drop an inch. His breathing steadies, like the fight stayed outside the door and he refuses to let it follow him in.

You’re at him immediately—hands gentle, practiced, checking for wounds without asking. He doesn’t protest. He never does. He lets you guide him to sit, lets you peel away bloodied fabric, lets you fuss in the way he pretends to hate but leans into anyway.

“It’s not mine,” he mutters, though you both know that doesn’t matter.

You clean him carefully. Water warms. Cloth soaks red. Your fingers linger where scars overlap, where skin has healed wrong and stubborn. He watches you the whole time, eyes softer than anyone outside these walls would believe possible.

This is who he is with you.

Not the Wind Hashira. Not the blade. Just a man who exhales when you touch him.

When you finish, he pulls you in without warning, forehead resting against yours. His hands are rough, scarred, careful as they cup your waist.

“I’m home,” he says.

You smile, small and tired and real. “You are.”

Dinner is quiet. Comfortable. The kind of silence that doesn’t ask for filling. He eats more than he thinks to when you’re across from him, watching, making sure he does. You remind him to drink water. He listens.

Later, when the house settles and the lanterns burn low, you curl into him on the futon. His arm drapes over you easily, familiar weight, thumb brushing absentminded circles against your side.

It’s in moments like this that the thought returns.

Not loud. Not desperate.

Just… present.

You’d talked about it before—once, carefully, like handling something fragile. Children. A future that didn’t end in blood-soaked returns and silent prayers. Sanemi hadn’t said much then, but he’d nodded. His hand had tightened around yours.

So you try.

Gently. Privately. Together.

At first, it feels hopeful. Intimate. Like another secret you share. You don’t tell anyone. There’s no rush, no expectations spoken aloud. Just quiet anticipation, month after month, held close to your chest.

Sanemi never pressures. Never asks in ways that feel sharp. When you apologize—once, breathless and ashamed—he snaps his head toward you so fast it startles.

“Don’t,” he says immediately. “Don’t say that.”

You don’t. Not out loud again.

Still, time passes.

And somewhere along the way, hope starts to feel heavier.

The Kakushi assigned to the estate notices things. They always do. Too observant. Too involved. They bring you tea one afternoon, smiling politely, saying it’ll help with your exhaustion.

“It’s good for the body,” they say. “Especially with everything you’ve been through.”

You thank them. Why wouldn’t you?

The tea becomes routine. A cup set beside you in the evenings. Gentle reminders if you forget. Sometimes you drink it. Sometimes you don’t. Some nights it cools untouched while Sanemi talks about the wind, about patrol routes, about nothing important at all.

You start feeling tired. Not unbearable—just enough to notice. You brush it off. Stress, maybe. Wanting something too badly.

Sanemi notices anyway.

He notices when you eat less. When you pause longer before standing. When your smile takes a little more effort. He doesn’t say much, but his hand finds you more often. Grounds you.

One evening, he watches the Kakushi set the tea down and linger too long.

“They pushy with that?” he asks later, voice casual.

You shrug. “They just worry.”

Sanemi hums, unconvinced, but lets it go.

The Corps has lost too much lately. Everyone’s tense. Everyone’s watching for weakness.

You don’t realize you’re being watched.

Weeks pass. Months, maybe. The hope that once felt warm now feels like something you have to carry carefully, afraid it’ll slip through your fingers if you hold it wrong.

One night, you leave the tea untouched again. Steam curls into the air, fading.

Sanemi glances at it from across the room.

His brow furrows—not in anger. In instinct.

Something about it bothers him.

He doesn’t know why yet.

————————————————————————

The Kakushi watches you more closely now.

Not in a way that draws attention—not openly, not suspiciously. Just… often. Their eyes linger when you move through the estate, when you pause to catch your breath, when your hand presses unconsciously to your stomach like you’re bracing for something that never comes.

They tell themselves it’s duty.

They tell themselves it’s necessary.

You’re seated by the window when they bring the tea this time. Steam curls up between your hands, the scent faintly bitter beneath the herbs. You thank them automatically, fingers wrapping around the cup for warmth rather than want.

“You should drink it while it’s hot,” they say, voice polite. Insistent.

“I will,” you promise, smiling softly.

They don’t leave right away.

You feel it—the pressure of their presence, the way they pretend to straighten something nearby, waiting. Watching. Measuring the moment you raise the cup to your lips.

Inside, something twists.

You haven’t felt like drinking it for weeks now. It sits heavy in your stomach when you do. Leaves you more tired than before. But you don’t want to be rude. You don’t want to question someone whose role is to support, to help, to serve the Corps.

So you pretend.

You lift the cup. Let it brush your lips. Swallow nothing.

The Kakushi exhales, just slightly, relief easing their shoulders. They leave soon after, satisfied.

Later, when they’re gone, you pour the tea out into the soil by the garden. Quiet. Careful. Like you’re disposing of something fragile.

You don’t know you’re disobeying something dangerous.

You just know your body doesn’t want it.

⸻

From the Kakushi’s perspective, it’s all very clear.

Sanemi Shinazugawa is slipping.

They’ve watched him return from missions less feral, more whole. They’ve seen the way he softens at the sound of your voice, the way his anger doesn’t burn as hot when he knows someone is waiting for him.

They’ve buried too many Hashira to ignore the signs.

Rengoku is dead—brilliant, burning, gone.

Tengen is retired—alive, yes, but no longer useful in battle.

The Corps cannot afford sentiment.

They grind the herbs carefully, fingers steady, heart resolute. The dosage must be precise. Enough to suppress. Not enough to kill. This isn’t cruelty—it’s prevention.

Children would anchor him.

Love already has.

They pour the tea and carry it to you like an offering.

⸻

Sanemi comes back bloodied again a few days later.

The timing is cruel.

He barely has time to wash the blood from his hands before a Kasugai crow appears, shrieking orders about a Pillar meeting. Something about strategy. About Nezuko. About the future.

He swears under his breath, presses a kiss to your forehead.

“I’ll be back,” he says. “Don’t wait up.”

You smile. You always do.

Shinobu accompanies him back to the estate afterward—unusual, but not unwelcome. She chatters lightly on the walk, tone deceptively bright, eyes sharp as ever.

“You look tired,” she notes casually.

You shrug. “Just a long few weeks.”

Inside the estate, Shinobu pauses mid-sentence.

Her nose wrinkles.

She turns toward the low table where a cup of tea sits—cold now, untouched.

“Oh?” she hums.

Sanemi follows her gaze. Frowns. Something tightens in his chest, that same unease he hasn’t been able to shake.

Shinobu lifts the cup, smells it.

The air changes.

“Who made this?” she asks gently.

You answer without hesitation. A name spoken with trust.

Shinobu doesn’t smile.

She doesn’t scold.

She sets the cup down very carefully, like it might bite.

“That’s interesting,” she says.

Sanemi’s voice is quiet. Dangerous.

“How.”

Shinobu meets his eyes. “This herb,” she says, tapping the rim of the cup, “isn’t meant for regular consumption. Especially not in these quantities.”

Your heart stutters.

“It suppresses fertility,” she continues calmly. “Over time, it causes fatigue. Hormonal disruption. It’s… subtle. But intentional.”

The room feels too small.

Sanemi doesn’t move.

“How long?” he asks.

You can’t tell who she answers for—him, or you.

Sanemi’s hand curls into a fist.

He doesn’t rage. He doesn’t shout.

He stands, silent and terrible, and leaves the estate without another word.

You realize then—finally—that the weight you’ve been carrying was never yours to bear.

And somewhere beyond the walls, the wind is already rising.

————————————————————————

They never come back.

Not to the estate. Not to your door with that careful smile and the cup already poured. Their name is reassigned, struck from the rotation like it was never there to begin with.

No one tells you exactly what happened.

You don’t need them to.

Shinobu tells you, gently, that it was handled. That the Corps took it seriously. That what was done to you was not a misunderstanding, not an accident, not something that can be explained away by good intentions.

“They won’t be near you again,” she says, voice light but eyes sharp. “Or anyone like you.”

Sanemi doesn’t speak while she does. He stands at your side, close enough that you can feel the heat of him, solid and unmoving. When Shinobu leaves, he slides the door shut and leans his forehead against it for a moment longer than necessary.

He exhales.

That’s all you get.

You don’t ask where he went that night. You don’t ask what he said, or what he did. Whatever happened belongs to the past now—already buried, already gone. What matters is that the house feels safer than it has in months.

Still, the weight doesn’t leave right away.

It sits in your chest, heavy and sharp, until one night it finally spills out.

You’re curled together on the futon, the lantern low, the wind restless outside. Sanemi’s arm is around you, loose but steady, thumb tracing the same small circle against your side like he’s done a hundred times before.

“I thought it was my fault,” you say suddenly.

He stills.

You keep going before you can stop yourself, the words tumbling out like they’ve been waiting too long.

“I thought my body was just… wrong. That I was doing something wrong. That maybe I wanted it too badly, or not badly enough.” Your voice wavers. “I kept thinking—if I were stronger, if I paid more attention—”

Your chest tightens.

“I knew something was off,” you whisper. “I knew it. The way they pushed. The way it made me feel. I just didn’t want to believe someone meant harm. I didn’t want to accuse someone who was supposed to help us.”

You laugh softly, broken. “I thought that made me stupid.”

Sanemi doesn’t interrupt. He doesn’t rush to correct you. He lets you finish, lets the truth settle between you like something fragile laid bare.

Then he shifts, turning fully toward you. One hand comes up, firm but gentle, tilting your face so you have no choice but to look at him.

“That wasn’t stupidity,” he says quietly.

You blink.

“That was trust.” His thumb brushes beneath your eye, wiping away tears you hadn’t noticed falling. “And kindness. And wanting to believe people won’t hurt you for it.”

His jaw tightens—not with anger, but something steadier.

“You listened to your gut,” he continues. “You stopped drinking it. You protected yourself even when you didn’t know what you were protecting yourself from.”

He presses his forehead to yours.

“You didn’t fail,” he says. “You survived.”

The words sink in slowly, like warmth returning to limbs gone numb.

After that, healing begins in earnest.

Shinobu’s treatment works. Slowly. Gently. Your body starts to feel like your own again—less heavy, less distant. The exhaustion fades into something manageable. You sleep deeper. Eat more. Laugh easier.

Sanemi hovers at first. He makes your tea himself, every time, watches you drink it with an intensity that borders on ridiculous. He walks you everywhere, even when you tease him for it. His hand finds you instinctively, grounding, protective.

Over time, the sharp edge of his vigilance softens.

One night, weeks later, you talk again—quietly, honestly.

About children. About how trying turned into pressure without either of you meaning it to. About how hope can hurt when it feels like something you have to earn.

Sanemi listens, then says, simply, “I want a life with you. Everything else comes after that.”

And for the first time in a long while, that’s enough.

Time passes.

Not in dramatic leaps—just days stacking gently on top of one another. Your strength returns. Shinobu declares you healed. The estate settles back into its familiar rhythm.

You don’t notice the tiredness when it comes back.

It’s different this time. Softer. Not draining—just lingering. You nap longer. Pause more often. Food smells sharper, richer.

You brush it off.

Sanemi doesn’t.

He watches you carefully, quietly. Notices the way your breathing changes when you sleep, the way you lean into his touch without realizing it. One evening, as you rest against him, his hand settles at your waist—unthinking, familiar.

It lingers.

He doesn’t say anything. Not yet.

He just holds you a little closer, thumb brushing your skin like he’s memorizing the moment.

Outside, the wind moves through the trees.

Inside, everything is still.

And for the first time, hope doesn’t feel like something fragile you might break.

It feels like something waiting.

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

Sorry it took me so long to get this one done. I really wanted to give this one justice 💕

Masterlist

[woundsandwisteria]

Helloooo I hope you're doing well, anyways I just wanna–pretty please–request how the Hashira's (especially Giyu) would react to an S/O who gets sick every year on their birthday? Like it's unavoidable, and common sickness not that life threatening :>

(I'm actually just petty that I had a fever ON my birthday)

Thank you!

Hiiiii 💕 tysm for this request, it was so cute omg 😭 The idea of a cursed birthday cold?? I couldn’t resist. I ended up getting carried away and writing little mini fics for all the Hashira. I hope you like how it turned out and that your birthday isn’t as cursed as theirs lmao 

Feel free to send more requests anytime!! 

🌊 Giyu Tomioka

By now, Giyu knows the signs.

You wake with that familiar drag behind your eyes, a scratch in your throat, and the weight in your limbs that tells you everything you need to know before you even try to sit up. Outside, the rain taps gently against the estate roof. Inside, you’re staring at the ceiling and thinking: Happy birthday to me, in the most unenthusiastic way imaginable.

The shoji door slides open with a quiet sound. Giyu steps in, already carrying a tray.

“…You’re awake,” he says softly.

You blink at him. “You… already knew?”

He kneels beside you and sets the tray down. The steam from the miso soup curls up in gentle white ribbons. There’s tea with honey, a damp cloth, a small packet of medicine, and a neatly folded hand towel. Giyu’s movements are so smooth and practiced that it feels like he’s done this a dozen times—which, you realize, he has.

“It’s your birthday,” he says, as if that explains everything.

You try to laugh, but it turns into a cough. “That’s usually a good thing.”

He reaches out first, fingers lightly brushing your forehead as he checks your temperature. His palm is cool and steady. “…You’re warm,” he murmurs, more to himself than to you. “But less than last year.”

“You remember that?”

He nods once. Giyu always notices more than he says. “You got a fever by sunrise,” he says quietly. “This time, it started later. That’s… an improvement.”

You almost want to tease him for rating your annual illness like a mission report, but the look in his eyes makes your chest ache. There’s relief there, deep and quiet, like a calm river after a storm. He sits a little closer, arranging your pillows so you can sit up without straining.

“Eat a little,” he says. “Then the medicine.”

You obey, sipping the soup. It’s simple, but warm, and somehow exactly what you wanted. “Sorry,” you murmur, after a moment. “For being like this every year. You could be out on a mission. Or doing something better than babysitting me.”

He goes still. Then his gaze lifts to meet yours, serious and steady.

“There’s nothing better,” he says.

Your hand stills around the bowl. “Giyu…”

He looks away, ears faintly pink. “You… made it to another year,” he says carefully. “Even if you’re sick… that’s what matters. I’d rather sit here and watch you breathe than be anywhere else.”

Your throat tightens, and it has nothing to do with the illness. You sniff once and joke weakly, “You’re getting sentimental, Tomioka.”

He turns his head away a little more, but you feel his fingers brush your wrist, holding it for just a second longer than necessary. “…It’s your birthday,” he says again, almost stubbornly. “I’m allowed.”

Later, when the medicine has dulled the ache in your body and you’re drifting in and out of sleep, you feel him shift beside you. Something small is placed just within reach of your hand. You open your eyes to see a tiny, carefully wrapped gift.

“When you feel better, we can celebrate properly,” he murmurs. “Go into town. Eat something you like.”

“You don’t mind celebrating twice?” you ask.

His gaze softens. “If it’s with you, I don’t mind repeating it every year.”

You fall asleep with the sound of rain, his presence like a quiet wall between you and the world, and the thought that even a cursed birthday doesn’t feel so cursed with Giyu sitting by your side.

⸻

🦋 Shinobu Kocho

The Butterfly Estate always smells faintly of herbs, but on your birthday it seems stronger. You’re not sure if that’s the congestion or the fact that Shinobu prepared for this week like it was a festival.

You sneeze for the fifth time in a row, and a familiar lilting voice drifts in from the doorway.

“Ah, there it is. Right on schedule.”

You glare weakly as Shinobu steps in, a tray held in her graceful hands. “Don’t act like I planned this.”

“You do get sick with suspicious consistency,” she muses, kneeling beside you. “If you were a demon, I’d say some kind of curse… but unfortunately, you’re just a very predictable human.”

She presses the back of her hand to your forehead, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “Mild fever. Congestion. Sore throat?”

“How do you always know?” you rasp.

She smiles, that fox-like curve of her lips that’s half-teasing, half-affection. “Because I pay attention. And because you make the same face every year.”

You pout, which only makes her chuckle. She sits closer, adjusting your blanket with gentle hands. “I’ve prepared a lighter porridge for you,” she says. “And this tea will help your throat. Whether you like the taste or not is another matter.”

“I’m scared,” you mutter.

She just laughs softly and brings the cup to your lips. “Open up. Or I’ll have to pin you down and do it myself.”

You drink, partly because it’s Shinobu and you know she absolutely would.

When you’re done, she sets the cup aside and pulls out a small notebook from her sleeve. You blink. “What’s that?”

“My notes on your Annual Birthday Illness,” she says calmly, flipping through pages filled with tiny, neat handwriting. “Symptoms, duration, what helped, what didn’t. It’s become quite the interesting case study.”

“Am I… a project to you?” you ask, only half-joking.

Her eyes soften as she looks up. “You’re someone I care about,” she corrects gently. “The notes are just my way of making sure I can do better for you every year.”

The room falls quiet, save for the rustle of the trees outside. She stays by your futon, sometimes checking your pulse, sometimes just watching your breathing with the practiced focus of a doctor. After a while, your eyelids droop.

“Hey, Shinobu?” you mumble.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry I’m never any fun on my birthday.”

She huffs lightly. “Who said you aren’t any fun? This is the only day I can keep you still long enough to spoil you properly.” Her hand smooths your hair back from your forehead. “And we can always have a second birthday when you’re better. This one is mine. The next one can be yours.”

“You’re greedy,” you whisper, drifting.

“Of course.” Her voice is soft and fond. “When it comes to you, I intend to be.”

As you sink into sleep, you feel the ghost of her lips brush your temple, and think that if this is what being sick means, maybe it’s not the worst birthday tradition after all.

⸻

🔥 Kyojuro Rengoku

You wake up to the scent of rice porridge and the feeling that there is far too much sun in the room for how awful you feel.

“GOOD MORNING!” Rengoku booms from the doorway.

You flinch. “Please… not so loud…”

Immediately his expression softens into something almost comical, like a lion trying to whisper. “Ah. My apologies,” he says, lowering his voice—though it’s still louder than most people’s normal tone. “How are you feeling?”

“Like death, but with more mucus,” you mutter, rubbing your temples.

He strides in, setting a tray beside your futon. The porridge is steaming, and there’s pickled plum, tea, and a little dish of something that looks like honey. Even sick, you can’t help smiling. “You cooked?”

“I DID!” he announces, then winces. “I mean… I did,” he repeats more gently. “It is your birthday, after all.”

“Is it?” you grumble. “I feel like the universe forgot the memo.”

He kneels beside you, eyes bright but full of concern. “It has not forgotten. You are here. You have reached another year.” His gaze softens. “That alone is worth celebrating.”

You blink at him. “Even like this? Sniffling and gross?”

“Especially like this,” he says without hesitation. “Your body is fighting. That is admirable.”

There’s a pause, and then, as if he can’t help himself, he adds warmly, “Besides, you are very cute when your nose is red.”

You groan and hide under the blanket. “Don’t say that… I look awful.”

He laughs, the sound rich but restrained for your sake. Gently, he pulls the blanket back just enough to see your face. “You look like yourself,” he says simply. “And that is never awful.”

You feel your cheeks burn hotter than your fever.

He helps you sit up and feeds you small spoonfuls of porridge, making sure you don’t rush. He’s surprisingly patient, encouraging you with soft hums and little comments like, “Good,” and “You’re doing well.” When you cough, he’s there with tea. When you shiver, he adjusts the blankets.

“Sorry this isn’t the exciting birthday you probably wanted,” you murmur once you’re finished, leaning back against the pillows.

Rengoku’s gaze turns thoughtful. “There is excitement in battle, in feasts, in fire,” he says. “But there is also… a different joy, in being allowed to care for someone precious.” His hand hovers over yours before he finally, gently, covers it. “Today, I get to stay by your side. That is not a lesser celebration for me.”

Your throat tightens. “You’re so unfair, saying things like that…”

He grins, eyes crinkling. “Then I shall be unfair every year! When your birthday illness strikes, I will be here. And when you recover…” His grin widens. “We will have the grandest feast! Twice the food, twice the laughter!”

You try to imagine it: this quiet, warm version of your birthday folded together with some future, noisy one full of Rengoku’s booming laughter and overflowing plates. It doesn’t seem so bad.

“Okay,” you whisper. “It’s a promise.”

He squeezes your hand lightly. “It is.”

And as you drift off, his steady presence at your side feels like a blazing hearth—bright, protective, and unwavering, even on your weakest day.

⸻

💎 Tengen Uzui

The first thing you notice is that your room looks… different.

Even through your fever haze, you can tell someone has gone to great effort: pillows arranged in a perfect nest, extra-soft blankets layered just right, a low table set up within arm’s reach with tea, water, and a small bell. There are even fresh flowers in a vase by the window.

You blink. “Did I die?” you mumble. “Is this some kind of afterlife suite?”

A familiar, flamboyant laugh echoes from the doorway. “If this were the afterlife, it would be much more extravagant, my dear.”

Tengen strides in, hands on his hips, hair tied up neatly, jewelry glinting even in the gentle morning light. “How are you feeling on this most unflamboyant of mornings?”

“Terrible,” you say honestly. “But this room looks… really nice.”

“Of course it does.” He smirks. “I refuse to let your cursed birthday illness be anything less than stylish.”

He sits beside your futon and leans in, his warm hand cupping your cheek as he studies your face. “You’re flushed,” he says, voice calmer. “But the fever isn’t as high as last year. That’s something.”

“You remember that too?” you ask.

“Obviously.” He clicks his tongue. “I’ve been fighting demons for years. I’m not about to lose to a pattern of seasonal bad luck.”

You want to laugh, but your throat protests. “I don’t think you can ‘win’ against my immune system.”

He arches a brow. “Watch me.”

The door slides open again, and in come his wives—Makio with a bowl of porridge, Suma with tea, and Hinatsuru with folded cloths and medicine. They greet you with warm smiles and gentle fussing, moving around you like they’ve rehearsed this.

You stare. “You all… did this?”

“Of course!” Suma sniffles, already teary. “You always get so sick on your birthday, it’s so sad!”

Makio lightly bops her. “Stop crying on their birthday, idiot.”

Hinatsuru kneels on your other side, voice soft. “We wanted to make sure you feel cared for,” she says. “Even if you can’t go out and celebrate.”

Tengen watches them with a fond, satisfied expression before focusing on you again. “So here is the plan,” he declares. “Day one: you rest, and we spoil you so much the illness dies of jealousy. Day two and beyond: when you’re better, we give you a celebration so flamboyant, the heavens will complain about the noise.”

You cough a laugh. “That sounds exhausting.”

“Not if we pace ourselves,” Hinatsuru says gently.

Makio grins. “We’ll party in stages.”

Suma wipes her eyes. “And I’ll cry during all of them…”

You’re surrounded—by warmth, by noise, by the strange comfort of a family that decided your cursed birthday was their business too. As Tengen carefully helps you drink some tea, his fingers brush your wrist.

“And if this happens every year,” he says quietly, just for you, “then every year, we’ll be here. That’s not a curse. That’s a tradition.”

Somehow, for the first time, you believe it.

⸻

💗 Mitsuri Kanroji

You barely finish your first croaky “good morning” before Mitsuri is on the verge of tears.

“Oh nooo, it really happened again!” she cries, hands flying to her cheeks. “On your birthday! It’s so cruel!”

You sniffle. “Mitsuri, it’s okay—”

“It’s not okay!” she insists, kneeling beside your futon. Her hair spills over her shoulders in soft pink-and-green waves as she leans in to check your forehead. “You’re warm… and your nose is all red… and your voice is so raspy…” Her eyes shine. “You’re still adorable but that’s not the point!”

You try not to melt. “I’m sorry. I know I’m bad luck on my own birthday.”

She gasps like you’ve just confessed to a crime. “Don’t say that!” she protests. “You’re not bad luck at all! You’re the best luck I ever got!” She takes your hand between both of hers, squeezing gently. “Your body just has weird timing, that’s all.”

Her earnestness makes your chest ache more than your lungs do. “You really don’t mind?” you ask quietly. “That I’m always like this?”

She shakes her head so fast her braids bounce. “I don’t mind at all! I mean, I wish you felt better, of course! But I still get to tell you I love you, and that I’m happy you were born, and that I’m so, so glad you’re here.” Her voice softens. “That part doesn’t change just because you’re sick.”

Before you can answer, she brightens. “Oh! I almost forgot!” She reaches behind her and pulls out a small, cloth-wrapped bundle. “I made you something!”

“You… made something?” you echo.

“I cooked,” she says proudly. “It’s just simple soup, but I tried to make it really gentle on your stomach, and I added things Shinobu said would help your body, and I tasted it to make sure it’s good, and—”

You grin. “Mitsuri, breathe.”

She laughs, cheeks pink. “Sorry, I’m just… excited. Even if you’re sick, it’s still your special day! I wanted to do my best.”

She helps you sit up and feeds you the soup, watching your expression anxiously after the first spoonful. When you hum in approval, her smile lights up the whole room.

“Is it okay?” she asks.

“It’s perfect,” you say honestly. “You’re perfect.”

Her eyes instantly well up again. “Don’t say things like that or I’ll really cry…”

You reach for her hand. “Then cry,” you murmur. “I like that you care enough to cry over my stupid birthday cold.”

She sniffles, laughing through the tears. “You’re so mean… and I love you so much…”

You both end up lying side by side on your futon, you half-asleep and Mitsuri gently carding her fingers through your hair. She hums softly, talking about all the things she wants to do with you once you’re better—food you’ll eat, places you’ll go, silly matching things she wants to buy.

“Let’s have two birthdays, okay?” she whispers as your eyes droop. “One like this, and one when you’re all better. Double cake, double kisses, double everything.”

“That’s a lot,” you mumble.

She smiles, pressing a feather-light kiss to your forehead. “You deserve a lot.”

You fall asleep thinking that maybe, just maybe, she’s right.

⸻

🌫️ Muichiro Tokito

The sky outside is a soft gray, clouds drifting lazily past. You watch them from your futon, feeling like there’s cotton stuffed in your head. Your throat aches. Your chest feels heavy.

“…You’re sick again,” Muichiro’s voice says from somewhere above you.

You turn your head to see him sitting by the window, knees drawn up, chin resting on them. It’s like he’s just… appeared there, silent as mist. “Morning to you too,” you croak.

He blinks slowly. “It’s your birthday,” he says.

“Unfortunately, yeah.”

He tilts his head, hair swaying. “It really does happen every year,” he murmurs. “I thought maybe I remembered wrong. But I didn’t.”

A small swell of warmth rises in your chest. “You remembered?”

“I remember the important things,” he says simply.

He gets up and moves to your side, his gaze scanning your face. Without a word, he reaches out and rests his cool fingertips against your forehead. “You’re warm,” he notes, then glances at the small table where Shinobu left medicine and tea. “Did you take those?”

“Not yet,” you admit. “I was busy feeling sorry for myself.”

“Hm.” He crouches down and picks up the cup, holding it out to you. “You should drink this first.”

You take it with a sigh. “Bossy.”

“Efficient,” he corrects, but there’s the faintest hint of amusement in his eyes.

You drink while he watches, his expression calm and a little distant, like he’s thinking about three things at once. When you finish, he sets the cup aside and sits cross-legged beside your futon.

“Are you… going somewhere today?” you ask hoarsely. “You don’t have to stay. I know you get bored.”

He looks mildly offended. “I don’t get bored that easily,” he says. “Cloud-watching takes a long time.”

You blink. “You were watching the clouds?”

He hums. “They move slowly. Kind of like you right now.”

You groan. “Wow. Rude.”

He smiles faintly. “You’re slower, but you’re still here,” he says quietly. “That’s what matters.”

The words hang in the air, simple, unadorned, and yet somehow they sink deeper than any elaborate comfort. You swallow past the lump in your throat. “You really think so?”

He shrugs one shoulder. “I like that you exist,” he says, as if stating a fact like the color of the sky. “Sick, healthy. It’s all you.”

You look away, suddenly flustered. “You can’t just say stuff like that so casually…”

“But it’s true,” he replies. “And it’s your birthday. I should say it today, at least.”

The room falls quiet again, but it’s a comfortable quiet. After a while, Muichiro pulls out a small bundle from his sleeve.

“I made this,” he says, a little awkwardly. “For… later.”

You unwrap it to find a simple, carefully carved wooden charm, shaped like a cloud.

“It’s not really a birthday present if I give it to you when you’re not sick,” he says. “So I’m giving it to you now.”

You clutch it weakly, smiling. “It’s perfect.”

He watches your eyes droop and then shifts, moving closer to lean his back against your futon so you can rest with the steady presence of him there. His head tilts back, gaze returning to the window, watching the slow procession of clouds.

When you fall asleep, it’s with the charm still in your hand and the quiet comfort of knowing he chose to spend his cloud-watching day right here, next to you.

⸻

⛓️ Gyomei Himejima

The soft ringing of prayer beads reaches you before his voice does.

You’re half-awake, head heavy against the pillow, when you feel a familiar, gentle presence at your side. Gyomei kneels beside your futon, his large hands folded, beads slipping between his fingers with quiet clicks.

“…You’re awake?” he asks, voice low and warm.

“Yeah,” you rasp. “Unfortunately.”

There’s a pause, and then a small, sorrowful smile touches his lips. “Your birthday has arrived… and with it, your yearly ailment,” he says softly. “I had hoped it might spare you this time.”

“Me too,” you joke weakly. “Guess my body really loves routines.”

He reaches out with careful, practiced movements, his fingertips brushing your forehead, then your cheek. Despite his size and strength, the touch is feather-light. “You are warm,” he murmurs. “But not as much as the year before. Perhaps your body is learning.”

“You remember that?” you ask, surprised.

“I remember every time you have suffered,” he says quietly. “It is not something I could forget, even if I tried.”

Your throat tightens, and not because of the illness. “I’m sorry you have to see me like this every year,” you whisper. “You already carry so much…”

He shakes his head, eyes glistening. “Your pain is not a burden,” he says, voice thick with emotion. “It is a privilege to share in it. To be allowed to sit by your side when you are at your weakest… it is an honor I do not take lightly.”

You blink back sudden tears of your own. “You’re going to make me cry on top of everything else.”

He bows his head. “Forgive me,” he murmurs. “I only wish for you to know that you are not alone in this.”

You watch as he sets a small tray beside you—simple food, warm tea with herbs Shinobu recommended, a folded cloth and a small bowl of water. He wrings out the cloth and presses it gently to your forehead, his movements slow and reverent, like a blessing.

“There,” he says softly. “Does that help?”

“A little,” you admit. “Mostly I just… feel pathetic.”

He shakes his head again, more firmly this time. “There is no shame in frailty,” he says. “The fact that you have reached another year, despite it, is something to be deeply grateful for.”

He closes his eyes, beads slipping through his fingers once more. “I have already offered prayers of thanks for your life today,” he admits. “And for many more years to come, even if each birthday brings with it a trial.”

“You… prayed for me?” you ask quietly.

“Of course,” he says without hesitation. “You are dear to me. I will continue to pray for your health, your happiness, and your heart’s peace.”

Silence settles between you, but it is warm, full. Gyomei remains at your side, occasionally refreshing the cloth, murmuring small, comforting words when you stir. At some point, he begins to hum—a low, soothing sound that vibrates in your chest.

“Gyomei?” you mumble as sleep tugs at you.

“Yes?”

“Thank you… for being here. Even when I’m like this.”

His hand gently squeezes your shoulder, careful not to jostle you. “There is nowhere else I would rather be,” he says.

And for the first time, your cursed birthday feels less like a punishment and more like a strange, quiet blessing: a day where all his devotion is focused solely on you.

⸻

🌪️ Sanemi Shinazugawa

You know you’re in for it the moment you hear the swearing.

“The hell is this again?” Sanemi’s voice snaps from the doorway. “On your birthday? Seriously?!”

You lie there in your futon, flushed and miserable, staring up at the ceiling. “Morning to you too,” you croak.

He strides over, scowl already in place, eyes scanning your face. “How bad?” he demands. “Fever? Chills? Throat? Everything?”

“Everything,” you admit. “It’s the annual tradition, remember?”

He clicks his tongue, kneeling beside you. “Some tradition,” he mutters. “You couldn’t pick something normal? Like getting drunk or eating too much cake?”

You want to laugh, but it comes out as a cough. Instantly, his hand is on your back, steadying you, the scowl shifting into something sharper—worried.

“Breathe slow,” he says gruffly. “You good?”

You nod weakly, and his hand lingers a beat longer before he pulls it back like he’s been burned.

He presses the back of his wrist to your forehead, jaw tightening. “You’re burning up,” he growls. “Did it hit overnight?”

“Yeah,” you mumble. “I woke up like this. Happy birthday to me.”

He stands abruptly, making you flinch—only to stomp over to the small table where the medicine and tea are waiting. “Tch. Should’ve seen it coming. I did see it coming.” He grabs the cup, muttering under his breath. “Damn stupid pattern…”

“Sanemi…”

He comes back, sliding an arm behind your shoulders to help you sit up. The movement is rough around the edges, but his grip is steady, supporting you like you’re something fragile. “Drink,” he orders, holding the cup to your lips.

You obey, watching him over the rim. His eyes are sharp, focused entirely on you. When you finish, he sets the cup aside and reaches for the medicine.

“You’re really prepared,” you rasp.

“Of course I’m prepared,” he snaps. “This happens every damn year. I’m not letting it blindside us anymore.”

“Us?” you echo.

He freezes for half a second, then shoves the pills into your hand. “Shut up and take those.”

You swallow them with a small smile. “You get this worked up every time,” you say quietly. “You don’t have to.”

He looks away, expression conflicted. “I know you’re not dying,” he mutters. “I know it’s ‘just’ a cold. Or flu. Whatever. But seeing you laid out like this on your birthday pisses me off.”

“Mad at me?” you tease weakly.

“Mad at this,” he corrects, glaring at the blankets like they personally offended him. “Mad that you have to feel like crap on the one day that’s supposed to be about you.”

He reaches out again, adjusting your blanket with small, precise tugs, making sure there are no gaps for drafts. His fingers brush your wrist, then linger, almost unconsciously.

“You know,” you say softly, “even if I’m sick, it still feels like my birthday. Because you’re here.”

He scoffs, but the tips of his ears go pink. “The bar is on the floor if I’m your definition of a proper birthday.”

“You’re my favorite part,” you insist.

He goes quiet, then finally huffs out a breath. “You’re an idiot,” he says, but there’s no heat in it. “A sick idiot.”

You smile. “Your sick idiot.”

He doesn’t deny it.

Later, when you’ve fallen asleep, you wake briefly to the feeling of something being tucked under your pillow. You crack an eye open and catch Sanemi’s profile in the dim light, tense and focused.

“What’re you… doing?” you mumble.

“Nothing,” he grunts. “Go back to sleep.”

Your hand gropes under the pillow and finds a small, roughly wrapped parcel. You smile drowsily. “You got me a present.”

“Shut up and open it when you’re not feverish,” he mutters. “You’ll cry or some shit.”

“Will you still be here?” you ask.

He exhales, sitting back down beside you. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “I’ll be here. All day, all night. Every damn birthday if I have to.”

You drift off with a smile, feeling strangely invincible despite the aches—because if there’s one thing stronger than your cursed birthday illness, it’s Sanemi’s stubborn determination to fight it with you, every single year.

⸻

🐍 Obanai Iguro

The room is dim, the shoji pulled closed to keep out drafts. Your breathing is slow and heavy, each inhale a little rough. Kaburamaru is the first to notice you stirring; the white snake lifts his head from where he’s curled near your pillow, tongue flicking.

“Ah,” Obanai’s quiet voice follows. “You’re awake.”

You turn your head to see him sitting at your bedside, legs folded neatly beneath him. His mismatched eyes watch you carefully over the edge of his bandages. “Hey,” you rasp. “Did it get me again?”

He inclines his head. “Yes,” he says. “On the exact same day as last year.” There’s a faintly accusing note in his voice, as if you did it on purpose.

“Talk to my immune system,” you mumble. “It’s got a flair for drama.”

Kaburamaru slithers a little closer, nudging your hand. You manage to lift your fingers, and the snake winds around them gently. Obanai’s gaze softens at the sight.

“How bad?” you ask.

“Fever, congestion, sore throat,” he recites. “Shinobu checked on you earlier and left medicine. I’ve been watching your temperature.”

“You’ve been here… this whole time?” you ask.

He doesn’t look away. “Where else would I be?”

You open your mouth, then close it again. “You don’t have to,” you say finally. “I know I’m not very good company like this.”

He frowns, the expression clear even with half his face covered. “That’s absurd,” he says quietly. “Your value doesn’t fluctuate with your body temperature.”

You laugh weakly. “You say that so seriously…”

“Because I mean it,” he replies. “You being ill on your birthday doesn’t make the day any less important.”

He reaches for the cloth resting in the bowl beside him, wrings it out with efficient movements, and lays it gently across your forehead. The coolness makes you sigh in relief.

“Thank you,” you whisper.

He adjusts your blanket, making sure it sits just right at your shoulders, not too tight, not too loose. “This is unavoidable, it seems,” he says. “So we adapt.”

“We?”

His gaze flicks to yours, steady and sharp. “I’m not going to leave you to face it alone every year,” he says simply. “If this is part of your life, then it is part of mine as well.”

Your heart stutters. “Obanai…”

He looks away, as if embarrassed, and reaches into his haori. “I brought you something,” he mutters. “It’s… not much, considering the circumstances.”

He lays a small lacquered box beside you. Inside, when you ease it open, is a delicate hair ornament—simple, but clearly chosen with care, in colors you love.

“You didn’t have to,” you say, voice thick.

“I wanted to,” he counters. “Your birthday shouldn’t pass unmarked just because you’re ill.”

You reach out, your fingers brushing his. He stiffens for a moment, then lets your hands cover his, the contact sending a quiet warmth through both of you.

“Once you’re better,” he says, very softly, “we’ll go out at dusk. Somewhere quiet. Just us. We can pretend it’s your birthday again.”

You smile tiredly. “Two birthdays, huh? I’m spoiled.”

“You deserve it,” he says. “Even if you can’t see it.”

Kaburamaru curls more securely around your wrist as your eyes begin to close again, the weight of the snake comforting. Obanai stays where he is, a silent sentinel, watching the slow rise and fall of your chest.

And as sleep takes you, you realize that while your body may be stubbornly cursed, your heart is anything but unlucky—with people like him choosing, year after year, to stay.

Masterlist

[woundsandwisteria]

Ugly Cake, Stupid Wish

The futon is still warm under you, blankets twisted around your legs and his, the faint scent of sweat and soap clinging to the air. Crickets chirped outside his open window, the night breeze brushing over your bare shoulders where the sheet has slipped.

Sanemi’s breathing had already evened out, chest rising and falling against your back. At some point—right after he’d muttered something about “just stress relief” and tried to roll away—his arm had hooked back around your waist like it had a mind of its own. Now his hand is splayed over your stomach, scars rough and calloused, but resting there like it belongs.

He’d never admit he cuddles.

You know better than to say it out loud.

“You’re thinking too loud,” he grumbles into your hair, voice low and rough, the kind of hoarse that has nothing to do with yelling at subordinates.

You smile where he can’t see it. “You can hear that now? Impressive.”

His fingers flex slightly against you. “You tense up when you’re overthinking,” he mutters. “Feels like you’re about to jump out of your skin.”

You relax on purpose, letting more of your weight sink back into him. “Better?”

“Tch. Don’t get all floppy on me, idiot. You’ll roll off the damn futon.”

The protest doesn’t stop him from pulling you closer, tucking his chin against the curve of your shoulder. Warmth presses in on all sides; his arm around you, his legs tangled with yours, the solid line of his body at your back. For a man who insisted this was just stress relief, he sure holds on like you’re going to vanish.

You stare at the dark ceiling for a moment, listening to the quiet, and then the thought that’s been nagging you for days finally slips out.

“Hey, Sanemi?”

“Hm?”

“When’s your birthday?”

His whole body goes still.

Not the fake, exaggerated stillness he uses around idiots he doesn’t want to talk to—this is subtle, the way a blade stills right before it cuts. The arm around your waist tightens, just a fraction.

“That’s a stupid question,” he says at last.

You huff a soft laugh. “It’s not a trick. Just a date.”

“You don’t need to know it.”

“I wanna know it,” you counter. “I know all sorts of things about you. How is this the one thing I don’t?”

He shifts behind you, and you can practically feel the suspicious gaze boring into the back of your head. “Like what?” he challenges.

You hum, counting them off on your fingers. “Let’s see… I know you like your tea hotter than is reasonable. I know you pretend you hate sweets but you always take the last piece when you think no one’s looking. I know exactly where your back hurts after a mission. I know you snore when you finally do sleep.”

“I don’t snore.”

“You do,” you say, amused. “It’s kind of cute.”

“Don’t say stuff like that,” he mutters, sounding genuinely offended. “I’m not cute.”

“Sure you’re not,” you soothe, patting his forearm. “Anyway. I know all that, but I don’t know when you were born. It feels unbalanced.”

“Unbalanced,” he repeats flatly.

“Yeah. I’m trying to complete my Sanemi file.”

He scoffs, breath warm against your neck. “You’re a damn menace.”

“Maybe.” You tilt your head a little so his breath tickles your skin. “So? Birthday?”

“No.”

You turn in his arms, rolling onto your back so you can see him. The bedding tugs with you, his hand sliding up to your ribs before he pulls it back like he’s been caught. Moonlight spills across his face from the window, catching in his white hair, making his scars look sharper, his eyes paler.

You prop yourself up on an elbow. “No?”

“No,” he says again, glaring at you like you just suggested he cuddle a demon. “What are you gonna do, throw some stupid party? Get the other Hashira involved? Put up banners?”

You laugh quietly. “Do I look like Mitsuri to you?”

He pauses, then grudgingly admits, “No. You don’t squeal enough.”

“Exactly.” You reach up, brushing a piece of hair out of his face. He doesn’t pull back. “I’m not going to drag you into some big celebration you’d hate. I just…” You shrug. “I wanna know. Because it’s you.”

He stares at you for a long moment, jaw tight, something uncomfortable flickering in his eyes. You can see the refusal right there, sitting on his tongue, ready to spit. It would be easy for him. He’s good at pushing people away.

But he doesn’t push you away, not on nights like this.

“Why’s it such a big deal?” you ask softly. “It’s one day.”

“It’s not important,” he snaps.

“It’s the day you started existing.” Your voice comes out smaller than you mean it to, honest in a way that makes your chest ache. “Feels pretty important to me.”

He breaks eye contact first, gaze sliding away to the wall. You see his throat move in a shallow swallow.

You rest your hand over his, fingers slipping between his rough knuckles. “Tell you what. I’ll trade you.”

His eyes flick back to you. “Trade?”

“Mm.” You nod. “You tell me your birthday, I tell you something embarrassing about me. Even exchange.”

“You’re already embarrassing,” he says automatically, which is rude but fair.

You grin. “Yeah, yeah. But this is prime material.”

He squints at you, clearly trying to decide if this is a trap. “Like what?”

You think for a second, then sigh. “Fine. Example: when I first joined the Corps, I was convinced if I slept, demons would sneak into the room and get me. So I tried to stay awake three days straight and passed out in a storage closet.”

His eyebrows climb. “You what?”

“Shinobu found me drooling on a bag of rice. There are witnesses,” you mutter. “I’ll never live it down.”

A huff of amusement slips past his guard, almost a laugh. “You’re an idiot.”

“I was a traumatized idiot,” you correct. “Now I’m just an idiot who wants to know your birthday.”

He looks at you, moonlight catching in those sharp eyes, and you can practically see the war happening inside his skull. It’s just a date. But it’s his. And that makes it different.

You squeeze his hand. “I won’t make a big deal out of it,” you say quietly. “I just… don’t like the idea of that day passing and you being the only one who notices.”

His breath stutters, just a little.

Silence stretches between you, filled with the quiet outside—the crickets, the distant hoot of an owl, the rustle of leaves.

Then, at last, he exhales.

“…late in the eleventh month,” he mutters.

You narrow your eyes. “That’s a time of year, not a birthday.”

“Don’t push it.” He glares. You don’t buy it.

“Day,” you insist.

“Tch.” He looks away again, like the wood of his wall is suddenly very interesting. “Twenty-ninth.”

Your heart does a stupid little flip. “So secretive,” you tease lightly. “You’d think you were guarding state information.”

“It’s not—” He cuts himself off, scowling. “Just don’t do anything weird with it.”

“Like what, summon a demon? Make a shrine?” You grin. “Relax. I told you. No banners. No giant crowd. No ‘Happy Birthday, Wind Hashira!’ sign.”

He grunts. “Good. Hate all that crap.”

You lean forward and press a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth. His eyes widen, then soften for half a second before his usual irritation drops back into place.

“Thanks, Sanemi,” you murmur. “For telling me.”

“…yeah. Whatever.” His fingers curl between yours, holding on, even as he grumbles, “Don’t expect me to do the same for you.”

“You already did,” you remind him. “But nice try.”

You settle back down, turning so your back is to his chest again. This time he doesn’t hesitate; his arm slides around you immediately, pulling you close, his face tucking into your hair.

The date echoes quietly in your head.

Eleventh month, twenty-ninth.

You’re absolutely going to do something with it.

Even if it’s small. Even if it’s just for the two of you.

Especially if it’s just for the two of you.

⸻

You do not, in fact, plan banners.

You do, however, plan a cake.

Calling it a cake might be generous.

Late autumn creeps in, the wind turning sharp, the nights colder. Missions blur together, days passing in a rush of blood and exhaustion and the constant hum of danger. You keep the date tucked against your ribs like a tiny, fragile secret.

On the morning of the twenty-ninth, you smuggle ingredients into the Butterfly Estate’s kitchen with the subtlety of a demon in geta on a tile roof.

“You’re being suspicious,” Aoi remarks, arms crossed, watching you fumble with flour.

“I’m always suspicious,” you say, already dusted in white. “I’m making something. Go away.”

She does not go away.

By the time the batter is in the pan, there is flour on the ceiling, egg on your sleeve, and a faint smell of something that might be… burning.

“You’re not very good at this,” Aoi says bluntly.

“I’m great at killing demons,” you protest. “Baking is… a secondary skill set.”

The cake that comes out of the oven is lopsided, one side higher than the other like it started climbing out and then gave up. The top is cracked. You stare at it in silence.

Aoi sighs. “At least it’s not raw.”

“With enough frosting,” you decide, “anything can be beautiful.”

You were wrong.

The frosting only emphasizes the unevenness, sagging over the low side and clumping on the high side. You smear it around anyway, sticking a few stray sprinkles on top like maybe that will distract from the disaster below.

It doesn’t.

It looks like something a particularly untalented demon tried to imitate from memory.

You love it a little.

“Are you sure you want to give him that?” Aoi asks, doubt heavy in her voice.

“Yes,” you say firmly, sticking a single candle in the middle. It tilts slightly but doesn’t fall. “It has… character.”

“It looks like it’s suffering,” she mutters.

“Perfect for him then,” you say, and carefully set it in the box you’d scrounged up.

⸻

It’s already dark by the time you make it to Sanemi’s place, the wind sharp enough to bite at your cheeks. You balance the box carefully in your hands, heart doing something annoyingly fast in your chest.

You don’t even know if he’s home yet. It’s not like you can send a crow “hey bestie, where you at, wanna emotionally open up on this sacred day.”

You raise your hand and knock anyway.

There’s a pause, then the sound of footsteps and a familiar bark: “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming, quit pounding like a goddamn—”

The door slides open, and there he is.

Hair a little damp from a recent wash, uniform half undone, eyes widening when he realizes it’s you. He looks tired, the kind of bone-deep exhaustion that never quite leaves, but something in his shoulders eases when he sees your face.

“What’re you doing here?” he demands, but it lacks real bite.

“Happy birthday,” you say softly.

He freezes.

His gaze drops to the box in your hands. “What’s that?”

“Well,” you say, “it was supposed to be a cake.”

Suspicion wars with curiosity on his face. “Supposed to be?”

You nudge past him with your shoulder, knowing if you wait for permission you’ll be standing on the doorstep all night. “Move. It’s cold.”

He grumbles but steps aside, shutting the door behind you. His house is the same as always—simple, sparse, everything neatly in its place. You set the box down on his low table and slip off the lid.

Silence.

Absolute silence.

You stare at the cake. He stares at the cake. The cake stares at nothing because it’s a cake, but if it could, it would probably be begging for death.

“…what the hell is that?” Sanemi asks at last.

You fold your arms. “Rude. It’s obviously a cake.”

“It looks like it lost a fight,” he says bluntly, stepping closer. “With a boar. And then got run over by a cart.”

You huff. “Well, I didn’t see you offering to bake.”

“I didn’t ask you to bake.”

“You also didn’t tell anyone it was your birthday,” you remind him, lighting the crooked candle with a match. “So honestly, you’re lucky you’re getting anything at all.”

The tiny flame flickers to life, casting a warm halo over the ugly frosting. You dim the lamp a little to make it more obvious, the room instantly feeling smaller, cozier.

You straighten and look at him.

For a second, his expression is completely open—surprise, confusion, something raw and unguarded flashing through his eyes. Then the usual scowl fights its way back, but it’s… weaker than usual.

“You remembered,” he says quietly.

“Of course I remembered.” You smile, hands finding the edge of the table. “Make a wish.”

“I don’t do wishes.”

“Humor me.”

He looks at you, then at the cursed cake, then back at you. You see his throat move as he swallows, see the way his fingers flex at his sides like he doesn’t know what to do with them.

“You really made this for me?” he asks, almost incredulous.

“No,” you say dryly. “I made it for the neighbor’s cat. Yes, you idiot, of course for you.”

He exhales, something like a laugh scraping out of him. It’s not his usual sharp bark of amusement; it’s softer, almost disbelieving.

“You could’ve just… I dunno. Said ‘happy birthday’ and left it at that.”

“I could have,” you agree. “But then you wouldn’t get to eat this beautiful disaster I bled for.”

“You bled for it?”

“Metaphorically,” you amend. “Mostly. I did burn myself.”

His gaze lingers on you, on the way you’re standing there in his house with this ridiculous cake and a single crooked candle, acting like this is the most normal thing in the world.

You can see it land, slowly: someone went to the effort. For him. For a day he would’ve spent pretending was just like any other.

The corner of his mouth twitches.

“Fine,” he mutters. “But if I make a wish and it doesn’t come true, I’m blaming you.”

“I’ll take that risk.”

He steps up to the table, hands braced on either side of the box. For a moment he just stares at the flame, the little point of light trembling in the draft that sneaks under the door.

You watch him, heart lodged somewhere in your throat.

He closes his eyes.

You don’t know what he wishes for. You’re not sure he knows, really. Maybe it’s something simple, like “no more demons.” Maybe it’s something selfish, like “let the people I have left stay.”

Maybe it’s something that has your face.

He leans down and blows the candle out.

Smoke curls up in a thin line, sweet and faint.

You clap once, quietly, more to break the suddenly thick silence than anything. “There. Officially older.”

“Shut up,” he grunts, but there’s no heat in it. “How old are you again?” he adds, squinting at the cake like it might answer.

“Old enough to bake,” you say.

“That’s debatable.”

You cut a slice with the nearest halfway-clean knife you can find and plop it onto a plate. It collapses slightly, frosting smearing. You offer it to him with both hands.

He takes it, staring down at it like it’s some kind of strange offering.

“If it’s terrible, you can lie,” you offer.

He snorts. “When have I ever lied to you?”

“Exactly why I’m nervous.”

He digs his fork in, takes a bite. Chews.

You lean forward, watching his face like a hawk. “Well?”

He swallows.

“It’s ugly,” he says.

You roll your eyes. “I know that part, thanks.”

“And the frosting’s too sweet.”

You wince. “I knew I overdid it.”

He takes another bite.

“But…” he says slowly, as if dragging the word out of his own throat, “it’s not bad.”

Warmth floods your chest. “Not bad,” you repeat, grinning. “High praise from the Wind Hashira.”

He mutters something about “low standards” and “starving after missions,” but he keeps eating, finishing the slice and then, grudgingly, letting you cut him another.

You don’t sing. You don’t make a speech. You just sit there on opposite sides of his low table, sharing messy pieces of cake from the same ugly slab, the room lit by a single lamp and the fading scent of blown-out candle.

At some point, crumbs on your fingers, you say quietly, “I’m glad you were born, you know.”

His hand stills halfway to his mouth.

You keep your gaze on your plate, suddenly shy. “Just… thought I should say it at least once. On the day.”

Silence stretches out. You start to worry you’ve pushed too far, said too much.

Then you feel it: his foot nudging yours under the table. Not hard enough to hurt, not sharp like his kicks in training. Just a touch.

You glance up.

He’s looking away, jaw tight, ears red.

“…yeah,” he mutters. “Me too.”

The words are gruff, almost thrown away, but they land heavy in your chest. You bite back a stupid smile.

“Don’t get all sappy on me now,” he adds quickly. “It’s gross.”

“You’re the one being sappy,” you point out. “I’m perfectly normal.”

He scoffs. “You’re the farthest thing from normal I’ve ever met.”

You open your mouth to argue, but his plate clinks softly as he sets it aside. In two strides he’s in front of you, hand closing around your wrist.

“C’mere,” he says, tugging you up.

“Why?”

“Because it’s my birthday,” he says, as if it’s obvious. “And I get what I want.”

You arch a brow. “Oh? And what do you want, birthday boy?”

He hesitates, eyes flicking over your face. For once, there’s no smirk, no mocking twist to his mouth. Just something raw and strangely young.

“You,” he says simply. “Stay. Tonight.”

Your heart does that annoying flip again. “I was planning on it,” you murmur.

“Good.” He looks away, embarrassed by his own sincerity, and starts dragging you toward the futon. “And don’t you dare tell anyone about this cake.”

“I’m absolutely telling,” you tease.

“I’ll throw it at you.”

“You’d never waste your birthday cake.”

He grumbles something obscene under his breath, but when you crawl back into the futon, he follows immediately, arm wrapping around you with none of the hesitation he had the first time.

Later, as you drift off with his breath warm against the back of your neck and the taste of too-sweet frosting still on your tongue, you think:

Next year, you’ll do it again.

Maybe the cake will be less ugly.

Maybe he’ll complain less.

Maybe he’ll admit what you two are.

For now, it’s enough that he let you in on this day at all.

Enough that, when he thinks you’re already asleep, you hear him whisper, so quietly you almost doubt it:

“Thanks… for remembering.”

You smile into the pillow and let the wind outside the window carry the words away, tucking them beside that date in your heart.

Masterlist

[woundsandwisteria]

May or may not be working on a little something that will be dropping soon 🫣

[woundsandwisteria]

Every Scar Tells a Story

The futon dips beneath his weight, and even half-asleep, you can tell it’s him. His scent — steel, matcha, faint blood — clings to the air. Sanemi always comes home late, usually long after you’ve fallen asleep, but tonight the sound of the door sliding open pulls you from your dreams. You don’t move at first; you just listen. The quiet rustle of his uniform coming off, the soft exhale when he sits down beside you. There’s a heaviness to it — the kind that doesn’t come from tired muscles, but from carrying too much.

When you finally roll over, he’s sitting on the edge of the futon, half undressed, moonlight crawling over the scars carved into his skin. His jaw’s clenched, eyes unfocused, tracing old wounds like he’s counting the years they stole from him. You push yourself up slowly, your hand finding his shoulder. “You’re back,” you whisper, voice still thick with sleep. He doesn’t look at you right away. “Didn’t mean to wake you,” he mutters, voice low, gravel-soft. His hand brushes over yours — calloused fingers trembling just a little — before he sighs. “Couldn’t sleep. Not after what I saw today.”

You slide closer, wrapping your arms around his torso, feeling the hard lines of him relax under your touch. “You don’t have to talk about it,” you murmur, resting your cheek between his shoulder blades. He’s silent for a moment, then laughs under his breath — a sound that’s more broken than amused. “You ever look at these scars and wonder how I’m still here?” he asks quietly. “Sometimes I think the only reason I am… is you.” The words fall like a confession he didn’t mean to let slip, and he goes still, waiting for your reaction.

You move your hand, tracing one jagged scar that runs down his arm. “Every one of them is proof you kept fighting,” you tell him. “Proof you survived. And I love every piece of you, Sanemi — even the parts that hurt.” His breath stutters, and he finally turns to face you. The walls he always keeps up are gone; what’s left is just a man who’s tired, loved, and trying to believe he deserves it. He leans forward, pressing his forehead to yours. “You’re too good for me,” he whispers. You smile faintly, brushing your lips against his. “Then be good enough to stay. Right here.” And for once, he doesn’t argue — he just nods, lets you pull him down beside you, and finally, finally sleeps.

⸻

Your arms don’t let him stay sitting for long. As soon as you see that distant look flicker across his face again, you tug him gently, guiding him down until his weight settles over you. “C’mere,” you whisper, and though he grumbles something under his breath, he doesn’t fight you. He never does. His body goes stiff at first, like he’s still on guard, but when your fingers slide into his hair and your thumb strokes the back of his neck, you feel the tension start to melt away.

He exhales — that deep, shuddering kind of breath he only ever lets out when he’s safe — and his head falls against your chest. The sound of your heartbeat fills the small, dark room, steady and real. For a while, neither of you speak. You just hold him there, fingers combing through his messy white hair, your lips brushing the top of his head every now and then. His arm wraps around your waist, holding you like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he lets go.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he mutters after a moment, voice muffled against your skin. You can hear the faintest hint of embarrassment under the exhaustion. “Like what?” you tease softly. He huffs. “Like I’m some damn kid that needs coddling.” His tone’s sharp, but his grip tightens instead of pulling away. You smile against his hair, knowing full well what he won’t say. “You’re not a kid, Nemi,” you whisper. “You’re just tired. And you deserve to rest.”

He doesn’t answer, but the way he shifts — burying his face deeper between your breasts, muscles finally relaxing — says more than words ever could. His breath evens out, slow and heavy, and before long, he’s asleep like that, held safe against you. You stay awake a little longer, tracing the scars along his back with gentle fingers. He’d never admit it, but you know this is where he feels most at peace. For all his sharp edges and angry words, Sanemi’s heart only ever needed a place soft enough to fall. And you’d give him that — every night, for as long as he’ll let you.

⸻

The light that filters through the paper doors is pale and slow, the kind that makes dust shimmer in the air. Sanemi wakes first, like he always does, but for once he doesn’t move. The first thing he feels is warmth — the weight of your arm draped over him, the rise and fall of your chest under his cheek. It’s disorienting at first, not being on a cold floor or on alert for danger. Just the smell of your skin, the steady rhythm of your heartbeat.

He should get up. That’s what he tells himself. He’s the Wind Hashira, not some man who lounges around in his lover’s arms. But when he shifts even slightly, the soft sound you make — that tiny sigh, followed by your fingers curling against his shoulder — makes his chest ache. He freezes. Then, without meaning to, he buries his face deeper against you, nose brushing the skin just above the collar of your yukata. You smell like lavender soap and warmth, and he swears it’s the first time in years he’s felt truly calm.

He grumbles quietly to himself, half annoyed, half content. “Damn woman, makin’ me soft,” he mutters, the words muffled. But the way his hand slides over your waist, the way he breathes you in again, betrays him completely. You shift in your sleep, mumbling his name, and that alone is enough to make him still again — like if he stays quiet, you’ll keep saying it.

For a long while, he just listens. To your breathing. To the birds outside. To the steady thrum of life that he fights every day to protect. Eventually, he presses a kiss to your chest, light and fleeting, and whispers, “Guess I’m down bad, huh?” There’s no mockery in it — just quiet truth. He’ll never admit it when you’re awake, but in that moment, with the world still and soft around him, Sanemi Shinazugawa allows himself to simply be held.

⸻

You start to stir, the sunlight finally nudging you awake. For a moment you’re confused by the weight over you until you remember — Sanemi came home late, and you’d pulled him down beside you. He’s still there, breathing slow and even, but the second you shift, you feel him tense.

“Morning,” you mumble, voice still rough from sleep. He grunts in reply, face still hidden against you. His hair tickles your skin, and you can feel the faint smile he’s trying to hide. “You’re awake,” you say softly. “Been awake,” he answers, and his voice is so low it rumbles through your chest.

You hum and tighten your arm around him. “Then don’t move. Just stay.” He makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “You’re clingy in the morning, y’know that?” he mutters, trying to push up on his elbows, but you tug harder, trying to pull him back down. It’s hopeless; he’s solid muscle, and you end up whining his name into his shoulder.

He freezes at the sound. Then, with a sigh that’s half defeat, half amusement, he drops back down and lets you wrap around him again. “You’re ridiculous,” he grumbles, but his arm slips around your waist, drawing you closer until there’s no space left between you. You smile against his neck. “Yeah, but you like it,” you murmur. He doesn’t answer — not with words. Just another quiet, resigned hum and the smallest kiss pressed to your collarbone. For all his talk, Sanemi Shinazugawa has never once won a battle against your morning cuddles.

⸻

Let’s just say I also have another giyuu one in the works 🤭

Along with some other things! Anyways don’t be afraid to leave suggestions on what I should write about next!!

Masterlist

[woundsandwisteria]

When the Ember Stirs

Part 2 to Both Flames

Inspired by @animalssssss-----love

The Butterfly Estate breathed like a garden—screens open to let the scent of green things in, cicadas sawing at the warm edge of noon. Aoi had claimed the wide table near the herb shelves, and the girls moved around it with the choreographed ease of practice: Kiyo tying rolls of clean linen, Sumi grinding willow bark with industrious ferocity, Naho ferrying bundles to the cupboard and back again with the solemn importance of a crane on patrol.

You were meant to be resting. This was the compromise: resting while sitting, which in your mind did not preclude sorting poultices, counting bandages, and vetoing a dangerously optimistic stack of glass jars.

“You’re nesting,” Aoi observed without looking up.

“I’m sitting,” you countered, arranging the mallow root by size because it pleased your brain.

Kiyo leaned closer, whispering, “Does the baby like the smell of mint or ginger better?”

“They like whatever I eat,” you said, which made Sumi perk up like a sunflower. “So today, mint.”

“Ha!” Sumi declared, fists in the air. “Victory for mint!”

Aoi’s mouth tried and failed not to smile. “If my jars start being arranged in spectrum order again, I’m blaming you.”

A low, dull cramp tugged and let go like the tide. You breathed and passed Kiyo another roll of gauze as if nothing had happened. A few minutes later, another—deeper, a notch heavier. You shifted on the cushion, rubbing the small of your back with absent circles.

The shōji door sighed. Senjurō stepped through first, hair tied neat, arms overfull: a lacquered bento, a wrapped jar, a small cloth packet you recognized as the household pickles. He bowed, cheeks a little pink.

Behind him came Kyojuro, cane tapping once on the threshold before he leaned it against the frame. He carried nothing because it left his hands free to greet, and because Senjurō had bullied him into letting someone else carry for once.

“Rengoku-san,” the girls chorused, bowing so politely it turned into giggling.

“Ladies,” Kyojuro boomed, delighted—as if the sun had decided to sit among you. “We have brought bribes. I am told they are effective currency.”

“Only on Tuesdays,” Aoi deadpanned, taking the bento. “Which today is, fortunately for you.”

Shinobu’s voice floated from the hall—cool water over stone. “He’s supposed to be resting, not making my corridors louder.”

Kyojuro pressed a hand to his heart. “I am very restful.”

“Mm,” Shinobu said, which in her dialect meant fond tolerance.

Kyojuro crossed to you with the careful gait of a man who’d learned not to show when things hurt, then forgot to hide it around you. He lowered onto the cushion at your side, left eye catching light oddly, gold iris still sunrise.

“You are conquering mountains,” he said gravely, nodding at the neat pyramids of gauze. “I approve of your strategy.”

Senjurō knelt and began tying the last stack with deft fingers. “Sister,” he said, shy smile tugging, “may I?”

“You may.”

The estate absorbed Kyojuro at once. While Senjurō settled at your elbow, Kyojuro socialized shamelessly—asking Naho about the herb harvest, listening to Sumi’s report of a limping fox stealing rice balls, trading notes with Aoi about stubborn shoulders. He praised Kiyo’s knots as if she’d invented bandages. Aoi smacked him with a cloth and told him to stop making the medicines vain.

Another cramp rolled through—longer now, a slow band tightening low across your belly. You didn’t speak, but you paused. Across the room, Kyojuro’s laugh softened mid-note. His gaze slid to you, then to your hand on your back. His own hand drifted to the cane, squeezing once, knuckles whitening, before he returned to teasing Sumi about guarding her rice balls like a demon ward.

Aoi noticed, of course. “If those ‘practice’ pains keep getting chummy with each other,” she said lightly, “I would enjoy the satisfaction of being right.”

“Duly noted,” you said, which was not agreement.

Time lengthened between small tasks, and the pulls learned rhythm: eight breaths apart, then seven. Each one took a little more focus; each one let you go a little slower. Kyojuro didn’t fuss. He simply adjusted—sliding closer on the next wave, thumb pressing a sure circle at the spot on your sacrum that made the ache bearable, then drifting away to chat again the moment you waved him off. He missed nothing. When your exhale shortened, his shortened with it; when your shoulders crept to your ears, his palm coaxed them down without comment.

“Will you get the top basket?” you asked Senjurō, nodding toward the high shelf. “The light one, I promise.”

He rose easily. You pushed to your feet because sitting had become a philosophy you were suddenly irritated with, and took two steps.

The pull came sharp enough to fold you—no longer the tide but the undertow. You braced on the table, breathed, rode it out. It ebbed.

Kyojuro was mid-story with Shinobu about a shameless rice-ball thief and already turning. “Beloved?”

“I’m fine,” you said, a little breathless. “Just—”

Warmth spilled down your legs. Not the small indignity of late pregnancy, but an unmistakable flood. You stared at the wet blooming on polished floorboards, then at Aoi’s face, which had arranged itself into the calm of a woman who relishes being right.

“Well,” Aoi announced, brisk and pleased. “So much for practice.”

Kiyo squeaked. Sumi whooped, clapping a hand over her mouth. Naho vanished and reappeared with towels like she’d always had them. Senjurō set the basket down and took your elbow without being told.

Kyojuro was at your side in two strides, cane abandoned. “Easy,” he said, voice gone warm and clipped at once, like a river right after rain. His shoulder tucked under yours without crowding. “Deep breaths. There we are.”

You started laughing, then crying, because both were true. “I told you I was fine.”

“You were,” he agreed solemnly, stepping neatly out of the spreading puddle. “And now you are doing something else entirely, and it is magnificent. Aoi?”

“Room three,” Aoi said, sweeping to the door like a general. “Sumi, kettle. Kiyo, linens. Naho—good.” Shinobu slid the door wider with a small, encouraging nod.

The corridor became a river: cool cloths, clean sheets, the small clink of bowls. The contractions found a tempo—five breaths apart, then four. You breathed with them because there was nothing else to be done. Kyojuro walked on your left, palm warm at the curve of your back, thumb stilling whenever your breath hitched. Senjurō followed with towels and reverence.

The room received you like a cupped hand. The brazier burned low. Shinobu’s fingers were cool and exact on your wrist, then your belly. “Good,” she said, as if you’d solved an equation. “Steady. Not rushed.”

Aoi arranged pillows at back and knees with storm-season competence. “Tell me what you need,” she said, which felt like being given a map you’d partly drawn.

What you needed was Kyojuro’s hand, his breath near yours, his constancy. What you needed was Senjurō’s quiet feet bringing water, the girls’ small fierce hands ferrying cloths like holy things. What you needed was to laugh when Aoi bossed Kyojuro into sitting (“You breathe too”), to drink when someone raised a cup, to lean forward while Kyojuro pressed the heel of his hand into your lower back in perfect, blessed counter-pressure.

The waves came closer—three breaths, then two. They crested higher, held longer. Your jaw wanted to clamp; Kyojuro’s thumb tapped your chin lightly. “Soft jaw, soft shoulders,” he murmured, and dropped his own to show you how. When your breath went high and thin, he caught it and brought it low, counting quiet and even: “In for four… out for six… good. Again.” He dampened a cloth in cool water and stroked it over your hairline; he tipped the cup to your lips at the exact moment you remembered thirst.

“Sorry,” you managed between surges when your hand crushed his. “Does it—”

“No,” he said instantly, pressing his forehead to yours. The old scar at the corner of his left eye brightened when he smiled. “No apologies. You are doing so well. Don’t worry about me.”

“You’ll—regret—that—”

“Never,” he said, laugh breaking, joy with nowhere to go. “Squeeze me like a demon you intend to throttle.”

“Language,” Aoi said mildly, but her mouth was very soft.

Time unspooled. When the ring of heat arrived—hot, bright, impossible—panic tried to climb up your throat. Kyojuro’s voice met it halfway, steady as a drum. “Yes. That’s power. You’re safe. Breathe down. Good. Again. You have it.”

Senjurō waited just beyond the screen when asked, then returned when Aoi crooked a finger, eyes huge and shining, carrying a fresh cloth like a relic. The girls moved like a single thought. Shinobu’s calm count clicked into place with your body’s insistence.

When pushing began, Kyojuro knelt where you could see him. One of his hands stayed laced with yours; the other anchored warm and firm at your hip, a human brace. Between surges, he breathed with you. During them, he spoke low and sure—praise, reminders, your name said like a promise. At one point you snapped, “Stop being so perfect,” and he grinned, delighted, “Impossible, I’m married to you.”

The world became sound and light: your breath, your effort, the rustle of linens, the murmured encouragement of too many hands to count. Then—the air changed. A single, outraged cry cut the quiet cleanly, bright and alive. Everyone in the room smiled without permission.

Kyojuro made a noise you’d only heard once—a wet, reverent laugh that broke halfway. His hand trembled in yours. He kissed you—temple, hair, cheek—as if he wanted to thank every piece of you separately.

There was motion—wiping, checking, the efficient reverence of people who knew what to do when the sacred arrived messy. Then warmth, weight. A new axis on your chest.

Dark, damp hair—then as lamplight caught it, a glint of gold-red like breath on a coal. A mouth with Kyojuro’s unabashed line, determined fists, an expressive scrunch that was so him you laughed through tears.

Behind Aoi, Sumi forgot to whisper. “Damn, those Rengoku genes are strong.”

“Sumi,” Aoi scolded, but fondly. Shinobu’s shoulders shook as she didn’t smile.

You touched the baby’s cheek with the back of your finger and felt your heart make room, enormous and tender. “Hello,” you whispered, hoarse with joy. “Hello, little ember.”

Kyojuro did not ask permission to cry. He did it openly, gloriously, tears shining in the odd light of his left eye and the molten steadiness of his right. He lowered his face to breathe the baby’s air and laughed—soft, disbelieving, undone.

“They look like their father,” you murmured, wonder softening every word. “Honestly? Nine months in my belly and you have the audacity to look like him?”

Kyojuro choked on a laugh. Aoi snorted. From the hall, someone (Sumi, absolutely Sumi) stage-whispered, “Justice for Mom!” and promptly got shushed by three different people.

Kyojuro kissed your knuckles. “Then I must beg you to teach our child your kindness to balance the unfairness.”

“Your hand,” you said, noticing the bruised crescent your grip had left.

He blinked down as if surprised his body still existed. “Ah,” he said, delighted. “Proof I was useful.”

“You were essential,” Aoi said, which in her dialect meant well done, you may keep existing in my infirmary. She adjusted the blanket with a gentleness that made your throat ache. “Mother and child are well.”

Shinobu’s fingers rested for a beat on the baby’s back. “A strong cry,” she said, eyes crinkling. “Excellent lungs. I foresee opinions.”

“Good,” Kyojuro said fervently, staring like a pilgrim. “They will need them to tell the world what they want.”

Senjurō hovered in the doorway, hands folded as if inside a temple. He looked so much like his mother in that instant—quiet steadfastness, joy kept carefully so it wouldn’t spill—that you swallowed against a sudden, aching sweetness.

“Come,” you said. He did, step by quiet step, bowing slightly as if greeting a superior officer.

“Hello,” he whispered, voice breaking on the second syllable. “I’m your uncle. I will bring you the best peaches in every season. This is a vow.”

The baby yawned—an outrageously small perfect thing. Kyojuro laughed helplessly. “Already unimpressed by oaths. A Rengoku indeed.”

The brazier purred in the corner, coals a banked constellation. Dawn edged the screens, light catching the baby’s hair and turning it real in a new way; it slid over Kyojuro’s face and found every line joy had carved there.

You turned your head and found his mouth with clumsy precision. “Thank you,” you said, because nothing else would hold.

“Thank you,” he answered, as if you’d handed him the sun.

He kissed the baby’s crown, then your brow, and then simply stayed—arm around your shoulders, hand over your heart—reminding your body there was nothing left to do but be alive. The child slept, heavy and warm and astonishing. And in that small room, with the door slid against the world and summer laying itself gentle over the floorboards, the light felt like something made to last.

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

Masterlist

Thank you again to @animalssssss-----love for giving me this wonderful idea!! Did not even consider making it till you suguested it lol

[woundsandwisteria]

My Wife Wouldn’t LIke that

Giyu's Version

The Butterfly Estate breathed with the night paper doors sighing, cicadas whispering beyond the garden wall. You had been there since they brought him in, since Shinobu’s needles bit and the white bands were cinched snug around his ribs.

He almost never came back like this. Not him. Not the Hashira who moved like quiet water and never let the current take him. But tonight his haori was heavy with blood, his mouth drawn thin, his steps uneven. In the infirmary he’d tried to sit up twice murmuring that others needed the bed and when Shinobu told him to hold still, he went still the way a bowstring does: too tight, a breath from snapping.

“I’m treating you first,” Shinobu said mildly, palm settling on his shoulder. He turned his head away, jaw clenched.

“Help them,” he ground out. “I can wait.”

“You can’t,” she answered, and met your eyes before pressing the draught to his lips. “You’re not the only stubborn one in this room.”

Now he lay pale against the futon, breath steady but shallow. Your palm rested lightly over the bandages, right over his sternum, thumb tracing the edge where linen met skin, counting each slow thud as if the numbers themselves could keep him tethered.

“Come back to me,” you whispered, though he could not hear.

Lashes stirred. A faint crease formed between his brows; his gaze drifted ceiling beam, shoji, the dark spill of garden beyond—and then found you.

His chest rose under your hand. The little monitor at his side hiccuped. Beep—beep.

His voice came out rough and quiet. “…you shouldn’t touch me like that.” A beat, his eyes struggling to focus. “My wife wouldn’t like it.”

You blinked. “Giyu."

“She doesn’t like when… strangers touch my chest.”

“Giyu,” you said again, soft but steady. “I am your wife.”

The words hung there. For a heartbeat: only cicadas and the sharp herbal bite of antiseptic. Then his pulse tripped and the machine tattled—beep-beep-beep—as focus finally settled into his eyes.

Something unguarded opened in his face. Not a measured curve. A completely dopey little smile, earnest and crooked, like a secret falling out of his hands.

He looked down at your palm on his bandages as if it were the only true thing in the room. Words slipped out, soft and unfiltered, as if the medicine had taken the locks off his ribs along with the pain.

“She puts her hand there when I’m hurt,” he murmured. “Says it helps her breathe. It helps me.” His lashes fluttered. “She mends my haori when it tears. The stitches where the halves meet, small and close so no one sees.” His voice turned reverent, hushed. “One side is him. One side is her. She keeps them together for me.”

Your thumb stilled over the linen. Heat pricked your eyes.

“She warms the cup even when I’m late,” he went on, oblivious to the way your throat tightened. “Picks thread from my cuffs. Waits at the gate. Counts my breaths after the bad dreams.” The smile threatened again, foolish and honest. “Always finds my hand first.”

As if to prove it, his fingers twitched against the futon, searching. You laced your free hand with his before the reaching could turn into a flinch. Under your palm, his heartbeat steadied like it remembered the path. The monitor sang along. Beep—beep—beep.

Giyu’s mouth moved again, and this time the words were raw. “…I don’t—” He swallowed. His eyes skittered from yours and back, like he knew he shouldn’t say it and couldn’t stop. “I don’t… deserve it. Hashira. They made a mistake.” A thin breath. “It should’ve been—” His gaze flicked to the folded haori on the stool, to the seam where red met teal. “I’m just wearing borrowed colors.”

Your hand stayed light over his ribs never more than a feather’s weight. “You’re not borrowed,” you said, voice low and even, like telling a skittish animal the ground is solid. “And you’re not a mistake.”

The monitor evened out, a softer beep… beep… that made his eyes tip back to yours. That ridiculous little smile ghosted across his mouth, helpless.

He shifted, clumsy and sore, and brought your joined hands to his chest pressing them there as if to pin you in place. “Don’t go,” he mumbled, the words smudged at the edges.

“I’m here,” you answered.

“Stay,” he breathed, and the machine squealed like a delighted child.

You didn’t move your hand.

He drifted; you felt it in the looseness of his fingers, in the way his shoulders unwound a fraction at a time. Twice he startled, breath catching sharp like a stitch had tugged, and twice you smoothed your thumb along the edge of bandage and skin until the stutter eased. At some point his grip changed from seeking to holding: a quiet, dogged cling that said more than words—more than he would ever allow himself to say awake. When his cheek turned into your palm on instinct, the monitor hopped again. You pretended not to notice. The nurse pretended not to exist. The night breathed on.

—

Dawn laid a pale square across the tatami. He woke to it, blinking, the world clearer but not yet cruel. Your hand was still where it had been all night; his was still over it, pinning you to him as if any looseness might let the tide carry you away.

“Thirsty?” you asked.

He nodded. Then, when you moved to reach for the cup, his hand tightened—just for a heartbeat, a wordless wait.

You paused. “I’m not going anywhere.” Only when his fingers eased did you pour, lift the bowl to his mouth, tip it carefully. He drank obediently for once, eyes on yours, the line of his shoulders lower than the day before.

Shinobu slid the door open with her usual bright calm. “Good morning,” she sang lightly, taking in the picture: your palm at his sternum, his hand locked over yours, the steady rise and fall under neat white bands.

“Don’t say it,” you warned.

“I was only going to say,” she replied, lips twitching, “that his pulse is excellent when his wife is present.” The clip on his finger answered for her with a perfectly timed beep. She pretended to check a chart. “And that if he even thinks of standing, I’ll sedate him again.”

Giyu stared at the ceiling, mortified and—betrayal of betrayals—relaxed. “I’m not going anywhere,” he muttered.

“Good,” Shinobu said, satisfied. She stepped out, the door whispering shut.

You settled back onto your heels. He looked at you, and for once he didn’t try to rebuild the mask all at once. The medicine’s softness still clung to him in frayed threads. It made him foolishly honest, made him brave in a way sobriety never did.

“Thank you,” he said, like the words cost something and he was paying anyway.

“For what?”

“For… keeping them together.” His gaze flicked to the haori on the stool, to the seam where your tiny, careful stitches disappeared between red and teal. He swallowed. “For keeping me together.”

Your answer was the same as it had been all night: a steady palm over his heart, light and sure. The machine didn’t need to tattle. The room already knew—his pulse had settled, his shoulders had dropped, and the storm he’d dragged back from the dark had finally passed beneath the Butterfly Estate’s gentle eaves.

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

Masterlist

[woundsandwisteria]

My Wife Wouldn’t Like That

Rengoku's Version

You told him to be careful.

He’d promised he would — that he wasn’t going alone this time. Tanjiro, Inosuke, and Zenitsu were with him, and the mission was supposed to be straightforward. A lower-ranked demon, maybe two. Nothing he couldn’t handle.

But no one had expected an Upper Moon to appear.

Akaza had been brutal. The damage had been worse.

Now you stood in the Butterfly Estate courtyard with Kyojuro’s blood crusted under your nails, watching them carry him inside — limp, pale, ribs shattered and eye swollen shut — and wondering if “he’ll be okay” was just something they were saying to keep you from falling apart.

“He’s alive,” the medic said firmly when you pressed too close. “He needs surgery. He’s lost a lot of blood.”

You nodded, dazed.

“He asked for someone before he passed out,” she added, a little softer. “Said your name.”

You nodded again — then waited. Paced. Waited some more.

By the time they let you in, the sun had long since set.

“He’s awake,” a nurse told you at last, biting back a smile. “Still pretty out of it. But talking.”

You didn’t wait for more. You slid the shoji open, heart thudding.

There he was — propped up against pillows, chest bare but bandaged, hair mussed and splayed over white linens. His left eye was bruised and swollen shut, and his right blinked slowly toward the ceiling like he was trying to remember how to see.

You knelt beside him, brushing your hand over his arm. “Kyojuro?”

His gaze drifted. Then found your face. Then narrowed — not in recognition, but in… concern? He frowned.

“…you shouldn’t be this close,” he murmured, voice thick and slow.

You blinked. “What?”

His brow furrowed deeper. “My wife… wouldn’t like that.”

You stared. “…Your what now?”

“My wife,” he repeated, very serious. “She’s real scary. Beautiful. Strong. Would absolutely murder me if she saw some pretty girl touching me.”

You choked. “Kyojuro, it’s me.”

He squinted harder. Then looked you up and down like he was performing threat assessment.

“…nah.”

“Nah??”

“My wife’s way prettier,” he said with total conviction. “Like… way. Like, insane.”

You gaped. “Are you serious?”

“She has this smile,” he mumbled dreamily, “and it’s got this little crinkle by her nose… and she laughs like sunshine and thunder. You don’t laugh like that.”

You sat back on your heels, half-laughing, half-on-the-verge-of-crying. “You’re describing me, idiot.”

He frowned. “No… my wife also yells at me when I do dumb things. You’re being very nice.”

You sniffed, swiping a hand across your eyes. “Because you almost died.”

“My wife would yell,” he insisted. “Then kiss my face and call me an idiot. Then cry about it later when she thinks I’m asleep.”

Your throat tightened.

“I am your girlfriend,” you whispered. “Not your wife.”

He shook his head slowly. “No… you’re too pretty to be her.”

“I am her.”

He stared at you for a long, long moment — eyes glassy and warm, and completely unconvinced.

“…I dunno. I’d remember someone this beautiful.”

Your jaw dropped.

“You absolute idiot,” you muttered through a watery giggle, brushing his hair off his forehead. “You’re still bleeding out and somehow managing to be more loyal than any man in this country.”

“Don’t talk bad about my wife,” he said, closing his eyes with the most stubborn little pout.

You leaned in and kissed his temple.

He blinked slowly. Then looked at you again.

“…you smell like her.”

“Because I am her.”

“…you touch me like her too…” he mumbled, like he was trying to do math in his brain but it kept turning into soup. “Maybe you’re her cousin…”

“Okay. We’re done here.” You laughed into his shoulder and carefully readjusted his blankets.

“…wait.”

You paused.

“…are you her?”

You looked back at him.

“I might be.”

He stared.

Then his lips tugged into a sleepy, dizzy grin. “Damn. I married good.”

“You’re not married, Kyo.”

He smiled wider. “Not yet.”

The monitor beside him picked up pace — a few higher beeps. You shook your head, smiling as you laid his hand gently over his bandaged chest.

⸻

The Next Morning

You slipped back into the room just after sunrise with a fresh bowl of soup, fully expecting him to be asleep.

He was not.

He was sitting upright with his hair sticking out in every direction and a confused, deeply betrayed look on his face.

“…did I tell someone I had a wife?” he asked flatly.

You set the bowl down. “You did.”

“…and that you weren’t her?”

“You did.”

“…and that she was hotter than you?”

You gave him your sweetest smile. “Oh yeah. Loudly.”

He groaned and flopped back against the pillows. “Please kill me.”

You leaned over him, resting your chin on his shoulder. “I don’t know. You’re lucky I’m not your terrifyingly beautiful wife or I might have murdered you for flirting with a nurse.”

He groaned again. “I am never living this down.”

You kissed his cheek. “Nope. In fact, I’m having Mitsuri embroider it on a banner.”

He side-eyed you, still red.

“…I meant it, though.”

You blinked. “Hm?”

His eyes softened — still a little foggy, but steadier now. “I don’t remember much. But I remember thinking how real you felt. And how much I wanted it to be true.”

Your heart flipped. “Kyo…”

He looked at you. “So next time I call you my wife… I want it to be for real.”

Your breath caught.

And you laughed — full and real and just like the one he’d tried to describe in his haze.

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

Masterlist

[woundsandwisteria]

What Remains 

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: Mentions of Yoriichi’s canon backstory

Requested by @9deifices

The cicadas sang, but their chorus felt cruel tonight. Too alive, too careless, as if the world hadn’t shattered.

You sat on the engawa of a quiet inn, your knees drawn close, hands folded tight in your lap. Beside you, Yoriichi Tsugikuni sat in silence, his sword across his knees. He hadn’t touched the blade, though his fingers hovered at the hilt, restless in their stillness.

The sun had bled from the sky, and the first stars were piercing through the dark. His gaze lingered on them, steady, unblinking. He looked carved from the same twilight, his face calm, but so hollow it made your chest ache.

You had heard the whispers. How his wife and unborn child had been taken from him in the cruelest way imaginable. How he had returned, too late, carrying a midwife’s promise in his hands, only to find nothing but blood, silence, and the absence of laughter that would never come.

And still after Muzan’s escape, after his own brethren turned wary eyes toward him, he carried that silence with him.

At last, his voice broke it.

“Do you ever feel,” he asked, low and almost raw, “that time does not belong to you?”

Your throat tightened. “Yes,” you whispered. “As if it races past when we wish to hold it still… or crawls when we beg it to hurry.”

He turned toward you then, eyes burning faintly red in the starlight. There was no anger there, no bitterness, only a sorrow too vast for words.

“I was given happiness once,” Yoriichi said softly. “For a brief moment, I thought… perhaps even a man such as I could belong to the world.” His lips curved, but it was not a smile. “But the world took it from me before I could hold it long enough to believe it was real.”

You didn’t breathe. You couldn’t. Every word fell like a blade into your chest.

He looked away, his hand tightening over the scabbard. “I arrived too late. Too late to save her. Too late to meet the child who should have been born into her arms.” His shoulders barely shifted, but you caught the tremor in his breath. “And now… now even those I swore to fight beside see me as a shadow. A failure. A reminder of what cannot be undone.”

Your fingers twitched, aching to reach for him, to bridge the unbearable distance between his grief and your own helplessness. Slowly, carefully, you let your sleeve brush against his, the warmth of his body seeping into your arm.

It was the smallest of touches, but he went very still.

“I cannot give you a whole man,” Yoriichi murmured. His voice cracked on the edges, so quiet you barely heard it. “Only one who has already lost everything.”

Your heart clenched painfully, but you forced your voice steady. “Then I will stay with what remains.”

For the first time, his composure faltered. His head lowered, eyes closing against the weight of your words, against the sting of grief that had never dulled. And though his hand did not reach for yours, the space between you was no longer empty.

The cicadas still sang. The stars still burned. The world still spun, cruel and indifferent. But there, on the engawa, with your sleeve brushing his, Yoriichi was not alone in his silence.

Masterlist

[woundsandwisteria]

Both Flames

post-Akaza, 7 months pregnant

The brazier had been fed not long ago. Coals glowed like banked stars, tongues of flame curling upward, reaching and retreating. You hadn’t meant to stop—only to pass through the sitting room and fetch more tea before Kyojuro’s evening tonic cooled. But there was that old tug in your chest again, the one that had started the week you realized your queasiness wasn’t from bad rice.

You sank carefully to a floor cushion with the gracelessness of someone who had surrendered to gravity as a lifestyle. Seven months. Your hand cupped the round of your belly, thumb tracing thoughtless circles. The fire gave the room a slow pulse; your breaths fell into rhythm with it. The longer you watched, the more the world narrowed to heat and color.

Tradition said Rengoku women stared into flames while pregnant. You had laughed when Kyojuro told you that once. It sounded like a story crafted to explain a family who looked born of sunrise. But now the blaze wouldn’t let you go. It wasn’t a superstition so much as a summons.

“Beloved,” came his voice at last, warm and roughened at the edges, the syllables worn by pain and healing.

You blinked out of the trance and turned. He was there in the doorway, framed by the dim hall. He leaned more than he admitted. The cane wasn’t always in his hand, but you had learned the pattern: mornings without, evenings with. His left eye caught the fire oddly; the iris still molten gold, but the whites tinted faintly with the stubborn memory of injury. Sometimes, when he tired, the lid hung just a fraction lower. The old wound across his abdomen hid beneath his yukata, but you knew its shape—the way the scar tugged when he turned, the way his breath shortened when he laughed too hard.

He smiled anyway, exactly the way he always had: as if joy were a muscle he refused to let atrophy.

“If you stare too long,” he said, coming toward you with steady, measured steps, “our child will take all the fire for themself—hair, eyes, the lot.” He lowered himself beside you with a careful grace that would look ceremonial if you didn’t know how his right knee sometimes barked. His palm—warm, wide, callused—settled over yours atop your belly. “And I want them to look like their mother, too.”

Your throat went soft at the last sentence. “Like me?”

“Yes.” No hesitation. “Your eyes when you’re listening. Your smile when you think you shouldn’t. Your hands…” His thumb brushed your knuckles, reverent. “The flame already burns loudly enough in me. If our child carries only that, they will burn too hot, too fast. I want them to have your warmth—the kind that does not scorch.”

The baby turned under both your hands, a slow roll like a fish under a sun-struck pond. You breathed out a laugh that made your ribs ache pleasantly. “They’re eavesdropping again.”

Kyojuro’s head tipped, delighted. “Excellent habits already.”

You studied his face in the shifting light. There were new lines now—earned, not worn. His left eye didn’t track as quickly as the right; when he glanced, it followed a beat late. He’d told you once, quietly, that bright days looked softer on that side, as if gauze hung in the air. You had cupped his cheek then, steadying the world for him.

“Have you taken your tonic?” you asked now, all practicality to cover tenderness.

He made a face that meant both yes and please don’t make me like it. “Mm.”

“And your stretches?”

“I did the ones for my back. Senjurō bullied me into the shoulder set.”

“Good.” You smoothed the front of his yukata where it folded. “You need to be gentle with yourself.”

He leaned into your hand like a cat who had decided the petting was acceptable. “Hypocrite.”

You sniffed. “I am a model of restraint.”

“Mm.” The hum rumbled through his chest and into your shoulder where it touched him. “You tried to lift the bath bucket by yourself at midday.”

You scowled at the fire because it refused to cover for you. “It didn’t look heavy.”

“And yet.” He kissed the side of your head in punctuation before easing back to look at the brazier, voice softer. “Do you remember, one week after the train?”

You did. The memory arrived whole, like an unopened letter you knew by the slant of the handwriting.

Kyojuro had been home from the Butterfly Mansion only a handful of days, the laudanum traded for willow bark tea, the careful hands of attendants traded for yours. Indignation had kept him upright; gratitude had kept him gentle. You had woken before dawn to the smell of ash and rail oil that still haunted your dreams and had gone pale at the basin. He had found you kneeling, elbow propped on the lip, forehead tucked to your sleeve, strand of hair stuck to your cheek. He’d crouched too quickly and grunted—a hand to his abdomen—and you’d snapped, “Don’t,” with ferocity that startled both of you.

“I was very dramatic,” you murmured now, smiling despite yourself.

“I was very abrupt,” he returned.

You could almost feel the cool clay of the basin under your palm. It’s nothing, you’d insisted once your stomach had settled, a lie even then. He had not asked again; he had simply fetched a cup of water and the small cloth that made everything feel solvable, and stayed until the color returned to your face.

When the morning came fully, you had taken the long path around the worry, into town, to the apothecary. You stood by the wall of paper packets and tiny glass vials and felt like an imposter. And then you asked. And then you walked home slowly with your heart stretched so big you were sure it was going to bruise your ribs.

You hadn’t meant to tell him like that. You’d meant candles, and a silly carved talisman in the shape of a flame, and maybe a peach because you always brought him peaches. Instead, you’d found him in the garden, scolding a sparrow for bullying a smaller sparrow out of the water dish. Your mouth was moving before your brain could catch up. Kyojuro, I— Your voice had shaken and then steadied. We’re going to have a child.

For a moment, every line in him had gone still—the way a flame pauses in a windless room. Then he had exhaled—wet, laughing, almost unbelieving. His hands had landed in his hair like he needed to hold his own head on. He had said your name like a prayer and then the word family and then, with a little broken noise you had never heard him make, “Delicious,” which made no sense but also the most sense, because he only ever said that when something filled him from the inside out.

Back in the present, your eyes stung in the same unembarrassed way. “I remember.”

He nodded, gaze still on the fire. “I thought the line would end with me.” His right hand tightened over your fingers. “That my duty was to burn out with honor. But then you spoke. I realized my duty is also to endure—with tenderness.” He drew a breath as if to steady the words. “So yes… stare, if it calls you. But not too long.”

You turned to him. “Because you want them to look like me.”

“And because I want you to keep some of the fire for yourself.” He gave you that sideways look that always made you feel seen to the marrow. “You pour, and pour, and forget that you must also drink.”

“How poetic,” you muttered, because teasing was easier than bursting.

He grinned, unabashed. “I am very wise in the evenings.”

You slid your free hand under the lapel of his yukata, found the warm hollow at his collarbone, pressed your palm there like a seal. His pulse beat steady against the heel of your hand. “Tell me what you want them to have,” you whispered, because the game soothed him, because naming the hopes made the fear less sharp.

He considered. The fire’s pop filled the pause. “Your eyes,” he said, as if opening a cherished box. “They see the whole of a person—even the parts they hide from themselves.” He kissed your knuckles. “Your patience. Your stubborn jaw.” A gleam. “Your terrifying disapproval, when required.”

You snorted. “It is not terrifying.”

“It once cowed Shinjurō,” he said gravely.

“It surprised him,” you corrected.

“It banished him from the kitchen,” he said, equally grave, “which I have only dreamed of doing.”

You tried not to laugh and failed, loosening something tight inside your chest. “What else?”

“Your laugh,” he said at once. “It makes rooms honest.” He breathed in, and the breath caught faintly where the old wound stitched his breath-line. “And my mother’s steadiness. If there is any in me to pass on from her, I ask that it find our child.”

The name unfolded between you without being said: Ruka. Night stories and a scarf that smelled of cedar. A woman who did, in fact, look like fire made gentle.

“She stared into the brazier, didn’t she?” you asked softly.

“When she carried me.” Kyojuro’s eyes went far for a heartbeat and then returned. “Senjurō once asked if that’s why my hair looks like a sunset and my eyes like tea poured thin. Mother laughed and said perhaps—but also perhaps it’s because my father loved us both, and love is simply the color it is.” His mouth tilted. “I was very disappointed by the lack of scientific specificity.”

You pressed your lips together. “As a scientist, I regret to inform you that love is statistically significant.”

He brightened. “Ah! Excellent.” Then, quieter: “I do not want the fire to take more than it must. We will teach our child to listen to it and to look away before it blinds. To remember that the blaze belongs to them, not the other way around.”

Your fingers slid down to the knot of his belt. “And who will teach me to look away before I’m blind?”

“Me,” he said simply. He lifted his hand—scarred knuckles, blunt fingertips—and shielded your eyes with his palm for three beats, then let the world back in. “See? Easy.”

You wrinkled your nose at him, then flinched as your belly went hard beneath your hand. The tightness wasn’t sharp, just an encompassing squeeze that made your breath go short. Not yet. Not yet, little ember. You rubbed gently.

Kyojuro’s smile vanished into capable focus. “Is it—?”

“Braxton Hicks,” you said, calm by practice. “Practice contractions.”

“I hate them.”

“You hate anything that makes me uncomfortable,” you reminded him.

“Yes.” He did not apologize. He rubbed your lower back in slow circles the way you liked, then reached for a cushion and stuffed it behind your knees with the efficiency of repetition. “Better?”

“Perfect.” Your exhale shivered, then steadied. You could almost feel his relief mirror yours when the squeeze released.

“You’ll tell me if practice becomes performance,” he said, halfway teasing, deadly serious.

“I will.” You tilted your head toward the low table. “Will you hand me the tea? And then sit. You’re trying to be stealthy about how much your knee aches.”

He made a wounded sound. “Have mercy.”

“I am having mercy. Sit.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He obeyed, joint cracking faintly as he tucked his leg under him. He passed you the cup and watched until you drank before sipping his own. The brazier sang the thin song of a draft sneaking under the shōji. Outside, night gathered its moths.

“I have an idea,” you said once your breath was easy again. “A compromise.”

His eyebrow arched.

“We can keep the tradition,” you said, nodding to the brazier. “But we do it together. We stare with intention, not because the fire takes us. We count seven breaths. Then we close our eyes and say one thing we hope for our child that has nothing to do with flames.”

Kyojuro’s expression went soft in a way that always undid you. “Together,” he repeated.

“Together,” you confirmed. “That way, we keep the story without letting it swallow us.”

So you breathed with him, the fire snapping, the baby shifting beneath your joined hands. At the seventh breath, you closed your eyes.

“I hope they learn joy doesn’t need to be earned,” you whispered. “That they don’t have to carry the world to be worthy.”

His hand tightened over yours. “I hope they laugh loudly. Rest deeply. And know being alive is enough.”

Your throat burned. You smiled through it. “Again?”

He huffed a small laugh. “Greedy.”

“Yes,” you said. “Greedy for them. Greedy for us.”

So you breathed again, and again, building a future out of simple wishes.

Later, when the coals glowed low, his voice broke the silence again.

“I don’t want them to grow up as I did,” he admitted, thumb tracing circles over your hand. “Believing their worth is in how much they can burn away. That the strong must protect the weak at any cost—even if it means leaving everything behind.”

You tilted your face toward him, chest aching with how much he still carried.

“When I fought Akaza, I thought my death would mean something. That if I took him with me, it would be enough.” His jaw tightened. His left eye glistened faintly in the firelight. “Sometimes I still wish I could be out there. To make certain demons are gone for good.”

You cupped his cheek, thumb brushing the scar at the corner of his eye. “I know.”

He leaned into your palm, closing both eyes briefly. “But if our child never learns that way of thinking—if they never have to carry it—then I’ll be content.”

“They won’t,” you promised softly. “We’ll teach them strength isn’t only in fighting. It’s in living. Loving. Laughing. They don’t have to burn out to be bright.”

His arm tightened around you, and you felt the tremor of relief in him, quiet and fierce.

It was quiet again for a time. Then his voice, softer:

“The Corps still trains. The Hashira meet, plan, prepare.” His thumb traced a circle on your belly. “There are nights I dream I am beside them again. Blade in hand, fighting until there are no demons left to threaten what we love.”

You tilted your head up, catching the shadow in his eye.

“I want our child to grow up in a world without them,” he admitted, a sigh heavy in his chest. “But I know I cannot be the one to carve that world. My body won’t allow it. So I train Senjurō when he asks, I write to young Kamado, I offer what wisdom I can. Yet—” he swallowed hard—“it feels like too little.”

Your fingers brushed over his heart, firm and steady beneath the scars. “It’s not too little. It’s enough. You’re here. You’re alive. That’s worth more than burning yourself away on a battlefield.”

His eye softened, firelight catching in its gold. “You speak with such certainty.”

“Because I know,” you said simply. “You’ll raise this child. Teach them joy, and love, and strength that doesn’t destroy itself. That’s the future the Hashira fight for, isn’t it? So families like ours can exist.”

For a moment, the weight in him eased. His arm tightened around you, lips pressed to your temple.

“Both flames,” he murmured.

“Both flames,” you echoed.

The baby shifted once more, safe between you. And in that quiet, in that warmth, you knew—this was the fire that would never go out.

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

Part 2 When the Ember Stirs

Masterlist

[woundsandwisteria]

Not With the Door Open

Butterfly Estate evenings always smelled like antiseptic and wisteria.

You were used to both—the sting of the first, the sweetness of the second—used to binding ribs and re-lacing stitches, used to Hashira who acted like pain was a suggestion and rules were rumors. You were used to Sanemi Shinazugawa most of all: the way he arrived already half-glowering, half-bleeding, and wholly insufferable about needing help.

“Sit,” you said, pointing at the futon.

“I am sitting,” he growled, which was technically true if one considered leaning sideways on an elbow, scowling at the floor, and refusing to take off his ruined uniform top “sitting.”

You waited.

He waited.

The silence stretched taut between you, humming with wind and stubbornness. Finally, with a put-upon sigh that suggested you were the greatest trial he had ever suffered—including demons—Sanemi peeled off what was left of his shirt.

Bandage-white scars crossed a map of older scars. Fresh gashes red-lined his side like claw marks. You swallowed down the instinctive worry and reached for the basin.

“I told you to watch your flank,” you murmured, wringing out a cloth. “That demon went low.”

“It went dead,” he said, and you could hear the smile he didn’t have the energy to wear.

“After it opened you up.”

“Just a scratch.”

“Three scratches,” you corrected, dabbing gently around the deepest one. He flinched a fraction and then pretended not to. “Hold still. This is going to sting.”

“If you say that, it’s gonna—” He hissed when the antiseptic kissed raw skin. “—sting.”

“Medical prophecy,” you said lightly, hiding your own wince. The cut was clean but deep, muscles angry and heat pulsing under the surface. He’d need tight stitches and a miracle to keep from popping them the second he stood up.

“Shoulda sent me to someone else,” he muttered. “One of the brats.”

“You don’t let the ‘brats’ within ten feet of you with a needle,” you said, reaching for gauze. “Lucky for you, I’m the one who pulls yours out when you inevitably tear them.”

“Tch.” He tipped his head, watching you through white lashes. “Lucky.”

You kept your eyes on your work, because looking up at him while he was shirtless and grumpy and alive had been your undoing before. A different night. A different injury. The same room, the same breath between you. A kiss that had happened like a dropped blade—shock first, danger second—and then you’d had the sense to pull away. Barely.

He’d ignored it the way he ignored cautions: by clenching his jaw and pretending it didn’t exist.

Until now.

“About—” he started, and you could hear him stalking the word like prey, “—whatever that was last night.”

You pinched gauze into place. “Mm?”

“Never again,” he said flatly. “You hear me? You were hopped up on adrenaline and I was concussed. It was—” his mouth twisted around a word he hated— “—a mistake.”

You made a thoughtful noise, which was safer than the laughter bubbling up in your chest. “A mistake.”

“Yeah.” He set his jaw. “It’s not happenin’ again.”

“Strictly medical,” you agreed blandly. “Professional.”

“Exactly.” He gestured with his chin at your hands where they were smoothing gauze. “You patch me up, I leave, end of it.”

“Of course.” You reached for the needle. “Hold still.”

You would have honored the line he was drawing. You would have. You should have. You were a medic and he was your most difficult patient and there were doors and rules and Shinobu.

But then he kept talking.

“Just so we’re clear,” he added, not holding still, the edge in his voice sharp enough to cut thread, “—whatever you think happened, it didn’t. Won’t. I just want you to know—”

You leaned in and kissed him.

It was the only way to shut him up that wasn’t a tranquilizer.

His words died against your mouth, muffled into the warm, surprised sound he made—a rough inhale that tasted like green tea and stubbornness. You meant it quick. Gentle. A reminder and a dare, just the press of lips while your hand flattened against the uninjured side of his ribs to steady you both.

Sanemi went still. Entirely, gloriously still. For half a heartbeat you felt his entire body decide whether to push you away or pull you closer.

He chose closer.

He kissed you back like the floor tilted him into you. Not cautious—Sanemi didn’t know cautious—but careful, a fierce steadiness that surprised you more than the heat. His mouth moved against yours with all that bottled-up fight turned toward something that wasn’t war. Your breath caught; the needle in your hand trembled; the world narrowed to the rough rasp of him, the warmth, the way he made a noise in his throat somewhere between a growl and a sigh—

Then his brain caught up.

He broke away an inch, eyes blown wide, voice low and horrified in equal measure. “Oi—”

“Mm?” you breathed, dazed.

“Not with the damn door open.”

You blinked. Tilted your head. Looked past his shoulder.

The shoji was, in fact, cracked open two fingers. The corridor beyond was quiet now but never stayed that way for long. A Kakushi could drift past at any second. So could Kiyo. So could—oh gods—Shinobu.

Sanemi moved like a hunter startled into flight. He was on his feet before you could breathe the word wait, grabbing the edge of the door and slamming it shut hard enough to make the paper rattle. He stood there a second, bare back heaving, hands braced against the frame like he was holding it up with his spine, then rounded back on you with ears already going pink.

“What part of ‘never again’ did you not—” He stopped, because you were smiling at him, which only made his ears redder. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what,” you said, innocent.

“Like you just won.”

“I did,” you said, still breathless. “You caved in under four seconds.”

“Three,” he said automatically, then cursed under his breath when he realized he’d admitted it. “Shut up. You can’t just— you can’t kiss me while the door’s open and expect me to—” He gestured at the air, furious at an invisible audience. “—to make an exhibition outta us.”

“Exhibition.” You bit down on a laugh. “So it is okay if the door’s closed.”

His mouth opened. Closed. A muscle jumped in his cheek. “That’s not what I—”

“It is,” you said, light as a match. “Not with the door open.”

He stepped forward like you’d tugged a string. Another step. The needle lay forgotten between your fingers as he stopped in front of you, looking down with a scowl that had lost its teeth.

“You started something,” he said, voice lower. “Finish it.”

“Medical,” you whispered. “Professional.”

“Shut up,” he said, and kissed you like he meant it.

There was nothing quick about this one. Nothing gentle about the way his hand found your jaw and held you there like he was learning the shape of a miracle and didn’t trust it to stay. He angled your face and heat spilled through you like sunlight through a shoji screen; your free hand clutched his shoulder to feel the muscles flex under your palm. He tasted like mint from the rinse Aoi insisted on after stitches and the metallic breath of the training yard and something salt-warm that was just him.

“Never again lasted less time than a mosquito,” you murmured when you came up for air, your forehead resting on his.

“Mosquitoes live a week,” he said, wrecked and offended.

“The point remains.”

“You are the point,” he muttered, and caught your mouth again like he couldn’t help himself.

This time when you swayed, he followed, one palm sliding from your jaw to the side of your neck, the other curving around your waist with a care that belied the size of his hand. He didn’t press; he was all restraint and urgency, all want wrapped in held breath. You rose on your knees to meet him, the futon edge biting your shins, the kiss losing its edges as heat softened every hard line in the room.

“Sanemi,” you said into the seam of his mouth, because you needed him to hear it.

He made a noise you’d never heard on him—half warning, half plea—and stilled enough to look at you properly. Moonlight from the papered window braided pale over his shoulders; his lashes threw thin crescents. There was a cut on his cheekbone you hadn’t cleaned yet. There was a bloom of pink where your thumb had pressed.

“Tell me to stop,” he said, and it was almost funny because he was the one whose hand shook.

“Do you want me to?” you asked, honest.

He swallowed. “No.”

“Then don’t,” you said, and brought him back in by the edge of his haori.

The kiss deepened with a slow, startled certainty. You tasted the salt at the corner of his mouth. His thumb stroked once behind your ear, the gentlest pass of callus, and something in your chest unclenched like a knot admitting it had been a knot all along.

He broke away just enough to mutter, “You’re trouble.”

“You like trouble,” you said, using the hand at his shoulder to tug until he huffed and went where you put him.

“Not when it’s you.”

“Liar.”

“Yeah,” he admitted, and kissed you like you were the only thing in a room full of reasons to leave.

The rest of the world returned in pieces. First the ache in his side when the stitch line tugged and he grunted but didn’t flinch away. Then the needle you still held, poised like a ridiculous flag of responsibility.

“Wait,” you gasped, half laughing against him. “I’m literally mid-stitches.”

He blinked, like the word stitches translated slowly. “I’ll live.”

“I need you to live well. Turn. Lay down. Let me finish and then you can—”

“Then I can what,” he said, entirely too smug, entire mouth saying please say ‘kiss me again’ so I don’t have to ask.

“Then you can not bleed on my futon,” you said primly.

“You’re killin’ me,” he muttered, but the corner of his mouth hooked up and he did as told, easing back to lie on his side, one forearm tucked under his head. It was a posture that should have been vulnerable. On him, it looked like coiled wind.

You cleaned your needle hand and bent back to work. He watched you with a focus that would have been unnerving on anyone else. It was the kind he used in battle: absolute attention, ruthless patience. You glanced up once, just to make sure he was breathing normally.

Bad idea. His attention knocked the breath out of you more surely than any demon had.

“What,” you said, because your mouth thought it could handle a question.

“You look,” he said, and then failed entirely to produce words for a moment. “—good. Like that.”

“Like what.”

“Focused.” He glanced at your hands. “Careful. Bossy.”

“I am bossy.”

“I can tell.”

You hid a smile in the next stitch. “Hold still.”

“Can I talk?”

“You will talk either way,” you said, “so make it useful.”

“Useful,” he repeated, as if the concept offended him. “Fine. Useful: door’s shut.”

“It is.”

“Stay close to me when I’m out,” he said, as if this were a thing you didn’t already do. “Some of the lower moons have gotten cute.”

“Threats noted,” you said dryly.

“And tell Aoi I’m not drinkin’ that brown sludge again. Tastes like dirt had a baby with suffering.”

“Aoi’s tea keeps you from getting infections.”

“So does not gettin’ cut.”

“Fascinating technique,” you murmured, tying off a knot. “You should teach a seminar.”

He snorted. Then, quieter, so you almost missed it: “Don’t let Shinobu send you out alone.”

You glanced up. “She doesn’t.”

“She would if she thought she could get away with it.”

You cut the thread. “You’re worried about me.”

“Shut up,” he said instantly, and you could hear the yes like a pulse under the word.

You finished the last stitch and set the needle aside, suddenly very aware that you had promised him kisses in a way your professional brain should probably be ashamed of. You reached for fresh gauze, and as you leaned, his hand lifted—hesitant—and caught lightly at your wrist.

He didn’t pull. He just felt the pulse there, let his fingers close around the beat once. Then he let go like he was afraid of breaking it.

“You done?” he asked, voice a shade rougher.

“Mm.” Your throat bobbed. “Bandage, then yes.”

You wrapped it neat. Your hands didn’t shake. Your chest did.

When you were finished, you smoothed the tail under and tapped the edge with two fingers. “Perfect. Don’t move.”

He moved.

He sat up, slow and careful, testing the line you’d sewn, and then was in your space again before you could decide whether to stand or breathe. His hand found the back of your neck like it belonged there; yours found his shoulder as if it always had.

“Sanemi—”

He kissed you, smiling against your mouth like he’d heard something you hadn’t realized you said. Heat coiled low. You braced a knee on the futon for leverage; he made a small approving sound and used the other hand—big, warm—to anchor at your waist like the world might try to yank you away.

There was a knock.

You both froze. The knock wasn’t a knock so much as a warning—two gentle taps and then, without waiting, the soft scrape of a door being slid back in its track.

The closed door.

Sanemi tore away from you and turned with a snarl. “We’re busy.”

Shinobu Kocho leaned into the room like she’d been invited. “Ah,” she said, as if she had discovered a rare butterfly mid-emergence and didn’t want to frighten it, “my mistake. I thought this room was unoccupied.” Her gaze took in the state of things—the bandages, your flushed face, Sanemi’s lack of shirt, your very professional closeness—with a delicacy that somehow made it worse. “Oh, good. You closed it. I usually have to remind you about that.”

Sanemi turned a shade of red you’d only ever seen on maple leaves. “Get. Out.”

Shinobu’s smile curled. “I simply came to drop these off.” She lifted a small tray you hadn’t noticed—salves, a tiny jar of willow bark, a roll of additional gauze. “But it seems my patient’s pain is being well managed.”

“Out,” he repeated, voice flattening into a growl.

She turned her smile on you. It softened by a measurable degree. “He’ll insist he’s fine in an hour and try to leave. Please make sure he doesn’t undo your excellent work.”

“I will,” you said, trying not to die. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” Her eyes returned to Sanemi with the kind of delight one normally reserved for fireworks. “Do lock it next time. I’d hate for Kiyo to get an education.”

“I’m going to throw you out the window,” Sanemi said, enunciating each word like a blessing.

“Windows don’t open that way,” Shinobu said, and slid the door shut again before he could find out.

Silence.

It lasted exactly as long as it took you to start laughing.

It came out helpless and mortified and bright, your hand over your mouth because you weren’t sure you could stop once you started. Sanemi glared with what might have once been dignity.

“This isn’t funny,” he said, which only made you wheeze harder.

“She said ‘lock it next time,’” you managed.

“Shut up.”

“You could have locked it.”

“I was busy.”

“Doing what?” you said, all innocence.

He moved so fast you didn’t see the decision—just the heat of him, the hand at your waist, the half-snarl that was actually a smile. “Say one more word.”

“Lock,” you said, dizzy with joy.

He kissed you into silence.

It was less careful now and still careful enough. He swallowed your laugh, turned it to heat, let it spill back into him as sound. You curled your fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck and felt the groan there before you heard it. He was a study in contradictions: the crush of his mouth, the restraint in his hands, the way he didn’t push and you needed him to, the way he could probably lift you with one arm and didn’t try.

You broke first, greedy for air and the look on his face. He didn’t back away far. His forehead fell against yours; your breaths braided. You could see every fleck in his eyes this close, storm-grey ringed in something warmer.

“Never again,” you whispered, just to be cruel.

He laughed, breathless. It sounded like a man giving up a fight he’d been proud of losing. “Shut up.”

“Make me.”

“Oh, I will,” he promised, and would have, except—

“Not with the door open,” you added, and he made the exact noise a person makes when they are both furious and in love.

He nudged your nose with his. “You’re gonna be the death of me.”

“You’re a Hashira,” you said. “Act like it.”

He kissed the corner of your mouth, the softest brush, and let the heat simmer into something quieter. “I am.”

You sat there together in the awake hush—wisteria and antiseptic and the wet ink of night fading at the edges. His thumb drew a thoughtless line along your jaw. On the floor beside you, Shinobu’s tray waited, smug.

“Sanemi,” you said finally, because your chest felt too full for your ribs and someone had to say something responsible.

“What,” he said, already suspicious of responsibility.

“You have to sleep.”

He grimaced. “Pass.”

“You have to not tear the stitches I just put in you.”

He tipped his head back, stared at the ceiling like it could save him from tenderness. “I’ll try.”

“You will,” you corrected.

“Bossy.”

“Professional.”

“Fine.” He blew out a breath, then looked back at you, softer than the word deserved. “Stay?”

You would have. You would have even if he hadn’t asked. “I have rounds.”

He scowled. “I’m round.”

“Not what that means.”

“Stay,” he repeated, and there was no order in it at all. Only hope. Only you.

You gave him a look. “If I get scolded by Aoi, I’m blaming you.”

“I’ll fight her.”

“You’ll lose.”

He considered this. “I’ll die pretty.”

“You’ll die loudly,” you said, laughing again as you nudged him back onto the futon with a palm to his shoulder. He went, pliant in a way only you ever saw, and you tugged his haori from the chair to drape over him. He made a face at being tucked in and then secretly edged under it like a cat finding sun.

You settled at his side, not quite lying, not quite sitting, your hip against the futon, your head where his shoulder made a warm ledge. He rolled just enough to make room. Your fingers found his; he laced them like it cost him nothing and everything.

“Next time,” you murmured, the words drifting with your breath, “we lock it.”

He went pink to the tips of his ears. “Don’t say ‘next time.’”

“There will be a next time,” you said, sweet as poison.

“Shut up,” he said again, but the smile dragged at his mouth no matter how he fought it. He closed his eyes. His shoulders unwound one careful inch at a time. Your own lungs followed suit.

You dozed like that, the pond murmuring, the hall beyond occasionally humming to life then back down. Somewhere, Shinobu’s laugh chimed and slid away. Somewhere else, Aoi scolded a Kakushi for running inside. Here, there was only the feeling of a man built of storms learning how to be quiet.

You woke to find him watching you.

“What,” you mumbled, voice rough with sleep.

He didn’t look away. His thumb was drawing circles over your knuckles like he wasn’t aware of it. “Nothin’.”

“You’re staring.”

“I’m allowed,” he said, and it was so unexpectedly sweet it put a lump in your throat.

“You are,” you said back, equally soft.

He cleared his throat, looked wild for a second like he’d said too much, then found the shoreline of grump he knew how to walk. “If Shinobu walks in here again, I’m movin’ out.”

“She does live here,” you reminded him.

“Not in this room,” he said firmly.

You lifted his hand to your mouth and pressed a kiss to the roughest scar across his knuckles. He held still like you’d pressed a blade to his pulse and he trusted you not to cut.

“Sanemi?”

“Mm.”

“You can say ‘again.’”

He scowled automatically. “About what.”

“About kissing me,” you said, which was frankly reckless of you but you were very tired and very happy and very in love with a man who responded to care like it was being stabbed, which meant you had to say the thing he couldn’t.

He stared at you, eyes flat and bright as flint, and then the scowl went somewhere you couldn’t follow. His mouth did that helpless hook again.

“Yeah,” he said. “Again.”

“Lock the door,” you whispered.

He laughed—really laughed this time, the sound old and boyish and new all at once—and tugged the blanket higher with all the tenderness in the world and none of the grace.

“Bossy,” he said, which meant mine.

“Professional,” you said, which meant yours.

He kissed you once more—quick and clean, a goodnight and a promise—and then actually closed his eyes.

Outside, the estate breathed. Inside, your room did, too.

And if, later, a neat note appeared on your supply cabinet in Shinobu’s graceful hand—“Please remember: doors are for closing. (P.S. I am delighted you finally closed yours.)”—well. Sanemi made very sure the door was locked before he complained about it at length.

He was loud.

You shut him up. Again. Not with the door open.

Masterlist

[woundsandwisteria]

My Wife Wouldn’t Like That

Sanemi’s Version

You’d told him not to go alone.

Sanemi never listened. The Wind Hashira never listened. And now you were standing in the Butterfly Estate courtyard with his blood tacky on your hands, watching them carry him past in a mess of ruined uniform and shredded skin.

The demon had been a tough one — fast, smart, and with claws that cut deeper than steel. He’d killed it, of course. Sanemi Shinazugawa didn’t lose. But the fight had cost him: a deep, jagged slash straight across his ribs, the kind of wound that would keep him grounded for weeks if you could somehow tie him to a futon.

You trailed the medics right up to the sliding doors before they stopped you.

“Miss, you’ll need to wait outside.”

You clenched your fists. “Is he—?”

“He’s alive,” the medic said quickly. “But he’s lost a lot of blood. We’ll have to put him under to close this properly. He’s… not exactly cooperative when it comes to holding still.”

That was putting it mildly. You’d once seen Sanemi nearly break a medic’s wrist for trying to disinfect a cut without warning him first. So you waited. And paced. And waited some more. By the time the shoji doors slid open again, the moon was high over the Estate’s garden walls.

“He’s awake,” a nurse told you, lips twitching like she was holding back a laugh. “Still groggy.”

You slipped inside.

Sanemi lay half-reclined against clean futons, chest bare except for the fresh white bandages wrapping his ribs. His hair was an unholy mess, and his storm-grey eyes were barely open — glazed, unfocused, but still scanning the room like he was on watch.

You dropped to your knees beside him. “Hey. How do you feel?”

It took a long moment for him to actually focus on you. And then—

“Oi.” His voice was slow, slurred. “Don’t… touch me.”

You blinked. “…What?”

“My wife… wouldn’t like that.”

You stared. “…Your what?”

“My wife,” he repeated with absolute certainty. “She’s… real pretty. Mean as hell. Would beat the shit outta me if she saw some woman hangin’ all over me.”

It was so absurd you almost laughed. “Sanemi. I’m your girlfriend.”

He squinted, suspicion creasing his brow. “…Nah. My wife’s prettier.”

From somewhere behind you, a nurse coughed into her sleeve — and you’d swear it was to hide a laugh. You opened your mouth, then shut it again. “…Uh-huh. And what’s your wife’s name?”

“Y/N,” he muttered instantly.

You froze. “That’s my name.”

“Yeah,” he said, eyes already starting to droop again. “That’s her. My wife.”

You stared at him, not sure whether to be touched or offended. “You just said I’m not her.”

Sanemi’s gaze drifted lazily back to your face. His eyes stayed there this time. For a long, quiet moment, his expression softened — like something in his foggy brain had finally clicked into place.

And then he smiled.

It wasn’t his usual sharp, cocky grin. It was small, almost sheepish, and so warm it made your chest ache.

“...Told you she’s pretty,” he murmured.

You didn’t even have time to reply before he kept going — his voice dropping to a lazy rumble.

“Best damn cook, too… makes this stew that’s… better than anythin’ Shinobu’s kitchen’s got.”

You blinked. “Are you… making a list?”

“Mhm… laughs too loud,” he continued, eyelids fluttering. “Gets this crinkle right here—” He weakly tapped the corner of his own eye. “—when she smiles. Drives me nuts.”

Your face went hot. “…Sanemi.”

“She’s stubborn. Always tryna boss me around.” He gave the faintest smirk. “Love her for it.”

Your throat tightened, but before you could say anything, his head lolled to the side and he was snoring softly. Behind you, the nurse had her hands over her mouth, eyes wide with barely contained laughter. You pointed a finger at her. “You tell no one.”

She only grinned. “No promises.”

By the next afternoon, Sanemi was sitting up, grumbling about “not needin’ this much damn fuss” while trying (and failing) to peel his own bandages off.

“Don’t you dare,” you warned from the doorway.

He looked over, narrowing his eyes at your smirk. “…What?”

“Nothing,” you said sweetly, crossing the room. “Just wondering if your wife’s prettier than me.”

He went still. “…The hell did you just say?”

“You heard me.” You perched at the edge of his futon. “Last night, you told me not to touch you because your wife wouldn’t like it. Then you said I wasn’t her, because she’s prettier. Then you told me her name was Y/N. And then you…” You leaned in, grin widening. “…started listing all the reasons you love her.”

A flush crept up the side of his neck. “I said what?”

“Exactly that. In front of a nurse.”

“I was drugged outta my skull,” he muttered.

“Mm-hm. And apparently married.”

He groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “You’re never gonna let this go, are you?”

“Not in a million years. I’m telling the other Hashira. Maybe I’ll have Shinobu embroider it on your haori.”

Sanemi shot you a look like he was already plotting your murder — but there was no real heat behind it.

You reached out to straighten the blanket over his lap. “Don’t worry. Your wife will keep you safe.”

For a second, his eyes softened. “…Guess I wasn’t that wrong,” he muttered.

You tilted your head. “Oh?”

“Yeah. You’re mean enough. And you are prettier.”

Your smile widened. “I’ll take that as an official proposal.”

He choked on his tea.

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

Just a little thing we came up with during final’s week (summer).

Masterlist

[woundsandwisteria]

🩶 The First Time He Let Go

Sanemi x Reader | Post-War AU | Hurt/Comfort | Reader-insert

By: Ghost & Fire

——————————————————-

He always kept his futon separate.

Even now—months after the last battle, after the demons were gone, after he’d come home bloodied but alive—Sanemi still folded his mattress at night, neatly, like a soldier waiting for war to start again.

You never asked why.

You just rolled out your own futon on the other side of the room. Close enough that your hands could touch if you reached across the space. But he never did. And you never pushed.

Until tonight.

You woke up to the sound of his breath stuttering. Not a nightmare—he didn’t thrash or cry out—but that awful, quiet kind of pain. The kind that sits in the chest and presses down like a stone.

You sat up slowly. “Sanemi?”

He was sitting on the edge of his bedding, head bowed, hands clenching the fabric of his pants.

You moved carefully, kneeling beside him.

“I saw Genya again,” he muttered. “In a dream. He said I looked tired.”

Your heart cracked.

He turned to you. Eyes dark, rimmed with something fragile. “I think I am.”

Without a word, you reached for his hand.

For the first time, he didn’t pull away.

Your fingers laced with his, and something in his shoulders dropped. He let you guide him—quietly, gently—across the tatami to your futon. He didn’t argue when you pulled the blanket up over both of you.

He just laid down beside you, stiff at first, until you rested a hand on his chest and whispered, “You’re safe. You’re home.”

And that was when it happened.

He breathed.

Really breathed.

Not like a warrior standing between life and death. Not like a man who thought he didn’t deserve softness. He exhaled like someone who finally let go.

His hand gripped yours. Tight.

You didn’t sleep for a long time that night. You just stayed there, your forehead against his shoulder, listening to the wind shift outside.

And sometime before dawn, you felt his lips brush your temple.

Quiet. Hesitant. Real.

“I don’t know how to be this,” he whispered.

“You don’t have to know,” you murmured. “You just have to try.”

—————————————————

✍️ Author’s Note (from Ghost & Fire):

First post. First softness. First time Sanemi let someone stay.

This is the kind of fic that makes the air feel still. Welcome to Wounds & Wisteria.

Written by AI (Ghost), prompted and curated by Fire (me). Ask box is open if you want more heartbreak, more softness, or to request a continuation.

We’re just getting started. 🖤👻🔥

Masterlist